Court Opinion

ID: 9626717
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 08:22:17.005331+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:11:29.197964
License: Public Domain

*362TYSON, Judge
dissenting.
The majority’s opinion holds the trial court made sufficient findings of fact to support the conclusion that neither defendant nor his predecessors-in-interest held the property adversely for the requisite twenty years pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1-40.1 disagree and vote to vacate and remand for additional findings of fact and conclusions of law concerning defendant’s adverse possession claim as previously mandated by this Court. I respectfully dissent.
I. Standard of Review
“The standard of review on appeal from a judgment entered after a non-jury trial is ‘whether there is competent evidence to support the trial court’s findings of fact and whether the findings support the conclusions of law and ensuing judgment.’ ” Cartin v. Harrison, 151 N.C. App. 697, 699, 567 S.E.2d 174, 176 (quoting Sessler v. Marsh, 144 N.C. App. 623, 628, 551 S.E.2d 160, 163, disc. rev. denied, 354 N.C. 365, 556 S.E.2d 577 (2001)), disc. rev. denied, 356 N.C. 434, 572 S.E.2d 428 (2002).
“The trial court’s findings of fact are binding on appeal as long as competent evidence supports them, despite the existence of evidence to the contrary.” Resort Realty of the Outer Banks, Inc. v. Brandt, 163 N.C. App. 114, 116, 593 S.E.2d 404, 408, appeal dismissed and disc. rev. denied, 358 N.C. 236, 595 S.E.2d 154 (2004) (citations and quotations omitted). “When competent evidence supports the trial court’s findings of fact and the findings of fact support its conclusions of law, the judgment should be affirmed in the absence of an error of law.” Id. The trial court’s conclusions of law drawn from the findings of fact are reviewable de novo. Humphries v. City of Jacksonville, 300 N.C. 186, 187, 265 S.E.2d 189, 190 (1980).
II. Insufficient Findings and Conclusions on Remand
Defendant asserts the trial court failed on prior remand to make required findings of fact or conclusions of law previously mandated by this Court to address whether Cecil and Alease began adversely possessing the property “on or before” the Peggs received title from Paschall on 3 June 1965. Defendant more specifically argues the trial court failed to address or enter any findings of fact or conclusions of law on whether Cecil and Alease were adversely possessing the property on the date the Peggs received title and prior to the preparation of the survey or the recordation of the deed which purported to convey a life estate. I agree.
*363On remand, the trial court made two findings of fact on the issue of whether Cecil and Alease began adversely possessing the tract at issue before the Peggs received title:
9. There is no evidence presented that Cecil Jones ever occupied the property hostilely or adversely to the interest of his parents or adversely to Paschall Jones after he had been deeded the property.
10. The Court draws the logical inference from the fact that Ed and Lourinda were living on the property from 1940 until the time of their death and from the fact that they had promised Cecil and the children 5 acre tracts and orally had given Cecil 5 acres that Cecil lived on the property with the permission of Ed and Lourinda while they owned it. There is no evidence as to whether or not Cecil had the permission of Paschall Jones to live on the property when Paschall owned it.
The trial court’s order is devoid of any findings regarding whether Cecil and Alease began adversely possessing the property on 3 June 1965, the date Paschall deeded the property to the Peggs, or the nature and extent of their claim to the property on this date and thereafter.
The majority’s opinion states “the trial court’s conclusive finding of fact that neither defendant, nor his predecessors, were adverse before 1965 until 1994 defeats any claim of adverse possession regardless of whether the property was held adversely from 3 June 1965 until 31 December 1965.” If Cecil and Alease began adversely possessing the property on 3 June 1965, the date the Peggs took title, the issue becomes what is the effect, if any, of the subsequent survey by the Peggs or their subsequent recordation of a purported life estate on the operation of the twenty year statute of limitations required to adversely possess the property under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1-40.
While no North Carolina cases have directly addressed this issue, it seems clear that if the life tenant repudiates the life tenancy, or otherwise takes action which would be the equivalent of an ouster of a fellow tenant in a concurrent ownership situation, he could adversely possess against the remainderman.
James A. Webster, Jr., Webster’s Real Estate Law in North Carolina § 14-19, at 668 (Patrick K. Hetrick & James B. McLaughlin, Jr. eds., 5th ed. 1999). “For example, in Morehead v. Harris, it seems clear that our [Supreme] [C]ourt is recognizing the ability of a life tenant to *364adversely possess against the remainderman if notice to the remain-derman is present.” Id. (citing 262 N.C. 330, 137 S.E.2d 174 (1964)).
The supreme courts of sister jurisdictions have addressed this issue:
It is well established that adverse possession does not run against a remainderman until the death of the life tenant. Similarly, presumption of grant will not be acquired against a remainderman who is unable to assert his rights until an intervening life estate is extinguished and the remainderman is entitled to possession. However, once the statute of limitations has commenced to run, no subsequent disability will arrest it.
In Kubiszyn v. Bradley, 292 Ala. 570, 298 So.2d 9 (1974), the Alabama Supreme Court held that once the statutory period for adverse possession commences to run against a landowner, the running of the statutory period is not suspended by the subsequent creation of a life estate and remainders in the property.
Accordingly, we hold that once the statutory period for adverse possession is activated, the subsequent creation of a life estate will not suspend the running of such period.
Miller v. Leaird, 307 S.C. 56, 62-63, 413 S.E.2d 841, 844-45 (S.C. 1992) (internal citations omitted) (emphasis supplied). If Cecil and Alease began to adversely possess the property on or after the date the Peggs received title, the subsequent survey and creation of a life estate by the Peggs was not a “subsequent disability to arrest” or toll the running of the statutory period pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1-40. Id. The majority’s opinion wholly fails to address this persuasive authority from sister jurisdictions on the effect of the later filed life estate deed.
