Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. Defeats Claim of Adverse Possession for Title Company
In McMillan v. Village Plaza Homes, Inc., et. al., Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. won a Decision and Order granting summary judgment in favor of the insureds, in defeating the plaintiff’s claim of title by adverse possession to an eleven-inch strip of land on the southerly boundary line of the insureds’ property in Queens County, New York.
Despite the plaintiff’s claims that she planted flowers and vegetables along a fence on the insureds’ property for the requisite period of time to prevail in an adverse possession claim, in a Decision and Order dated January 26, 2012, Judge Howard G. Lane agreed with Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. and held that the encroachments alleged by the plaintiff, namely planted flowers and vegetables along a fence erected over the property line, were not cultivated by the plaintiff under a claim of right.
Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. successfully argued that any flowers and vegetables planted along the fence were de minimis pursuant to RPAPL 543(1), and, therefore, must be deemed to be permissive and non-adverse. In winning this claim, the firm cited to recently settled law from the governing Second Department, Hartman v. Goldman, 84 A.D.3d 734, a pioneer case won by Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. in 2011.
Adam Leitman Bailey, Jackie Halpern Weinstein, and John M. Desiderio represented the prevailing parties in this case on behalf of Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C.