Gothamist: Man Takes Land, City Takes it Back

everyAframe

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 02:38:58 -0500

>>What about Squatter's Rights? Best way is to turn a hose on 'em once it's cold enough to really ruin their day and get them moving along off of your lot. That's been my best way of handling it. Once we pushed a trust fund hippy who, er, literally squatting on our land and he fell back into his own...oh, you get the picture. I once also found a couple of squatters wiring up a aged atari and TV combo to my electricity and simply pulled the ol' Plasmatics (there's the date and age) routine with a baseball bat and smashed the set to pieces. And told the hipsters they were welcome to stay camping their doing smack, but that the only catch was that I'd be by with varying frequency to smash shit or set stuff on fire. Wait...we're you looking for tips or championing said so-called rights?

JMH

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 15:36:30 -0500

Holy crap, an actual reference to adverse possession in real life. And here I thought law school was useless.

Politburo

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:30:39 -0500

The City has title to the land. There is only a dispute in this guy and his lawyer's minds. The guy is trespassing.

nosilla

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 13:20:19 -0500

What about Squatter's Rights?

PBRK

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:30:18 -0500

Precedent is you can not seize state owned land in New York http://www.dos.state.ny.us/cnsl/comments/yachtclub.htm "Once the court determined that the State owned the land, it held that, as a matter of law, plaintiff’s claim of adverse possession was without merit under the rule that land held in a public or governmental capacity may not be lost by adverse possession"

Thespis

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:57:34 -0500

He may or may not have obtained legal title to the land -- it's an interesting question. But isn't there something wrong with the idea of criminal charges here? If I understand correctly, NYC and this guy are in a civil dispute over the ownership of a piece of land. But the city has cops, and the cops have guns, so they get to play the trump card: eviction and jail. The court should intervene, dismiss the charges, and restore the property until the civil case is sorted out. Until then, we can't know who owns the land -- so we can't know whether or not this guy was criminally trespassing on it.

Snoopy

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 11:56:43 -0500

Great scam. More power to the dude. Did the city fall asleep again? How unusual. I think I will set up my own toll booths on the East River bridges. How long do you think it will take before the city or state is aware of them?

UnrepentantFenian

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:50:43 -0500

He can't win this one. Jchez is correct, the city will never back down - imagine the precedent that would set. Oh, and adverse posession takes 10 years; not "nearly" 10 years. Close but no cigar.

jchez

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:29:58 -0500

I always thought that Adverse Possession only worked against private individuals. By law, the government never relinquishes anything, no matter how long they've been letting you use it. So, good luck fighting City Hall on this one.