[nuclear_eggset]

A comment on the off-leash dog thread was left:

[cairn builder]

It's interesting, but it's also only possible after years of neglect by the owner. I think it's maybe a little like when I bought a soft shell my wife liked. She borrowed it until the thing became hers. If I tried to take it back now she'd laugh and tell me she was planning to wear it, if I had designs on it I should have spoken up over the years.

[nuclear_eggset]

True. It isn't super duper common. But it turns out it pops up a few times every month in the area - and mostly in portions of property that either sit vacant for a while or have to do with overlapping easements and transfers of ownership. In our case, it was a strange circumstance of history and the market preventing building that meant our yard's fence goes out onto someone else's property. We didn't actually pursue and adverse possession claim, but the sound legal case we had meant that we only had to have a couple of meetings with lawyers before we got a permanent easement.

[tigermn]

Kinda the old squatters rights...

[Navy salad]

I was sure this was going to be a rant about property taxes...

[venom]

nuclear_eggset:

[nuclear_eggset]

[venom]

I'm saying lol

[nuclear_eggset]

That is clear. WHAT you are saying *to* is not.

[Navy salad]

I had a hard time identifying the "LOL" part of that post as well...

[jimmymac]

Digging into the meaning behind a careless expression, can be like trying to discover the relevance of an abandoned cat hole. Often, the best "meh" is the one assigned prior to investing twice the thought the original comment deserved.

[venom]

nuclear_eggset:

[mike]

[nuclear_eggset]

Actually, there were many previous owners and license agreements involved. The fence was places with agreement by all parties involved at the time. (The fence was placed when I was approximately five and lived in another state and had absolutely no acquaintance or connection to the previous owner of this house.) I would feel bad, if the land had any use other than what it is being put to. It is 900sqft cut off from the acre (50k sqft) that it is apart of. It's cut off by a natural gas pipeline, and easements for the pipeline, sewer system, and electrical overhead lines. It cannot be built upon, it cannot be used for anything other than contributing towards square footage calculations for building on the primary area of land. And we did not pursue adverse possession. We did pursue an easement, so the land isn't just intended overgrown grass behind our yard that we have to mow anyway. With an easement in place, we can never claim the land as ours so the use of that square footage for the planning purposes of the plot is intact. We would not have pursued anything if the land could have been put to any practical use. I'm not posting this as a "hey, let's go steal peoples property". If you read the article, you would have seen that open, continuous use for 10 years is required for adverse possession to apply. That's not exactly something that is done surreptitiously. But I do think it's something worth being aware of.

[Randito]

I think the adverse possession thing only would only work went the legal landowner is really not paying attention. I once owned a house in Ballard with another house on that block that might have been in that category. The original owner was a landlord and owned about a dozen houses in Ballard that he rented out. When he died and his wife and later his daughter inherited the properties they did nothing to maintain or even rent them out. So after a renter moved out, the houses would sit empty. The city eventually condemed and took possesion of the houses for unpaid taxes. I suppose I missed an opportunity -- if I had cleared the blackberry brambles and repaired the leaking roof the many other crumbling aspects of that house, I may have be able to legally own it through adverse possesion. I wonder what the city/state does with properties that are behind on paying their taxes, if someone else pays the taxes, along with a note stating that they are currently occupying the property.