As law students learn during their first-year course on property rights, there is a centuries-old common law doctrine called “adverse possession,” under which a person may actually acquire legal title to another person's property by, among other things, openly occupying the property unchallenged over an extended period of time. While this archaic legal doctrine continues to exist in some form in virtually every state, in urban centers like New York City—where every inch matters and property rights are meticulously protected—property owners have long discounted the threat of a claim of adverse possession.

And yet, a series of recent cases demonstrate that claims of adverse possession are alive and well in New York City. In one such case, Children's Magical Garden, Inc. v. Norfolk St. Dev., LLC, members of a 30-year-old community garden on a vacant lot on Manhattan's Lower East Side made a claim of adverse possession, thus grinding to a halt the record property owner's attempt to build a six-story residential building on its lot. In a decision issued in July, a New York appellate court upheld a determination that the community garden has at least adequately pleaded in its complaint that it continuously exercised a claim of right over the garden for more than 10 years, and that it did so openly by erecting a fence and maintaining a locked gate around the garden, a necessary element to successfully claiming adverse possession. While the case will continue, and there is no guarantee that the community garden will ultimately prevail, it (and cases like it) are cautionary tales for New York property owners.