Interesting Boundary Case (unpublished)

This is an East Sacramento lot line case. The Defendant is an Attorney; she works for the State. Personally it reads like she is too close to the case; she took the shotgun approach on appeal which the Court knocks down her complaints one by one.

The thing about whether she paid more for her house because it included the 3.5' strip is related to the tax payment requirement of Adverse Possession in California. Since Proposition 13, the County Assessors have not been assessing property; the value is derived from the sale price the property and a maximum increase per year. Therefore the Courts have been presuming that taxes are paid on the legal description, not the legal description plus some additional land. There are some pre-Proposition 13 cases which ruled for A.P. where the Assessor had assessed the property value based on occupation therefore meeting the tax requirement. My memory may be faulty as to time, but sometime in the last decade there was a Law Review Article that advocated that if someone could prove they paid more for the property than they would have if they knew where the true boundary was located then their taxes are on the larger amount and they should be deemed as meeting the tax payment requirement. This has been brought up at the Appellate level a few times since and the Courts have said, not only no, heck no. It appears she gave up on the A.P. angle before the trial was over and went for a prescriptive easement to which the Judge said no.

The other weird thing is her expert didn't do a Survey, he just nitpicked the Plaintiff's survey. I personally know the Defendant's Civil Engineer (that's all I'm saying); I've heard of the other Surveyor, a friend worked for him, but I've never met him. In a Boundary case you need to have your own opinion; if you match the other side then maybe you tell your client, give it up before you waste a lot of money. We saw this in Martin v. Van Bergen too.