The Washington Supreme Court has given us a gem today. Proctor v. Huntington (Majority)and Dissenting.The long and the short is that an owner built his home, garage, etc on the land of another. This not BF nowhere to cheap to bother land either. The acre in dispute is valued at $25,000.
At the very end of the dissenting opinion Justice Sanders gives us this gem - "The moral of this story should be: before you build, especially near a property line, get a survey."
Note: In the 40 years since the Oregon Court of Appeals was created there have been 3 cases involving the location of property lines that reached the Supreme Court of Oregon. This is the second such case in Washington this year.
> At the very end of the dissenting opinion Justice Sanders gives us this gem - "The moral of this story should be: before you build, especially near a property line, get a survey."
and that is a 2-way street also.
It is very evident that Proctor did not know where his boundary line was located on his 27 acre tract going back to when the neighbors weer camping on his land.
Plus, this shows he problems that may occur when property owners accept a corner for the boundary in good faith even though it is 400' away.
and it was interesting that the trial court did not accept/believe the surveyor's story who stated that he did not show the 1/16th corner to the Huntingdons as their NW corner.
What 'moral of the story' does that teach you?
So it was a big @&^*@! mess and the court found a little equity nstead of a harsh measure for a maybe 'honest' mistake.
I have to say that I would agree with the dissenting opinion and that the trial court and majority arrived at bad decisions.
And even if I would agree with the majority, the value of the acre at $25,000 seems awfully cheap. A good building site as described in the dissent certainly has more value than his.
All-in-all I would label this a bad decision and a big slide down the slippery slope.
Washington State law (RCW 7.28.085) forestalls adverse possession on forest land unless substantial improvements have been made by the possessor. So the statutory period didn't begin to run until the house and garage, etc, was built in the summer of 1995. Proctor sued to quiet title in early 2005, before the 10 year period had passed.
$25,000 was the value that an appraiser assigned to the parcel in the appellate court proceedings.
I meant to have my "moral of the story' comment refer to the trial court discounting the surveyor's(Peoples testimony that he did no such thing as showing them the 1/16 corner as there NW corner. It looks like he got caught in a snag with them somehow.
Well in this particular case, I would disagree with you.
I don't think that there are any 'slight' encroachments ' to begin with.
An encroachment is an encroachment etc.
I wonder what a slight encroachment would be defined in TX. 😉
Second, I do not think that Proctor should establish the value of his land.
It appears that he did not 'value' this acre very much if he was unaware that he owned it and people camped and built on it.
In the appelate court case (192 P.3d 958, 146 Wn.App. 836, 2008) there was testimony about how the subdivider had shown both of these owners (at different times but in 1994) a fence post that was at the true corner.
"Before Robert (Huntington) bought his property in January 1994, Moss (the common grantor) walked him through it and showed him the property lines generally. The northern boundary was marked by a metal fence, and Moss showed Robert a fence post on that fence that marked the northwest corner of his parcel. Six months after purchasing the property, Robert set up a campsite on what he thought was his property but was actually part of the 30-acre parcel that Proctor later purchased. The Huntingtons lived in that campsite during the summer of 1994, but they were absent from September 1994 to April 1995. Meanwhile, Proctor purchased the 30-acre parcel in February 1995, after having been shown the same general boundaries by Moss."
So that kind of moderated the effect of whatever surveyor Peoples said later. But certainly, we should all be very careful about what we say.
I rather tend to agree with the dissent as well. But there is this mitigating factor - Proctor also built without a survey. If his skirts had been cleaner this might have had a different outcome.
interesting case.
