First off, let me say as a 'newbie' how excited I am to have discovered this CBN site. Hopefully some of you have had experience w/ adverse possession - the taking of another's land. Have owned this 11+ acres for a dozen years and have discovered that several acres of DOT land are within the old fencing along our access road. I suspect that I will need to work w/ a lawyer & county assessor eventually but am wondering if others have delt w/ similar problems and what your experiences were. Do I 'own' this acreage for all practical purposes and can I farm it?
If me, I'd take my abstract, deed, and any other legal papers that show the land boundaries, and head for a good real estate lawyer. Discuss it with them (him/her).
From your question, I gather you are not too sure of what is yours and what may not be yours, but are going by the location of an old fence, and assuming that is the perimeter of your land.
beenthere - I know that my parallel property line is roughly 70 feet inside (east of) the old fence that has been in its location since before we bought the property 12 years ago and probably for a 100 years or so. We developed a former cow path into our access road off the state highway and the 10 foot wide access road x 2/10 mi. long is located at least 10 feet farther (west of the fence) onto the DOT property. Is this 20 feet +/- also 'ours'?
kokopelli - we are in the extreme NE corner of Oregon.
Frankly, I am needing to 'gain' about 1 1/3 acres of property in order to qualify for a 'small forestlands' status which will provide a great tax advantave to me!
Let me see if we have the correct facts here. You bought a piece of property that was part of a larger area that is fenced in. The fence may have been there 100 years. Your post does not indicate that you have done anything to the property in question, other than to build a road on someone else's property, namely the state of Oregon, which is outside of the boundries that you are questioning and know that they are not part of your property.
In summary, you want to take someone else's land, the State of Oregon, you have done nothing to show possesion of the land, other than a fence that was there when you bought the property and is very old, built an access road to your property over someone else's, with or without a permit, you do not state this. Your deed is not in error as you know where the correct property line is. So there is no mistake here in where the property line is.
What I can find on the web, according to Oregon law, you have not even begun to meet the law to take over the property, you must have used the property in question for 10 years, yet you ask if you could farm the land. You know where the property line is, so this must be stated in your deed, so there is no mistake on your part as to the true ownership of the property, which is another requirement under your state law.
To bring up another point, you state that the land in DOT land, does this mean that your acces road is on a section line and you are trying to obtain the right a way back from the state?
Dave, sounds like a double whami deal to me. "If I can steal the property from the state then I can avoid paying the taxes to the state that everyone else in my position has to pay"
DUMBDOG - I would be interesterd in the web site you researched. Thus far I have only obtained a general description (not necessrily Oregon law) of adverse possession requiring: 1 - must have income off property (claim of right), 2 - actual, open occupation to constitute reasonable notice to actual owner (?), 3 - occupation both exclusive & hostile to title of true owner (?), 4 - continuous possession for 5 yrs., 5 - occupier must pay all taxes assessed against property during the 5 yrs. As to #1-4: I have planted tree seedlings, grazed horses & cows on DOT property over the past 10 yrs. 24/7. Further I have cared for this property by weeding it & clearing it of debris. Haven't actually earned $$ but have avoided buying hay. Don't quite understand #2-3. #5 - No. Original 10+ acres had ten corners, all but one marked w/ surveyor's spikes. Later bought 1.29 ac. auctioned by the county; it has four corners & is a trapazoid adjoining west property line toward DOT land. Now my property has 12 corners, three of which are unsurveyed. I know that the height of the trapazoid at one end is approximately 70 feet from DOT land measured from one of my survey stakes; other end ? - neither western corners of this parcel is surveyed so I really don't know where my land ends and the DOT land begins. Re #2 I will be heavily planting tree seedlings this Spring after having killed all vegetation last Spring. FYI - I have planted over 4,000 tree seedlings over my land, including DOT parcel during the past 10 yrs. As for the road, we have been driving over it since 1992 sometimes doing damage to the underside of a vehicle. Thus the road improvement smoothed out the track; several thousand head of cattle are driven over this road past our back steps twice a year. It's not everybody that lives on/in a cattle drive route. Guess I could charge 1 cent for each head of cattle to produce income as they do cross through a corner of our property! We didn't get any ones permission to improve the road nor were permits required as far as we knew. Perhaps just doing is easier sometimes than asking lots of questions and jumping through bureaucratic hoops!
105.620 Acquiring title by adverse possession. (1) A person may acquire fee simple title to real property by adverse possession only if:
(a) The person and the predecessors in interest of the person have maintained actual, open, notorious, exclusive, hostile and continuous possession of the property for a period of 10 years;
(b) At the time the person claiming by adverse possession or the person’s predecessors in interest, first entered into possession of the property, the person entering into possession had the honest belief that the person was the actual owner of the property and that belief:
(A) By the person and the person’s predecessor in interest, continued throughout the vesting period;
(B) Had an objective basis; and
(C) Was reasonable under the particular circumstances; and
(c) The person proves each of the elements set out in this section by clear and convincing evidence.
(2)(a) A person maintains “hostile possession†of property if the possession is under claim of right or with color of title. “Color of title†means the adverse possessor claims under a written conveyance of the property or by operation of law from one claiming under a written conveyance.
(b) Absent additional supporting facts, the grazing of livestock is insufficient to satisfy the requirements of subsection (1)(a) of this section.
(3) As used in this section and ORS 105.005 and 105.615, “person†includes, but is not limited to, the state and its political subdivisions as created by statute. [1989 c.1069 §1; 1991 c.109 §2; 1999 c.950 §1]
Based upon the above information, I do not see how you can make a claim of not knowing that the property was not yours as you purchased X amount of acres to begin with and purchased an additional 1.29 acres later on from the county which part of is marked, and this property sits between your property and the land that you want. Also in looking through a lot of Oregon court cases, the old fence was not a defining line, just a logical place to put a fence and does not endorse your claim at all.
As Al so was eloquent in stating in his earlier post,
<font color="blue"> If I can steal the property from the state then I can avoid paying the taxes to the state that everyone else in my position has to pay"
</font color>
the taking of another's land is just stealing. It appears that your primary motivation in this endeavor is the avoidance of paying the taxes on your present land or whatever the setup is in Oregon on the amount of forested land that you desire.
I am sorry for being so blunt on this, but as a property owner, although not in your state, I am also tired of paying the high taxes that we all pay, but it comes with the privilege of ownership and we must all pay our share, like it or not.
If the land in question was taken from the original parcel by the DOT and has since been abandoned it may in fact already be yours. This will vary by state. From expierence in Texas we had neighbors who had a railroad along the side of their property when the rail road abandoned the track the owners of the adjoing land were allowed to move their fence to take possion of the land. There was some problems in that the railroad had sold the gravel from thre rail bed to a gravel cvompany which demanded right of entry to get the gravel. Also another neighbor had land possed by the state for a roadside park and the state later abadoned the park and the neighbor was allowed to reposses it.
Actually, I was kind of surprised that Oregon lets you adverse possess against the State. My guess would have been that State land is exempt since anything less would make it open season on State lands, as everyone abuting public property would begin moving their fence lines.
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