East 13th Street Homesteaders' Coalition v. Lower East Side Coalition Housing Development
230 A.D.2d 622, 646 N.Y.S.2d 324, 1996 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 8340 (1996)
Premium Feature
Subscribe to Lexplug to listen to the Case Podcast.
Rule of Law:
To establish the 'continuous possession' element of an adverse possession claim, a group of successive, unrelated occupants must demonstrate an unbroken chain of privity between them; intermittent occupation by various individuals, especially when interrupted by the true owner's efforts to oust them, is insufficient.
Facts:
- The City of New York acquired title to four abandoned buildings on East 13th Street.
- By the early 1980s, the buildings had fallen into disrepair and were considered a neighborhood hazard.
- Between 1984 and 1994, various individuals, as part of the East 13th St. Homesteaders’ Coalition, began occupying the vacant buildings.
- During this ten-year period, the City of New York sealed the buildings on numerous occasions to prevent entry.
- The occupants repeatedly broke the seals, sometimes using a sledgehammer, to re-enter and continue their occupation.
- Successive occupants of apartments within the buildings often had no contact with each other, and some apartments were left vacant for periods of time.
- The City later developed a federally subsidized plan to rehabilitate the buildings for low-income housing and sought to remove the current occupants.
Procedural Posture:
- The East 13th St. Homesteaders’ Coalition sued the City of New York in the Supreme Court, New York County (a trial-level court), to prevent their eviction.
- Petitioners moved for a preliminary injunction to bar the City from using self-help to remove them during the litigation.
- The Supreme Court granted the petitioners' motion for a preliminary injunction.
- The City of New York, as respondents, appealed the trial court's order granting the injunction to the Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department (an intermediate appellate court).
Premium Content
Subscribe to Lexplug to view the complete brief
You're viewing a preview with Rule of Law, Facts, and Procedural Posture
Issue:
Does a group of occupants claiming title to city-owned buildings by adverse possession demonstrate a likelihood of success on the merits sufficient for a preliminary injunction when their possession was frequently interrupted and lacked privity between successive occupants?
Opinions:
Majority - Milonas, J.P.
No. A group of occupants does not demonstrate a likelihood of success on an adverse possession claim where they fail to show ten years of continuous possession. To obtain a preliminary injunction, petitioners must show a likelihood of success on their adverse possession claim, which requires clear and convincing evidence of actual, open, notorious, exclusive, continuous, and hostile possession for ten years. The petitioners' claim fails on the element of continuity. Their possession was repeatedly interrupted by the City's actions of sealing the buildings, which they had to forcibly overcome. Furthermore, the petitioners cannot 'tack' their individual periods of possession together because there was no privity—a recognized legal connection—between the successive, unrelated occupants. This situation is distinct from precedents like Ray v. Beacon Hudson Mtn. Corp., which involved a single claimant over a long period, not an 'oft-interrupted number of unrelated occupants.'
Dissenting - Kupferman, J.
Yes. The occupants have shown enough evidence of continuous possession to warrant a preliminary injunction pending a full trial on the merits. The dissent argued that the precedent set in Ray v. Beacon Hudson Mtn. Corp. should control, where seasonal use was deemed continuous because the claimant exercised dominion and control appropriate for the property's character. Here, the petitioners are a 'cohesive group' who made significant improvements to preserve abandoned buildings in a 'ghost town' area, which is analogous to the acts of dominion in Ray. Given that the City allowed the buildings to become a hazard and its rehabilitation plans are not yet certain, the equities favor maintaining the injunction until the adverse possession claim can be definitively resolved at trial.
Analysis:
This decision significantly clarifies the 'continuous possession' and 'tacking' requirements for adverse possession, particularly for squatter coalitions or homesteading groups. By demanding a formal 'unbroken chain of privity' between successive occupants, the court makes it substantially more difficult for unrelated individuals to collectively acquire title through adverse possession. The ruling distinguishes such group-squatting arrangements from the more flexible standard of continuity applied to a single claimant, as seen in Ray, thereby limiting the expansion of that precedent. This case serves as a strong barrier against adverse possession claims by loosely affiliated groups whose occupancy is periodically challenged by the title owner.
