Neighbor wants to put a prescriptive easement on my landlocked lot

[FA2008]

***Washington State***


I own a business that resides on a landlocked parcel of land. I have an easement on the other property to allow access in and out of our parking lot. The other business is now claiming a prescriptive easement on our parking lot which will basically mean a forfeiture of our right to use our parking lot as we see deemed fit. Can they do this? Will a court allow someone to essentially block us in?

 

[HuAi]

what grounds do they claim they have for a perscriptive easement? that's usually granted in case of a need (e.g. for ingress/egress)

 

[FA2008]

what grounds do they claim they have for a perscriptive easement? that's usually granted in case of a need (e.g. for ingress/egress)

they say they need the back area of the lot so their delivery trucks can move in and out. Only thing is, they have another bay on the opposite side of the building for the trucks. So really, there is no need. And they are claiming a prescriptive easement on the entire parking lot, not just the rear.


I say they have no grounds but they must think that they do if they are hard pressed on it.


thanks

 

[Orcons]

***Washington State***


I own a business that resides on a landlocked parcel of land. I have an easement on the other property to allow access in and out of our parking lot. The other business is now claiming a prescriptive easement on our parking lot which will basically mean a forfeiture of our right to use our parking lot as we see deemed fit. Can they do this? Will a court allow someone to essentially block us in?

A prescriptive easement would have to be based on use they had made of your parking lot over the years and it would allow them to continue that use. It would not cause you to forfeit your rights, it would just give them a right to do whatever they had already been doing. Questions: (1) Are you sure they are claiming a prescriptive easement and not an easement by necessity? Assuming they are claiming a prescriptive easement, (2) What use have they made of your parking lot over the years and for how long? and (3) What do the laws of your state say about the requirements for a prescriprive easement?

If you can answer those questions you will know whether this is serious or not and how to respond.

 

[FA2008]

A prescriptive easement would have to be based on use they had made of your parking lot over the years and it would allow them to continue that use. It would not cause you to forfeit your rights, it would just give them a right to do whatever they had already been doing. Questions: (1) Are you sure they are claiming a prescriptive easement and not an easement by necessity? Assuming they are claiming a prescriptive easement, (2) What use have they made of your parking lot over the years and for how long? and (3) What do the laws of your state say about the requirements for a prescriprive easement?

If you can answer those questions you will know whether this is serious or not and how to respond.

1)It is a prescriptive easement as stated on their court documents.

2) Over the years they really haven't been using my side of the parking lot. Some customers park on our side and our customers park on their side depending upon how busy it is. But like I said, they are claiming that they need the entire lot so that their trucks can make deliveries which they really don't "use" my side of the lot. Only the rear when they are making deliveries they tend to back onto my side of the lot.

3) WA says that the other side has to have had hostile use of the land for 7 years in order to win a prescriptive easement. Problem is, this becomes a "they said I said" battle. It really wasn't hostile until about 5 yrs ago when their trucks started backing into structures on our property causing damage and also nearly running over some of my family members. We put up a fence to sort of block them. But they are claiming that they have been using the lot the same way for the past 25 yrs (the owners bought the property in 1997 but are using a piggyback loophole for their argument)

Now the problem with the piggyback argument is that at one point both properties were owned by the same person. So there was never a need for easements or prescriptive claims. When they sold the properties off, they only gave us an easement since our property was landlocked. Never a mention about the parking lot. And to be honest, it wasn't an issue until about 2002-2003 when the trucks were becoming a nuisance. We always felt that it was near impossible to tell a customer not to park on our side since often the customer were visiting both businesses.

 

[Orcons]

I don't know WA law so I can only give you generalities. Also, if they brought an action you should have a local real estate attorney who should know better than anyone on these boards.

In general terms, first, hostile usually means without permission so if they just did it, even if there was no anger or hostility involved, as long as you did not give explicit permission it was probably hostile. Usually the easement they could gain would only be on the part they actually used but as you point out it would become their word against yours. I assume the "piggyback" you refer to is tacking. My guess would be though that you are correct in that the tacking can not go back past the point where there was a common owner. You couldn't claim hostile use of your property by the person who owned it and that would have to be the claim if someone tried to tack back to a time during which one person owned both lots. How long has it been since the lots were split? You also might want to double check the 7 year requirement. That sounds a little short, might it be 7 years if the use is under color of title? Typically uses under color of title have a shorter time requirement (often 5 to 10 years) while uses not under color of title require a longer time period.

I would talk to a local attorney to have a better idea of the strength of their claims. If it looks like they do have a case they might win you could always negotiate with them to limit the easement or maybe get some payment from them in return. It will cost a lot of money on both sides to litigate and you might be able to come to some kind of agreement and save yourself a lot of money and headaches.

 

[FA2008]

I don't know WA law so I can only give you generalities. Also, if they brought an action you should have a local real estate attorney who should know better than anyone on these boards.

In general terms, first, hostile usually means without permission so if they just did it, even if there was no anger or hostility involved, as long as you did not give explicit permission it was probably hostile. Usually the easement they could gain would only be on the part they actually used but as you point out it would become their word against yours. I assume the "piggyback" you refer to is tacking. My guess would be though that you are correct in that the tacking can not go back past the point where there was a common owner. You couldn't claim hostile use of your property by the person who owned it and that would have to be the claim if someone tried to tack back to a time during which one person owned both lots. How long has it been since the lots were split? You also might want to double check the 7 year requirement. That sounds a little short, might it be 7 years if the use is under color of title? Typically uses under color of title have a shorter time requirement (often 5 to 10 years) while uses not under color of title require a longer time period.

I would talk to a local attorney to have a better idea of the strength of their claims. If it looks like they do have a case they might win you could always negotiate with them to limit the easement or maybe get some payment from them in return. It will cost a lot of money on both sides to litigate and you might be able to come to some kind of agreement and save yourself a lot of money and headaches.

I should have mentioned, this is already in litigation. My lawyer is an idiot and I am in the process of hiring another. This matter has taken almost 5 yrs and I think I am right when I say that my lawyer has been sucking money out of me for no reason.