Local TREND. Adverse Possession Against City Land.

Where: Pennsylvania

What: PA’s Supreme Court ruled that a person may take by adverse possession land that is owned by a city

Is there anything unusual about the property?

• It was taken by eminent domain
• Nothing was built on the property
• The City did not maintain the property

The Court’s rational:

• Cities should have ” limited responsibility to monitor their properties at some point during the twenty-one-year prescriptive period”
• This will “promote the goals of municipal efficiency and the active and efficient use of the land by motivating municipalities to either use the retained property for the public benefit or sell it to the private individuals”
• If the city sold the property, the property could be “taxed for the municipality’s and the public’s financial benefit”

Obermayer | Whose Land is it Anyway? Pennsylvania Supreme Court rules that Municipalities are Now Subject to Claims for Adverse Possession