Property Disputes

Ten years of continuous possession meeting every element. The period comes from § 516.010, RSMo, which bars an action to recover possession of real property brought more than ten years after the right of entry accrued. The elements come from case law, most often stated as in Teson v. Vasquez: possession that is hostile and under claim of right, actual, open and notorious, exclusive, and continuous for the full period. All five must coexist for the entire ten years. Successive possessors who are in privity can sometimes tack their periods together, but a break in possession or a period of permissive use restarts the clock.

Act, and do not wait. A fence that sits over the line, unchallenged, is the classic fact pattern for adverse possession — it is visible, exclusive, actual use, and if it stays put for ten years the land on the far side may cease to be recoverable. The first step is a current survey by a Missouri licensed land surveyor, because deeds describe boundaries and fences do not follow them. If the encroachment is real, the cheapest resolutions are usually a written, recorded boundary line agreement or a written licence permitting the fence to remain — the licence matters because permission defeats hostility and stops any adverse possession clock. If the neighbor will not agree, the remedy is a quiet title or ejectment action under § 527.150, RSMo.

Yes, through a prescriptive easement, and this is more common than people expect. Missouri requires use that is continuous, uninterrupted, visible and adverse for the statutory period — the elements applied in Whittom v. Alexander-Richardson Partnership, 851 S.W.2d 504 (Mo. banc 1993). The important difference from adverse possession is that a prescriptive easement does not require exclusivity. Because the neighbor is claiming a right to use rather than a right to own, the fact that you also used the driveway does not defeat the claim. What does defeat it is permission: use with the owner’s consent is not adverse. If a neighbor has been crossing your land for years, a short written licence, signed and dated, converts the use into a permissive one and protects you.

It is a lawsuit to have a court determine who owns what. Section 527.150, RSMo allows any person claiming an interest in real property to sue to ascertain and determine the estate, title and interest of the parties and to have the title adjudged. You need one when the record does not tell a clean story and someone will not simply fix it: an unreleased deed of trust from a lender that no longer exists, a break in the chain of title, an heir of a long-dead owner whose interest was never conveyed, a defective legal description repeated through decades of deeds, a tax sale of uncertain validity, or a boundary that has moved by possession. The practical test is often the title company’s: if they will not insure without it, you need it.

Unless the estate plan said otherwise, you hold it as tenants in common under § 442.450, RSMo — separate undivided fractional shares, each freely transferable. Either of you can file a partition action under § 528.030, RSMo. The court will divide the property in kind if that can be done without great prejudice to the owners, and for a single house it usually cannot, so the result is a court-ordered sale with the proceeds divided under § 528.340. Because inherited family land is a recurring problem, Missouri has enacted the Save the Family Farm Act at §§ 528.700–528.750, RSMo, which adds protections to partitions of heirs’ property. If a family sale is coming, negotiate before someone files, because the court’s sale is rarely the best price anyone gets.

Generally yes, and that is the point of partition. A tenant in common or joint tenant is not required to stay in a co-ownership they no longer want, and § 528.030, RSMo gives the right to compel partition. The court’s preference is partition in kind — physically dividing the land — and where the parcel is large and divisible that can be done; for a house on a city lot it cannot, so the court orders a sale. Co-owners who want to avoid this outcome have two tools, and both must be in place before the dispute: a written co-ownership or buy-sell agreement setting a valuation method and a right of first refusal, or, for family property, an estate plan that puts the real estate in a trust with clear direction rather than leaving it to heirs as tenants in common.

Yes, and the process is a ladder with real deadlines. An owner who disagrees with the assessor’s valuation appeals first to the county board of equalization — § 137.275, RSMo gives the right, and § 137.385 frames the board’s process around the second Monday in July. From the board, appeal runs to the State Tax Commission under § 138.430, RSMo, and from there to circuit court on the record. The substance of a good appeal is evidence of market value: comparable sales, a current appraisal, evidence of condition or functional obsolescence, or proof that similar properties are assessed differently. Confirm the current year’s filing dates with your county assessor — they vary and they are not forgiving.

Usually, if they are properly recorded and were in the chain of title when you bought. Restrictive covenants and subdivision indentures are contracts that run with the land and can be enforced by the association and often by any other lot owner. Whether a particular restriction reaches your conduct is a question of interpretation, and Missouri courts construe ambiguous restrictions in favor of the free use of property — which is a real advantage for the owner when the text is unclear. Consistent enforcement matters too: an association that has permitted twenty similar violations has weakened its position on the twenty-first. The practical sequence is to read the recorded indenture and every amendment, check the association’s enforcement history, and get the interpretation question answered before building rather than after.

It settles the technical question and it is indispensable, but it is not the end of the analysis. A licensed surveyor locates the boundary described in the deeds. What a survey cannot decide is whether the legal boundary has been superseded by what has actually happened on the ground — adverse possession, a prescriptive easement, an agreed boundary, or acquiescence over many years. It is entirely possible for a survey to be correct and for the fence to nonetheless mark the operative line after a decade of exclusive use. Two surveys reaching different conclusions is also common, usually because the underlying legal descriptions are old, ambiguous, or reference monuments that no longer exist. Get the survey first — then get the legal question answered on top of it.

Surface water disputes are among the most common Missouri property fights and among the least well understood by the parties. Missouri applies a reasonable use rule — and older sources get this wrong. In Heins Implement Co. v. Missouri Highway & Transportation Commission, 859 S.W.2d 681 (Mo. banc 1993), the Supreme Court held the common enemy doctrine “even as modified, has outlived its usefulness in our state” and replaced it: each possessor may make reasonable use of their land even though the flow of surface waters is altered and some harm results, but “incurs liability when his harmful interference with the flow of surface waters is unreasonable.” So the question is whether the neighbor’s alteration of the natural drainage — regrading, a retaining wall, a downspout extension, a new impervious surface — unreasonably damages the lower owner. That is a fact-intensive question about what changed, what the water did before, and how much harm resulted. Practically, these cases are built on evidence: photographs before and after, dated video during rain events, grading permits, contractor records, and often an engineer. The remedies range from damages to an injunction requiring the condition to be corrected. Municipal stormwater and grading ordinances frequently give a faster and cheaper route than a lawsuit, so check them first.

Yes, and this is core quiet title territory. Missouri’s recording system under § 442.390, RSMo gives constructive notice to everyone of what is on record, which means an invalid document sitting in the chain of title does real damage even though it conveys nothing — it will stop a sale or a refinance because a title insurer will except to it. The remedy is an action under § 527.150, RSMo to determine the parties’ interests and adjudge the title, producing a judgment that can itself be recorded. If the filing was made in bad faith — a fabricated lien or a spurious claim of interest — there may be additional exposure for the filer. Do not wait until you are under contract to deal with it.

When the value at stake, the cost of the alternative, or the effect on marketability justifies it — and often the answer is no. A strip of land three feet wide is rarely worth a trial on its own; the same strip is worth a great deal if it blocks a sale, holds a septic field, or contains the only access to a building site. Three questions frame the decision honestly. First, what does the encroachment or cloud actually cost you, including the effect on a future sale? Second, is there a recordable fix — a boundary agreement, a licence, a corrective deed, a release — that a reasonable neighbor would sign? Third, if this is not resolved, does the passage of time make it worse, as it does with adverse possession and prescriptive easements? A dispute that gets more expensive with delay is one to address now, even if the answer is a negotiated document rather than a lawsuit.