Adverse possession bill clears Colo. House
By Heath Urie
Originally published 11:39 a.m., February 18, 2008
Updated 01:31 p.m., February 18, 2008
Ongoing Coverage
Stay up-to-date in our Ongoing Coverage Section for the Adverse Possession Case
VIDEO: Nov. 18 protest picnic in support of the Kirlins. WATCH »
VIDEO: Take a look at Don and Susie Kirlin's land and hear them speak about the case. WATCH »
MAP: Satellite image Google map of Hardscrabble Drive.
AUDIO: Listen to NPR's report on the case.
AUDIO: Local singer Don Wrege composed several songs about the land dispute.
- 1. Stealing Land From Our Neighbor
- 2. This Land Belongs to Don & Susie
- 3. Edie & Dick (The Grinch Theme)
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Documents:
PDF: Read the court order.
PDF: Read the letter to Susie Kirlin from the Colorado Supreme Court’s Attorney Regulation Counsel rejecting her legal ethics claim
PDF: Read a letter sent from Richard McLean and Edith Stevens to their friends and supporters, in which they explain their actions.
PDF: Read a column by Boulder County Bar Association president Sonny Flowers that defends Boulder District Court Judge James C. Klein.
PDF: Read the police report about the suspicious package
more documents ...
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The Colorado House of Representatives today approved a bill that seeks to change a controversial land law highlighted last year by a south Boulder property dispute.
House Bill 1148, which would overhaul the law of adverse possession, passed on a third House reading by a vote of 63-1.
The state law now allows trespassers to claim land after using it openly and continuously for at least 18 years.
Rep. Doug Bruce, R-Colorado Springs, cast the lone dissenting vote.
Bruce said he approved of the measure to require that an adverse possessor believes in "good faith" that the land is actually his or her own, but voted against it because the bill contained a “safety clause” common to many bills.
Bruce said he has a longstanding policy of voting against bills that contain safety clauses — legislative language stating that the general assembly “hereby finds, determines and declares that this act is necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health, and safety."
The House Judiciary Committee voted earlier this month to insert the language into the adverse possession bill.
“It’s a lie, and I don’t vote for lies,” Bruce said about the clause, which he said forces voters to give up the right to petition against the bill before it becomes law. “You might want to ask the other 63 legislators why they voted for a lie.”
The Republican said that despite his vote, he sympathizes with Don and Susie Kirlin, a Boulder couple who lost about 34 percent of one of their vacant lots on Hardscrabble Drive late last year in a lawsuit filed by their neighbors, Richard McLean and Edith Stevens.
“Somebody got the shaft because somebody took advantage,” Bruce said. “There’s apparently one lawyer screwing somebody else and the judge was on the person’s side.
“Sometimes one incident can justify a law, even though we’re overturning 1,000 years of tradition.”
The bill also seeks to raise the burden of proof in an adverse-possession case and give judges the power to make adverse possessors pay for any land they are awarded.
The legislation will next move to the state Senate, and likely will be assigned to the Senate Judiciary Committee for review, according to its primary co-sponsor, Rep. Rob Witwer, R-Evergreen.
“I’m pleased that we’ve cleared this hurdle and we’re that much closer to making this bill a law,” Witwer said following Monday’s vote.
The bill would bring Colorado land-use law in line with that of states such as Iowa, Georgia, Oregon and Hawaii, according to Witwer.