When neighbors take each other to court it’s like an angry divorce without any incentive to be civil to each other for the sake of the kids.

Connecticut has not shortage of neighbors suing each other for one thing or another. Fence companies aren’t marketing themselves well enough.

From Wikipedia

This morning while reviewing cases, I came across a case involving every earthy yuppie’s favorite plant – bamboo. Rickel v. Komaromi, No. CV105010673 (Keegan, J.).

The plaintiff who the court notes was self-represented brought suit against her neighbors seeking money damages for bamboo encroaching on her property.  She alleged that the bamboo invaded her property.

What do you do when bamboo invades your property? Plead a count of “Encroachment by Vegetation?!?!?” That’s what the plaintiff did.

And if that was your answer –  you’d be wrong! The Court granted the Defendant’s Motion to Strike the Plaintiff’s “Encroachment by Vegetation” count finding it was not a cause of action.

The opinion does not address whether or not the plaintiff is seeking the injunctive remedy of caning as relief.

These cases are often hard fought by warring neighbors. Compromise is often not an option because the level of disdain is so high between the parties.

If fences make for good neighbors adverse possesion cases certainly do not. Unless of course the fence is at the heart of an adverse possesion case.

Most broadly defined, adverse possession, is a method of acquiring title to real property without compensation by possession for a statutory period of time under certain conditions. Black’s Law Dictionary.

In Connecticut, to acquire title to land by adverse possession a claimant must oust an owner of possession and keep such owner out without interruption for 15 years by an open visible and exclusive possession under a claim of right with the intent to use the property as his own without the consent of the owner.

In Brusseau v. Soper, 2008 WL 1914248 (Leuba, JTR.)  a party prevailed in an adverse possesion action when he proved that starting in 1988 the defendant added 100 yards of fill to an area that was 66 feet long and 25 feet wide. The defendant also planted trees and maintained a wood pile on the disputed area.

The plaintiff argued that the woods between the plaintiff’s house and the wood pile made the defendants activity less visible to the plaintiffs.

JTR Leuba did not buy the plaintiff’s argument and found the following:

These activities were not minor or subtle.  Adding 100 yards of fill and regrading cannot be done in a clandestine manner.

I don’t think I’m going out on a limb when I say that JTR Leuba got it right.

(More below the break)

Connecticut residents at risk of losing their homes are eligible for a total of up to $33 million in new funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

HUD’s Emergency Homeowner Loan Program is designed to help unemployed or underemployed families pay their mortgages. Connecticut was one of five states that HUD said could qualify for the new federal program, which is similar to the state’s Emergency Mortgage Assistance Program.

The forgiveable-loan program is being administered by the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority. The New London Day.

You can contact CHFA by clicking here.

Joan's House. Save it.

Sometimes, I see Joan. She may be sitting on her porch or gardening. We usually wave and say “hi” to each other.  I continue up the hill. She goes on with her life.

Throughout most of human history, we knew our neighbors well. In today’s walled and disconnected world it’s possible never to meet the people living close to us – let alone get to know them.  People could and did help their neighbors.

On the flipside we have tools like Facebook. Where we can keep in touch with lots of people who we either rarely or ever see.

These worlds collided late last week. Bill Childs, Associate Dean at Western New England School of Law and a fellow alumni board member – posted a link urging his friends to “save Joan’s house. Bill’s a good guy so I clicked on the link. The person who needed help, was Joan, my neighbor.

A few hours later, the Dean of the Hartford Blogosphere, Helder Mira posted the same link on Facebook. Joan has good friends.

It turns out that Joan was out of work for more than a year and fell behind on her mortgage. She has a job now, however, needs help in making up the $6,000 deficit.

Click here to read more about Joan and her situation. If you enjoy this site, and Joan’s cause worthy (which I trust you will), please give something to help her out. Any amount would be greatly appreciated. I’ve got miles to run. I hope to be waving to Joan for year’s to come. I ask you to help my neighbor.

The problem with mortgage documents is so bad that the head of the FDIC is proposing the creation of billion dollar insurance fund to deal with the fiasco. Forged and illegal documents are such a problem that they pose a significant threat to the broader economy.

