Bill would limit ‘adverse possession’

It started with a fence in the woods behind a house in Barrington. A couple had bought a property and decided to create more space for their children to play, so they took down the fence, which had been erected by their neighbors more than a decade earlier.
The neighbors sued the couple, claiming that the 2,600 square feet at stake belonged to them under Rhode Island’s “adverse possession statute.”
State law says that if you have used someone else’s property, unchallenged, for more than 10 years, it’s yours. It’s a particularly liberal law: Connecticut requires 15 years, and Massachusetts, 20.
Now, inspired by the Barrington couple’s plight but also by numerous calls and e-mails he has gotten since he began working on this issue, state Sen. David E. Bates, R-Barrington, is trying to change Rhode Island’s law to more closely resemble those of its neighbors.
“There’s a tremendous number of people involved” in adverse-possession disputes, Bates said. “It’s amazing how many people have called and e-mailed me.”
This is the second year in a row that Bates has sponsored the legislation, as has Rep. Susan Story, R-Barrington – though it’s the Senate that has been more amenable to the measure so far. Last year, the Senate actually passed it, though the House went on to kill it.
Bates’ original intention was to just raise the time requirement to 15 years. This year he tried to add a tougher provision, that the claimants have paid “all taxes legally assessed on the land or tenements, and shall be held and adjudged to be the legal owner of the lands or tenements, to the extent, and according to the purport of his or her title,” for the full period.
Opposition quickly mounted, however, and Bates went back to the original version. As long as he sticks with the 15-year requirement, he said, “I haven’t really heard a lot of opposition,” and he believes he can get the Senate to pass the measure.
“I’m still not sure about the House,” he said. “I’m certainly willing to work with anybody.”
Those who’ve lost a piece of their property through adverse possession tend to view the matter as urgent.
Brian LaPlante, a partner at LaPlante Sowa Goldman in Providence who has developed an expertise in property boundary issues and often represents developers in such disputes, said adverse possession “can have a significant effect on developers,” because with the “stringent zoning standards” in place in most communities, losing a piece of your land can make the difference between having a buildable lot and a substandard one.
“The loss of any property rights, including a few feet, could severely undermine the development rights,” he said.
But LaPlante has also seen the other side. He’s currently representing Smithfield couple who had used a portion of their neighbor’s yard for years, planting shrubs there and tending to them. Then a new property owner moved in.
“That person completely disregarded 50 years of possession and took a backhoe and ripped out my clients’ mature bushes and plantings and just had the family in tears,” he said. “That’s a case where adverse possession rights, I think, are appropriate.