Adverse possession; Houston v Mint Group, LLC; 15-year period (MCL 600.5801(4))

Holding that all the elements of adverse possession were met, the court affirmed the trial court’s judgment awarding the disputed property to defendants. The parties “are next door neighbors who own adjacent beachfront properties.” The trial court determined “that the statutory time frame for possession began, even without tacking, when defendants” purchased their home in 1990. Plaintiffs primarily argued “that the time frame did not begin to run until the deck was installed, because the patio was not hostile or exclusive.” But this argument failed because “defendants’ exclusive use of the patio as their own, personal outdoor living space began in 1990 when they bought the house. [They] openly kept their barbeque and deck chairs on the patio and had exclusive control over, and financial responsibility for, the lamps on the patio. The patio was attached to [their] home, and, contrary to [plaintiff-]Darlene’s incredible and disproven testimony, was directly accessible from [their] home via a door and stairway installed sometime between 1990 and 1993. Defendants’ acts of possession were, therefore, open and notorious, and ‘of such a character as to indicate openly and publicly an assumed control or use as is consistent with the character of the premises in question.’” The court also concluded “the trial court reasonably found that the pathway between the parties’ homes that terminated at the stairs leading to the patio was far more consistent with defendants’ exclusive use than plaintiffs’.” In addition, defendants’ “testimony of their intent to hold the boundary line they perceived as being marked by the pillars and patio ledge, even if only based on innocent mistake, was . . . sufficient to establish hostility. In sum, [their] use of the patio, beginning in 1990, was ‘actual, visible, open, notorious, exclusive, continuous,’ and hostile for the requisite 15-year period.”