No Pie for You

Trevor Young and Erin Leach defended property owners whose neighbor attempted to claim ownership of a pie-shaped portion of their property near the boundary line between the two residential lots. The neighbor claimed the adverse possession predated his family’s ownership of the property and had begun in 1980. The property owners denied that adverse possession had occurred, primarily because the two properties were wild, natural lots where there had not been extensive landscaping work or improvements made which would establish an intent by a former owner to adversely possess the disputed sliver of property. The Court found for the property owners, determining the neighbor had not offered sufficient evidence to meet all the elements of adverse possession. As such, the neighbor did not get the property owners’ piece of pie.