Legal Question in Real Estate Law in New York
Lake property rights case scenario
A family owns property on Seneca Lake and they have a well groomed nice piece of land that juts out into the lake. The land owners on the other sides were using the property as a walkway to this part of the lake because its less muddy. The family told the other land owners that they couldn't use the property as a walk way to the lake, specifically a property owner had a party on this families land and that was the end of people walking to the lake on their property. The surrounding landowners have walked onto the land since then, threatend to sue, and one owner who has recently started renting the house as a summer rental next to the property is trying to team other owners around the area up against this family. What sort of legal standing if any do these surrounding land owners have and when is it permitable to legally bring these threats and headaches of the unrluly neighbors to a stop. The family does not want to sell the property because it has been in the family for around a hundred years. Any help???
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Lake property rights case scenario
I'm a California lawyer, and since the real property is in New York, you'll need an answer from a New York-licensed attorney. The general subject matter you need to discuss is New York's law of prescriptive easements.
The basic theory is that repeated use of someone else's land over many years for a particular purpose (such as access), openly and without permission, eventually ripens into a legal right to continue to do that thing.
The details of how prescriptive easements arise differ from state to state, so that's about as far as I can go, but suffice it to say that you need to do somehting about this ASAP.
Related Questions & Answers
Looking for something else?
10,200 active attorneys ready to answer your legal questions today.
Featured Attorneys
Earn additional revenue and grow your business.
