Land-grab reform? Yes
Clint Talbott, for the editorial board
Friday, January 18, 2008
In a recent discussion about the much-ballyhooed "land-grab" case, which has dominated Boulder discourse for many weeks, a local attorney with no ties to the litigants suggested that the case seemed to involve a fairly "predatory" use of adverse-possession law.
Such a conclusion gains support from the testimony at trial, in which attorney Edie Stevens and her husband, former Judge Dick McLean, admitted using land they knew was not theirs, then cited that extended use as a rationale for seizing the neighbors' land via "adverse possession."
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Given the extended public outcry, state lawmakers have taken notice, and they have introduced a bill to tweak Colorado's adverse-possession law. The bill, House Bill 1148, would add a good-faith provision to the law; a person seeking to seize someone else's land would have to demonstrate that the extended trespassing (which renders an adverse-possession claim possible) would have to have resulted from a bad property-line survey or some other innocent mistake.
Further, the bill would empower a judge to make the land-grabbing party pay fair-market value, along with taxes. Finally, it would raise the standard of proof from one of "preponderance of evidence" to the more rigorous "clear and convincing evidence."
Sen. Ron Tupa, the Boulder Democrat who is the primary sponsor in the Senate, said the aim is fairness. "I don't think what happened was fair," he told the Camera.
State Rep. Claire Levy, a Boulder Democrat, is one of the primary House sponsors. Levy was fairly tight-lipped about the matter, which makes some sense, given that Stevens was Levy's campaign treasurer.
As the Legislature proceeds, there will debate about the wisdom of amending the adverse-possession law this way. Perhaps there are good reasons such changes would make bad law. But from the perspective of the here and now, they seem like a wise idea.
Clint Talbott, for the editorial board