March 9, 2016

The Appellate Division, Second Department has upheld the dismissal of a neighbor’s adverse possession claim, and has re-instated the owner’s trespass claim, in Reyes v. Carroll. The case involved a boundary dispute on residential parcels in Wainscott, New York, where the plaintiffs claimed to have acquired a portion of the defendant’s property by adverse possession.  The court concluded that the plaintiffs, who had voluntarily removed a fence at the request of the defendants’ predecessor, failed to prove they occupied the defendants’ property “adversely.”  The court also concluded that the defendants were entitled to seek damages for plaintiff’s trespass on the defendants’ property.