Last month, the New York Times reported on a pitched adverse possession battle between two residential buildings on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
On a coveted stretch of Fifth Avenue, steps away from Central Park, the shareholders of an Upper East Side cooperative are fighting for an unusual prize: the ownership of a grimy concrete ditch behind their luxury apartment building.
The roughly 350-square-foot plot is at the center of a lawsuit filed on Friday in New York State Supreme Court that pits the millionaire residents of 980 Fifth Avenue against the real estate mogul and former governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, who owns an adjacent rental tower. . . .
In its lawsuit, the co-op board is arguing that it should be the rightful owner of the pit through a doctrine called adverse possession, in which a party can make a legal claim to a property after 10 continuous years of undisputed use. While the property is legally owned by Mr. Spitzer's neighboring rental building, 985 Fifth Avenue, the co-op claims that it has routinely and openly used the roughly six-foot-deep niche to store construction supplies and has never been asked to stop.
For those of us teaching Property to 1Ls, the timing of the story could not have been better, as adverse possession often makes an early appearance in the course. It also served as fresh evidence of how musty old legal doctrines can be quite relevant in contemporary property disputes (especially where, as here, the parties appear to be motivated by more than just property).
