Opinion ID: 2445933
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Can appellants tack on their predecessors' use of the property to fulfill the 15-year requirement for adverse possession?

Text: Appellants claim, in the alternative, that even if ownership of Old Lot 826 was not conveyed to appellants by deed, the evidence supported that they themselves can claim ownership by tacking their own adverse possession to that of their predecessors. [16] Tacking has been defined as successive, uninterrupted possessions by persons between whom privity exists. If such tacked possessions constitute one continuous adverse possession for the statutory period it will be sufficient. Bonds, 79 U.S.App.D.C. at 120, 143 F.2d at 371. We have not had the occasion to discuss tacking in the context of adverse possession to claim ownership in land, rather than easements. [17] We therefore look for guidance to the law of Maryland, from which the common law of the District of Columbia derived. See, e.g., Solid Rock Church v. Friendship Pub. Charter Sch., Inc., 925 A.2d 554, 562 (D.C.2007). The Court of Appeals of Maryland has explained the doctrine of tacking in the context of claims of ownership by adverse possession: It is unquestionable that where different persons enter upon land in succession without any privity of estate, the last possessor is not allowed to tack the possession of his predecessors to his own, so as to make out a continuity of possession sufficient to bar the entry of the owner. The reason for this rule is that the possession of the one is not that of the other, because the moment the first occupant quits possession, the constructive possession of the owner is restored, and the entry of the next occupant constitutes him a new disseisor ... The law is clear that such privity may be created by sale and conveyance and possession under it as well as by descent. Gore v. Hall, 206 Md. 485, 112 A.2d 675, 678 (1955). Although privity for tacking purposes may be established by sale and conveyance, id., a grantor's adverse possession will not accrue to the benefit of the grantee through tacking when the deed of conveyance expressly excludes conveyance of the disputed parcel. See Trs. of Broadfording Church of the Brethren v. W. Maryland Ry. Co., 262 Md. 84, 277 A.2d 276, 278 (1971) (citing Louis Sachs & Sons v. Ward, 182 Md. 385, 35 A.2d 161 (1943) and Fleischmann v. Hearn, 141 Md. 463, 118 A. 847 (1922)). Moreover, [w]here title by adverse possession is inchoate, a deed by grantor which fails to convey such inchoate right is ineffective to create privity which allows tacking. Wolfe v. Porter, 405 Pa.Super. 385, 592 A.2d 716, 719 (1991). See POWELL ON REAL PROPERTY § 91.10[2] (Generally, for the purpose of effecting title by adverse possession, where the traditional requisites are present, tacking of periods of possession by successive possessors is permitted against an owner seeking to defeat such title, unless it is shown that the claimant's predecessor in title did not intend to convey the disputed parcel.) (citing cases). Appellants' complaint to quiet title based on a claim of adverse possession was filed in 2004. Therefore, in order to succeed on their claim, appellants must prove adverse possession going back fifteen years, to 1989. Appellants Sears, Howard and Kretzschmar bought their lots in 1996 (816 and 817), and 2001 (lot 818)all within the fifteen-year period. Thus, to satisfy the fifteen-year period not only must all appellants show privity between themselves and their immediate predecessors, but appellant Sears also must establish privity between the Downeys (his grantors) and the Hagins, from whom the Downeys bought lot 816 in 1986, and between Mr. Mahr and Ms. Nelson (Sears' grantors) and Mrs. McAfee, who sold lot 818 to them in 1994, after she bought it in 1986. It is unnecessary to determine whether the necessary privity exists going back the chain of title to 1989 because appellants have failed to establish the first link, that the necessary privity existed between themselves and their immediate predecessors. As we have noted in the previous section, the deeds to appellants described and specified the lots being conveyed and none purported to include any description of, or any reference to rights in, Old Lot 826. Because the deeds on their face fail[] to convey such inchoate right [they are] ineffective to create privity which allows tacking. Wolfe, 592 A.2d at 719. Moreover, in the case of lots 816 and 818, the sellers expressly disavowed (either in writing or orally) conveyance of rights to Old Lot 826 to the buyers: the deed to lot 818 had an attached plat with a note declaring that Old Lot 826 was not being conveyed to Sears; and Ms. Downey cautioned Sears that the deed to lot 816 did not include Old Lot 826, advising him that all of the land did not convey. Such disclaimers by the grantors are an additional reason to preclude a successor's tacking of whatever interest the predecessor might have had. See Trs. of Broadfording Church of the Brethren, 277 A.2d at 278. Without that first link establishing privity with their grantors' adverse possessory rights, appellants cannot meet their burden of proving by clear and convincing evidence that they are entitled to claim ownership by adverse possession throughout a fifteen-year period, based on tacking their predecessors' rights to their own adverse use of Old Lot 826. See Gore, 112 A.2d at 678. In sum, because the undisputed evidence shows neither that any pre-existing ownership acquired by their predecessors through adverse possession of Old Lot 826 was conveyed to appellants when they acquired their respective lots, nor that appellants can claim ownership by adverse possession in their own right by tacking their predecessors' adverse possession to their own, the trial court did not err in dismissing their complaint for quiet title. Affirmed.