A Massachusetts land court has reaffirmed the general rule that you cannot acquire registered land by adverse possession. Ramos v. Meade, 2022 WL 2733273 (Mass. Land Ct. 2022).
After the Indiana Supreme Court held that private property rights end at the high tide land, giving the public the right to use the wet sand area between the low and high tide lines, see Gunderson v. State, 90 N.E.3d 1171 (Ind. 2018), an owner sued state officials to have that judicial ruling declared to be a taking of property rights without just compensation. But the Seventh Circuit held that the state courts were competent to determine whether...
Continuing the conflicts among state courts on this question, a Florida court chose a “yes” answer to the question of whether a seller can get away with fraud if the land sales contract contains an “as is” clause or a “merger clause” making the express terms of the written agreement the only legitimate source of obligations between the parties. ...
Most courts granted an easement by necessity when an owner severs its land and leaves a parcel without access to a public road. The easement allows passage over land that had been connected to the landlocked parcel before it became landlocked. The courts differ on whether this is a mandatory rule of law (owners are not allowed to create land to which there is no access) or a default rule based on the implied intent of the parties, in which case the...
In accord with most courts, the Connecticut Supreme Court held that a restaurant lease was not void for “frustration of purpose” when the restaurant tenant could not make rent payments because of a gubernatorial order for restaurants to shut down during the early stages of the Covid-19 disaster. AGW Sono Partners, LLC v. Downtown Soho, LLC, 273 A....
A Texas court has held that an option to purchase an interest in land for a fixed price of $50,000 that would last for 100 years was an invalid and unreasonable restraint on alienation of land. Tiner v. Johnson, 2022 WL 2062478 (Tex. Ct. App....