Ownership of County Road Determined

Under Iowa law, a county may designate a road as a “minimum maintenance road.” Sometimes a county will also vacate a portion of a road in conjunction with “minimum maintenance” designation. When that happens, adjacent landowners may begin to use the roadway as their own property. If a landowner also begins using the non-vacated portion of the road as their own, questions will arise as to what action is necessary to actually vest title to the non-vacated road in the landowner.

Here, the county vacated a portion of a road in 1958. The non-vacated portion of the road remained on the county’s road inventory, and it was designated as a “minimum maintenance road” in 1985. Signs declared the road’s status until at least 1993, but were removed (not by the county) sometime between 1993 and 2003. The plaintiff owned land on both sides of the road, put up a fence on a portion of the road allowing his cattle access to both sides of the road, and also posted “no trespassing” signs on the road. The county eventually told the plaintiff to remove the obstructions, and the plaintiff sued for a declaratory judgment that he had acquired title to the road by adverse possession or equitable estoppel. The trial court noted that a landowner cannot acquire title to governmental land by adverse possession, and ruled that the plaintiff had not established title by virtue of equitable estoppel because the plaintiff had failed to show that the county had not abandoned its interest in the road or that he would be damaged unfairly if the county asserted its ownership interest. 

The trial court’s ruling was upheld on appeal. To establish title by equitable estoppel the plaintiff had to show (1) that the county had conducted itself in a manner indicating an intent to abandon the property; (2) a claim of ownership through adverse possession; and (3) that he would be damaged unfairly by the county’s assertion of ownership. The appellate court ruled that the plaintiff had failed to prove, by clear and convincing evidence, that the county had abandoned the road. The county’s non-use of the road was not enough, by itself, to establish abandonment- abandonment requires proof of non-use for 10 years coupled with evidence of intent to abandon.  The court noted that the non-vacated portion of the road continued to be listed on the county road inventory, that minimum maintenance signs had been posted, that the plaintiff never paid any property taxes on the road, and that the public continued to use the road. Testimony of a county engineer did provide some support for the argument that the county had abandoned the property, but it wasn’t enough for the plaintiff to meet his burden of proof - that there was clear and convincing evidence of actual intent to abandon. Gates v. IowaCounty, No. 6-218/05-0231, 2006 Iowa App. LEXIS 469 (Iowa Ct. App. May 24, 2006).