[blood boils]

"DipodomysDeserti" (dipodomysdeserti) 01/19/2017 at 14:40 • Filed to: None

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Things like this reaaalllllly piss me off. For those of you unfamiliar with land law, we have various statutes within the United States that allow people to take other people’s land. For those interested in the subject, Google the terms “adverse possession” and “quiet title”. The laws between states vary a bit. In my state, you can occupy someone’s land, and if it is obvious you’re doing so, the land becomes yours if the original land owner doesn’t say anything within a certain amount of time (6-10 years depending where you are). This process is known as adverse possession. I’m not a lawyer, and it can get a bit more complicated than this, but I’ve had to deal with this issue, so I do have some education on the subject. Now, in a densely populated city that’s kind of hard to do. However, we have lots of open space here, thus making it fairly easy to take someone’s land. If someone has taken land through adverse possession, it legally becomes theirs. However, a landowner may find out later on, and try to occupy the land or retain the title to the land. In this case, the adverse possessor can file a quiet title lawsuit to force the original landowner to hand over the title (quiet as in it quiets all other claims on the land). What really sucks about this in my state is that if the original land owner loses the quiet title lawsuit, they have to pay all the plaintiff’s legal fees. This gives a huge advantage to people that have money, as lawsuits are expensive.

Now I’m not saying these types of laws are always bad, or always good. I live in a state where large, rich landowners took land from people already living there who had no concept of “property”. These lands now legally belong to the large landowners, and I would have no problem if the original inhabitants pulled a Judo move and adversely possessed them. That’s a little background on the issue. Now to what I’m pissed off about.

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It seems Mark Zuckerberg bought up a bunch of land on the north shore of Kauai. Kauai, for those of you that haven’t been there, is a sparsely populated island known for it’s natural beauty. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! Now, this parts of this land that Marky Mark “bought” were already owned by Hawaiians. In fact, some of the parcels had been owned for over a century, having been passed down through generations. So what has the ‘ol Zuckerbro decided to do? File a quiet title lawsuit against these hundred or so Hawaiians in order to gain title to their parcels. Now, if you decide to settle a quiet title lawsuit, then the plaintiff has to compensate you for the land. However, unless you can afford a lawyer to negotiate with Zuckerberg’s lawyer, common sense says you’re probably going to get fucked over. If you decide you don’t want to get rid of your land, then you have to go to court in order to defend your ownership rights against Mark fucking Zuckerberg, a billionaire tech bro from Palo Alto. Fuck this guy.

*This isn’t meant to be a political/social/whatever post of any kind. This just really pissed me off and I needed a constructive way to blow off some steam.

jimz > DipodomysDeserti 01/19/2017 at 14:44

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Now, in a densely populated city that’s kind of hard to do.

“adverse possession” of dwellings is usually called “squatting.” It’s actually been a sporadic problem in Detroit.

atfsgeoff > DipodomysDeserti 01/19/2017 at 14:47

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cliff notes: money is power. Theft is legal as long as it’s done with expensive lawyers.

diplodicus > jimz 01/19/2017 at 14:51

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They just need a Charlie Leduff in Kauai.

ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) > DipodomysDeserti 01/19/2017 at 14:52

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Also he’s making the right kinds of noises about running for Pres in 2020.

I agree that Hawaii should belong to the Hawaiians.

I will also wait to form an opinion about him as a potential PoTUS until such time as he is a candidate and we know his stance on various issues. I’m guessing if he does run, it will be as a Libertarian.

DipodomysDeserti > jimz 01/19/2017 at 14:52

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Not always. I bought my house from the original owner, who was an old widow. Her neighbor was an asshole, and built a dividing wall over her property, thus cutting her off from about 800 square feet of land. She didn’t realize, as she was old and trusted her neighbor. My title guy and realtor missed this, but I discovered it when I went to build a garage. I tried to settle the matter amicably with my neighbor (who uses the house as a vacation property and lives in a $1.5 million house in Florida), and she responded by letting me pay for all the surveying and then suing me for a quiet title. Now my lot is 800 square feet less than the one I thought I paid for.

You generally have to occupy the property for a decade or so. If you can live in a building for a decade without the owner noticing...sounds like you have an absentee land owner who’s letting a building rot, thus bringing down everyone’s real estate values.

RallyWrench > DipodomysDeserti 01/19/2017 at 14:54

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And the fucking of Hawaii by asshole white people continues. That’s a special kind of bullshit, and I hope they fight in every way possible.

DipodomysDeserti > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) 01/19/2017 at 14:56

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The problem is no one is really a “Hawaiian” anymore, so you have to be careful with the nativist type stuff. There are only about fifty people left who are true full blooded “Hawaiians” and they all live on Niihau. Everyone else has mixed heritage.

There’s a right way, and a wrong way to live somewhere that isn’t your homeland. Pushing people around with money, and taking up huge swaths of land that you can’t possible use in a place with limited land is the very wrong way.

DipodomysDeserti > RallyWrench 01/19/2017 at 14:57

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I’d also like to point out that George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio own large estates in this same area. This area is also the most lush on the island, bordering the Na Pali coast.

DipodomysDeserti > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) 01/19/2017 at 14:59

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I think you’re right about him being a Libertarian, but I think he’ll run as a Democrat. I think voters are being played right now by the extremely rich into thinking they’re being given opposing choices.

DipodomysDeserti > atfsgeoff 01/19/2017 at 14:59

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Correct. I don’t want to come off as some BernieBro type, because I’m not. I recognize these truths, and act accordingly.

RallyWrench > DipodomysDeserti 01/19/2017 at 15:02

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Acquired by the same means, forcing natives out? I don’t care about any philanthropy that they may hide behind, it’s this kind of quiet shit that tells you what they’re made of.

Sneaky Pete > DipodomysDeserti 01/19/2017 at 15:03

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Oprah owns a large chunk of land on Maui, but she’s not a white dude...

DipodomysDeserti > RallyWrench 01/19/2017 at 15:09

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I know nothing about how they got it. There’s only one main road on that part of the island, with mostly local families living there. However, at night you can see light from a few houses up on the mountain.

Here’s a rad rainbow that greeted me one morning.

vondon302 > DipodomysDeserti 01/19/2017 at 15:16

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Tech tycoons are the new robber barons.

MrDakka > DipodomysDeserti 01/19/2017 at 15:26

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There can only be one Marky Mark

RallyWrench > DipodomysDeserti 01/19/2017 at 15:36

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I don’t really have any desire to be a tourist in Hawaii because California offers a lot of the same stuff (just with colder water) and I don’t want to be a dumbass Haole. That said, I surf, hike, and mountain bike and all those things are world class on Kauai in particular so if I was going to go, it’d be there.

DipodomysDeserti > RallyWrench 01/19/2017 at 15:48

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I never wanted to go to Hawaii for the same reasons you listed. Eventually my wife convinced me to go and I’ve been back twice. We don’t really do the whole tourist thing though. We camp out on the beach, hike, and drink rum.

DipodomysDeserti > MrDakka 01/19/2017 at 15:50

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You don’t have to worry about him building a house in Kauai. There’s no way he’d live around Hawaiians.