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CHURCH GETS INTO REAL PICKLE

In United Pickle Products Corp. v. Prayer Temple Community Church , the Appellate Division, First Department, granted a pickle company title to a parcel of land that had been owned by a church.

United Pickle Products held a lease to property located at 4370 Park Avenue in the Bronx, for use as a factory. To its north was a 25-foot square parcel, improved by a building, which was accessible only through United Pickle Product's factory.

Although owned by the Prayer Temple Community Church since 1976, United Pickle Products had exclusively used and occupied the building for storage since 1979.

When United Pickle Products brought an action to quiet title, the Bronx County Supreme Court denied the parties' motions for summary judgment but, on appeal, the Appellate Division, First Department, ruled in United Pickle's favor.

As we have previously observed, to prevail on an adverse possession claim, a party must show its possession throughout the 10-year statutory period was:

  • hostile and under claim of right;
  • actual;
  • open and notorious;
  • exclusive; and
  • continuous.

Noting that the small parcel had been improved by a structure, was walled off, and accessible only by way of United Pickle Product's space, the AD1 concluded that all the governing adverse possession elements had been fulfilled.

Its concession that it had never granted United Pickle Products permission to use the building didn't help Prayer Temple's case. (Although its Bishop claimed that the building's prior occupant, a milk distributor, had given United Pickle Products permission to use the property, the AD1 held that such "permission" would not have vitiated the hostility of United Pickle Product's possession since the milk distributor was not the property's owner.)

It seems this poor defendant never had a prayer.

To download a copy of the Appellate Division's decision, please use this link: United Pickle Products Corp. v. Prayer Temple Community

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For our other blog posts on this topic, please use this link: Adverse Possession

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