California Squatters Using Adverse Possession To "Steal" Land From Property Owners?

Riverside County, California Treasurer-Tax Collector Paul McDonnell is seeking changes to an obscure state law that allows squatters to take land from unsuspecting owners, according to a recent story in The Press-Enterprise. The state law involved is the law of adverse possession which, according to McDonnell, has created "a cottage industry of people who are attempting to capitalize on the weakness of others."

In California, the adverse possession law allows an individual to acquire title to a property if they've fenced it, openly occupied it without permission and paid property taxes continuously for five years. McDonnell has discovered that there are 20 cases in Riverside County where this law is being used in an attempt to take title to properties away from the existing property owners.

In San Bernardino County, Assistant Treasurer-Tax Collector Annette Kerber said adverse possession has been an issue in her county as well, and has found cases where even though the title holder has already paid their taxes, a non-owner will insist his payment be applied.

The story also describes the alleged activities of Jeff Downtain, a local man who with his family, has been accused by a half-dozen Wildomar landowners of erecting a large fence and installed guards to keep them off their own property. Some claim to have been threatened. According to a local real estate agent, whose elderly client's property has been fenced off, "The Downtains' whole MO is to prey on the elderly, pay their (property) taxes, put their names on the title as a tenant in common, and take control of these people's properties. They will confront you. They are violent people."

The local district attorney's office is conducting a criminal real estate fraud investigation into the Downtain family's efforts to take their neighbors' land. Jeff Downtain denies any wrongdoing. For more, see Obscure law that benefits squatters criticized.

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Colorado Judge Uses Law To Legally "Swipe" Neighbors' Land

In Boulder, Colorado, The Denver Post reports:

• Despite the surprise and outrage about a former Boulder County judge taking a neighbor's land through court maneuvers, there's nothing new about adverse possession — or even judges employing the law to net real estate.

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• "It's stealing with a law license instead of a gun," said Will Campbell, a Boulder resident and supporter of Susie and Don Kirlin. Former Boulder Judge Richard McLean and his wife, lawyer Edith Stevens, won one- third of the Kirlins' vacant land in south Boulder by using the law. McLean and Stevens argued that they had used part of the 4,700-square-foot lot to reach the garden and deck of their home virtually every day for 25 years. The Kirlins bought the land in 1984 and planned to build a retirement home there.

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• State Rep. Rob Witwer, R-Evergreen, and Sen. Ron Tupa, D-Boulder, are studying possible legislation to raise the bar to prove adverse possession. [...] "If you trespass for 18 minutes, you can be arrested," [Witwer] said. "If you knowingly trespass for 18 years, you can get the land for free. The law should not allow that to happen."

The article states that at least two other judges have also successfully pulled off similar legal maneuvers in years past. For more, see Land-seizure cases no rarity.

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