Court Opinion

ID: 9531223
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 04:08:46.914322+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:28:22.499386
License: Public Domain

Grady, J.
(concurring in part and dissenting in part) — I am in accord with the view expressed in the majority opin*260ion that neither of the original parties to the survey agreement ever initiated a prescriptive title against the other; However, I am of the opinion that they abandoned the agreement by not carrying it out within a reasonable time after it was made. In any event, it being verbal, and the purchaser from Powell having no knowledge of its existence had the right to assume and rely upon the assumption that the fence marked the true boundary line;' Chapman and Powell established the boundary line subject to a change if the survey they contemplated showed it to be incorrect according to legal subdivision lines. As time passed and no survey was made, Powell regarded the original line as the true one, and improved his property accordingly. Such agreements not acted upon prior to the advent of innocent purchasers should not prejudice them. If such be not the case, the purchasers of rural property in particular may not rely upon existing conditions and appearances, but must make inquiry to determine if, in the remote past, some common grantor had not made a verbal agreement with a grantee that the apparent boundary lines were dependent upon a possible survey at some indefinite time in the future. Title examiners and title insurance companies will find it necessary to except from their opinions or coverage the possibility of the existence of such agreements and thus the stability of titles will be seriously affected.
The judgment should be reversed.