Court determines property title and boundary established by usage

Under Iowa law, property titles and boundaries can be established after 10 years of usage if certain conditions are satisfied. This is known as obtaining title by adverse possession, and fixing a boundary by acquiescence, and it often arises when a tract of land changes hands. That’s what happened in this case. The parties owned two adjacent tracts. One owner used and maintained an area to the west of their home that they knew was not included in the deed to their property. They used this area exclusively as a gathering place for family and friends, maintained it, landscaped it and attempted to get grass to grow. They did these things for well over 10 years. The legal boundary between the tracts was never in doubt - the adjoining owners knew where the line was, and the one family knew that they were using property that didn’t belong to them. Indeed, they didn’t pay taxes on it and never rented it. But, the true never did anything to stop the activities, and eventually sold the tract to another party. The new owner didn’t appreciate the use of their property by the neighbor, and sued to boot them out. In turn, the neighbor filed a petition requesting that title to the property be established in them by adverse possession and that a boundary line be established by acquiescence.

The court noted that the neighbor had demonstrated hostile, actual, open, exclusive and continuous possession of the area in question for at least 18 years - well beyond the 10 years required by the statute to establish title by adverse possession. As for the boundary line, the court ruled that the neighbor had shown that the prior owner had acquiesced in a particular boundary line (based on the usage of the property) other than the survey line for more than ten years. Even though the current owner had not acquiesced, their predecessors had done so for more than 10 years. Gursky v. Phillips, No. 6-1064/06-0441, 2007 Iowa App. LEXIS 229 (Iowa Ct. App. Feb. 28, 2007).