If you’re at all involved in real estate litigation or foreclosure click here to watch an excellent 60 minutes piece.

The 60 minutes piece linked to above is shocking. People need to go to jail for this. I’m not sure that if I represented banks in foreclosure proceedings (which I don’t – I defend person’s facing foreclosure and do committee work on foreclosure sales) that I’d feel comfortable bringing actions anymore.

I ended up parking on Franklin Street just down the road from the court’s parking lot.

As I pulled onto Franklin Street, I saw an unmistakable little pink house with a sign that read “The Kelo House”. Now, I’m not that familiar with New London but I knew enough about it’s geography to know that I wasn’t in the Fort Trumbull area (the setting of the famous case of Kelo v. City of New London).

Then it clicked that Mrs. Kelo lost her case.  It occurred to me that the house had been relocated.

As I walked over to the house, I saw this monument in front (click on the picture to read it):

Kelo Monument

Here’s a very poor picture of the house:

Kelo House

If you’re ever in New London Superior court make sure to take a minute and check out Mrs. Kelo’s house. Her case is one of the most famous cases from Connecticut to ever be decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Probably.

This morning I came across an article about how bed bug disclosures are becoming a part of real estate closings in New York.

Given the attention bed bugs are receiving in the media right now it won’t surprise me at all to see a “bed bug” disclosure line added to the Residential Property Disclosure form.

As a runner who loves West Hartford’s MDC trails the Blonski case is very near and dear to my heart.

Check out an excellent article by MariAnn Gail Brown on the legal issues surrounding the MDC trails. I say there’s a solution. Read the article to find out what it is….. Link.

Numerical corporations or LLCs are the bane of my existence as a lawyer. As best as I can tell, exactly 2 of my prior 474 posts have had any impact on the law. One post triggered a change in the practice book to help exempt registration of personal Facebook pages from registration with the Statewide Grievance Committee and another a Supreme Court case.

Basically, business entities in Connecticut can incorporate with whatever name its principals want with some minor limitations.

The target of this post is entities with names such as “123 Main Street, LLC” or “567 Brothers, Inc.” There’s nothing inherently offensive about either of those names. The devil is, where it he usually is, in the details. In this case, the details are in the indexing.

Connecticut has 169 towns and 169 town clerk’s offices.  Staff in town clerk offices ranges anywhere from about 2 to 8 people. This leads to inconsistent indexing not only from town to town but within town records.

For example, “123 Main Street, LLC” may be indexed as “123 Main Street, LLC” or it could be any of the following:

“One Twenty Three Main Street, LLC”;

“One Two Three Main Street, LLC”;

“One Hundred and Twenty Three Main Street, LLC”;

or sometimes the entity is only found by searching “Main Street, LLC”.

I’ve seen it all ways. It’s frustrating to search for “123 Main Street, LLC” and find only a partial record of title. For example, I recently came across  a release of a mortgage for “123 Main Street, LLC”  recorded under “One Twenty Three Main Street, LLC”.

My point is that land records are important. It’s important that records are properly and consistently indexed.  One never encounters problems while searching for “Main Street, LLC”.  Problems arise when entities begin with numbers.

It’s not going to win anyone an election in the fall but the legislature should strongly consider preventing business entities that begin with numbers.  It’s actually a small step in making Connecticut more business friendly.

It seems that the music is about to stop for real estate attorneys yet again.

2009 was the year of the refi. With interest rates at historic lows it made sense for many homeowners to lock in fixed rate loans at rates at or near 5%.

While attorneys weren’t doing record numbers of purchases and sales they were doing plenty of refinances.

Now this:

U.S. residential mortgage originations will plunge 40 percent this year to the lowest level in a decade as home refinancing demand sinks with rising mortgage rates, the industry’s main trade group said.

Lenders will underwrite $1.28 trillion in home loans this year, down from $2.11 trillion in 2009, the Mortgage Bankers Association said in its annual forecast on Tuesday. That would be the lowest since $1.14 trillion in 2000. Reuters.

With interest rates expecting to rise in 2010 it makes sense that refinances will decrease.

Short of a “hot” real estate market it looks like 2010 might be a tough year for real estate attorneys.