Idaho Senate panel backs changes in squatters' law

BOISE -- A Senate committee has recommended changing the state's adverse possession law so squatters must hold someone else's property for 20 years before they can legally call it their own.

Large timberland owners have sought the change because their holdings are too vast to watch closely.

"Forest landowners (are) growing a crop of timber that might take 50 or 80 years," said Potlatch Corp. spokesman Mark Benson of Lewiston.

Even if Potlatch could get around the thousands of miles of property lines on 670,000 acres in north-central Idaho, workers might not notice "a fence is in the wrong place," Benson said.

Idaho's law allows a person to claim land as their own under the laws of adverse possession. The squatter needs to cultivate the land, fence it off, or build on it and hold it in "open and notorious" possession for five years.

That's not enough time for large landowners to keep up with people who encroach, said Kevin Boling of Coeur d'Alene, land manager for Forest Capital Partners.

Forest Capital owns 320,000 acres of forest purchased from Crown Pacific and Louisiana Pacific.

"Our business is managing large timberland blocks over long terms," Boling said.

Recently the company lost about $39,000 and spent eight months negotiating over a few acres of land in fence line disputes.

Senate Judiciary and Rules Committee Chairman Denton Darrington, R-Declo, agreed with the law change but objected to the basic idea of adverse possession.

"It's surprising to me there is any such concept within the state of Idaho," Darrington said.

But Sen. Bart Davis, R-Idaho Falls, said sometimes there are legitimate reasons to keep adverse possession laws. For instance, landowners can make major investments on property they innocently thought was their own.

"New players come along and now I have to dismantle houses and pivots," Davis said.

Despite misgivings, Davis found the timber owners' argument persuasive.

"Five years seems a little on the short side to me," he said. "Particularly when it comes to the forest industry."

It wasn't just large timberland owners pushing for the change.

Kennon McClintock of Moyie Springs said he lost one acre from his 108 acres of timberland in an adverse possession case. The case lasted five years, cost $11,000 in attorney fees and in the end he still lost the property. He figured the one acre was worth about $15,000.

"That's a year of college for my daughter," said McClintock, president of the Idaho Forest Owners Association.

Extending the length of time to claim adverse possession is a step in the right direction, he said.

McClintock also rejected the idea that present day cases of adverse possession are innocent. He noted Internet sites that tell people how to "legally steal land."

Benson agreed it is time for landowners to modernize.

"This is the 21st century," Benson said. "It's reasonable for landowners to know where their property is."

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Ferguson may be contacted at dferguson@lmtribune.com