The majority’s opinion also states “the finding that defendant and/or his predecessors did not adversely possess the property after the 1965 shotgun incident until 1994 is [] supported by competent evidence” and “there is no evidence that defendant’s parents thereafter communicated with the Peggs to disclaim the life tenancy or otherwise gave notice that they were rejecting the Pegg’s permission to possess the two-acre tract.”
Defendant offered substantial evidence tending to show Cecil and Alease adversely possessed the property from 1965 to 1994. It is well-established in North Carolina that adverse possession:
*365consists in actual possession, with an intent to hold solely for the possessor to the exclusion of others, and is denoted by the exercise of acts of dominion over the land, in making the ordinary use and taking the ordinary profits of which it is susceptible in its present state, such acts to be so repeated as to show that they are done in the character of owner, in opposition to right or claim of any other person, and not merely as an occasional trespasser. It must be decided and notorious as the nature of the land will permit, affording unequivocal indication to all persons that he is exercising thereon the dominion of owner.
Locklear v. Savage, 159 N.C. 236, 237-38, 74 S.E. 347, 348 (1912). “ [Occupying land for a residence, fencing it, farming or making permanent improvements on land are ideal methods of showing actual possession ...” Webster, supra § 14-4, at 641. Here, evidence shows defendant and his parents performed many of these acts and more.
Actual Possession becomes hostile when the “use [of the property is] of such nature and exercised under such circumstances as to manifest and give notice that the use is being made under claim of right.” Dulin v. Faires, 266 N.C. 257, 261, 145 S.E.2d 873, 875 (1966).
On 3 June 1965, Paschall deeded the property to the Peggs. Defendant’s evidence showed Cecil and Alease had made permanent improvements and were living on the property as their sole residence to the exclusion of everyone else. The Peggs did not record the deed purporting to convey a life estate to Cecil and Alease in a 2.08 acre tract the Peggs had surveyed out of the property until 28 September 1965, nearly four months after they acquired title.
This evidence tends to show the Peggs recognized Cecil and Alease had and were asserting an interest in the property and the Peggs’ unilateral actions attempted to restrict and confine that interest from a five-acre fee interest to a life estate in a 2.08 acre tract. Cecil and Alease neither signed the survey nor the deed purporting to convey the life estate. Further, when the Peggs attempted to deliver this deed to Cecil and Alease, Cecil retrieved a loaded shotgun, pointed it at Carl Pegg, and stated, “he didn’t want to hear nothing [Pegg] had to say, to get out of his house or otherwise [Cecil] was going to shoot him.” (Emphasis supplied). The Peggs never returned to the property after this incident, did nothing to assert or protect their record ownership in the property, or seek to remove Cecil and Alease from the property.
*366Cecil and Alease actually, continuously, and exclusively occupied the land as their principle residence. In January 1986, Cecil and Alease borrowed $7,000.00 through a line of credit deed of trust to make improvements to the property and to buy a mobile home as a replacement residence. In 1992, Cecil and Alease borrowed an additional $15,000.00 for the purpose of making improvements to their new residence purchased in 1986. These improvements included adding a permanent room onto the mobile home. Finally, Cecil, Alease, and defendant paid the taxes associated with the 2.08 acre tract of property.
Upon remand, the trial court utterly failed to address and adjudicate this evidence which could support a finding and conclusion that Cecil and Alease exercised continuous, open,. exclusive, actual, and notorious “acts of dominion over the land” from 1965 to 1994. Locklear, 159 N.C. at 237-38, 74 S.E. at 348. The trial court’s order is devoid of any findings of fact or conclusions of law regarding the evidence concerning events that occurred during this time period other than the “shotgun” incident.
“[Successive adverse users in privity with prior adverse users can tack successive adverse possessions of land so as to aggregate the prescriptive period of twenty years.” Dickinson v. Pake, 284 N.C. 576, 585, 201 S.E.2d 897, 903 (1974) (citation omitted). “There is [] privity of possession between an initial adverse possessor who lived upon land with his family and the members of his family who continued to occupy the land after his death by descent.” Webster, supra § 14-9, at 654 (citing Vanderbilt v. Chapman, 172 N.C. 809, 90 S.E. 993 (1916)).
The trial court’s conclusion numbered 3 states, “[defendant] has occupied the two acre tract adversely since the death of his mother in 1994 he has had no color of title and has not adversely possessed said property for a sufficient time to gain title by adverse possession.” If the trial court finds that Cecil and Alease adversely possessed the property on or after the date the Peggs received title and the running of the statutory period was not suspended by the subsequent survey and purported creation by the Peggs of a life estate, defendant presented sufficient evidence of tacking to satisfy the requisite statutory period of twenty years for adverse possession.
The trial court made no findings of fact and conclusions of law regarding a dispositive issue on prior remand: whether Cecil and Alease adversely possessed the property on the date the Peggs *367received title, and their status on the property for nearly four months prior to the recordation of a deed purporting to grant them a life estate in the more than two acres the Peggs had surveyed out of the parent tract. Defendant presented substantial evidence and argument on this issue. This issue was previously mandated to the trial court to address on remand, and should be again.
V. Conclusion
The trial court failed to address and make required findings of fact and conclusions of law on whether Cecil and Alease were adversely possessing the property on the date the Peggs received title and failed to adjudicate and resolve factual issues raised by the evidence. The trial court’s 6 October 2006 order should be vacated and remanded once again for additional findings of fact and conclusions of law concerning defendant’s adverse possession claim in accordance with the previous unanimous opinion of this Court and this opinion. I respectfully dissent.