A

2 CREATIVE GROUP, LLC V. ANDERSON 596 S.W.3d 214 (2020)

Purchase the Printed Copy at bsmsphd.com

Nature of the Case

To access this section all you need to do is click here and register.

Facts

In August of 2017, P filed a petition to quiet title based on a claim of adverse possession of an approximate 400-square-foot tract of land. The Inn Property next to the 400 square feet was owned by Gary and Cristina Worden from May 2005 until it was sold to P on June 30, 2016, and during the Wordens' ownership, the Inn Property was operated as a bed and breakfast under several proprietors, including Jason and Kathy Ayers prior to the sale to P in 2016. Neither the Wordens nor P nor D obtained a 'metes and bounds' boundary survey of their respective properties prior to purchase. From at least the time of Wordens' purchase of 500 Main Street in 1988, there had been a stone foundation and wall running north to south on Lots 20 and 15, five feet west of the plat boundary with Lots 19, 18, and 17. Mr. Worden testified that the residents had believed the stone wall to be the boundary line between the properties since that time, and that at one point, he had a contractor come and fix part of the wall, during which D did not inform him that he was on her property. Sometime before May 2005, D built a wooden privacy fence along the west side of the stone wall. In May 2016, D commissioned a survey and discovered that the 400 square feet was her property. A bench trial was held on August 7, 2018. The court ruled in P's favor that it adversely possessed the disputed property. The court held that P proved by a preponderance of the evidence that its possession of the disputed property was '(1) hostile; (2) actual; (3) open and notorious; (4) exclusive; and (5) continuous for at least 10 years.' D appealed.