erosion

This Land (Was) Your Land: Mass. Appeals Court Updates Law on Adverse Possession and Prescriptive Easements

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In the second half of this year the Massachusetts Appeals Court decided three cases in which a party claimed adverse possession or prescriptive rights in real estate. In each case the focus was on one particular element of all such claims:  actual use of the subject property. And in each case the Appeals Court focused on the character of the property in question, and what constitutes typical or normal use of such property. These cases strengthen the rule that if the claimant’s adverse use is a typical use for the type of property at issue, even relatively modest uses that are sustained for 20 years may be enough to acquire permanent rights.

The first case the Appeals Court decided was Barnett et al. v. Myerow, which involved a long-running dispute between groups of landowners on Martha’s Vineyard in which one group claimed a prescriptive right to use a beach. The court reiterated that to acquire prescriptive rights the plaintiffs must