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Adverse Possession: Occasionally, fences are not on the boundary line consistent with the legal description of the property. Indiana case law has held just as the statute states, that the line fence is to be placed on the boundary line. Yet disputes may develop as to what is the proper place for the fence. The fence may have been erected under an erroneous assumption about the location of the line and have 'stood for many years without a question being raised about the placement of the fence. However, all landowners should be aware that an adjoining neighbor may acquire a strip or segment of their land in this fashion. Adverse possession and a "quiet title" lawsuit are legal measures that can be used to resolve such disputes. If the use of someone else's land is what the law describes as: open, continuous, distinctive and exclusive, adverse and notorious for a ten-year period, title may be established by adverse possession. Once these elements are established to the satisfaction of a court or jury, fee simple title to the disputed tract is conferred on the claimant by operation of the law, thereby extinguishing title in the original owner. An adverse possessor may prevail without knowledge of the mistake until his neighbor raises the issue. The adverse possessor merely needs to go about using the land as if it were his. If the possessor knows there is a disagreement, he may win out by simply using the property for at least ten years. The adverse possessor in Indiana does not have to prove he paid taxes on the disputed segment, since the neighbor would be billed for land taxes based on the acreage in the legal description. If the adjoining landowner accepts the erroneous boundary, knowing or not knowing it is wrong, the law, after ten years, may give the property to the adverse possessor. However, if an owner believes another possesses his land, he may bring a lawsuit to quiet title. Either party can bring a quiet title lawsuit to let the court decide who is entitled to let the court decide who is entitled to the disputed land. The landowner who claims the loss of land must not let the ten-year statutory period elapse, or else the possessor's rights may be irrefutable. Once a court renders a judgment, this determines who has marketable title in the disputed parcel. The suit and judgment may be necessary to clear the record, even if it appears that all the requirements of adverse possession have been satisfied. However, a 1982 Indiana appellate Court case established that ownership to a strip of land could shift to a neighbor where there was an agreement by the abutting neighbors to treat a fence as a legal boundary line. Further, ownership can shift to the possessor of the strip of land even though the property was not held for the statutory period (10 years) required under the theory of adverse possession. This was held to be binding on subsequent owners as long as no fraud could be shown to be present. Conclusion: It is important that all parties know their rights and duties under the law, because it is generally costly in terms of both dollars and human relationships to exercise the full recourse offered by the courts and the law. Since most people value good relationships with their neighbors, compromise may be best.
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