Law of the Horse Stable

I was raised in a ranching town within a small HOA-regulated neighborhood. As a kid, I spent countless afternoons playing tennis on our neighborhood court. Just beyond the court stretched an open field that all the homeowners shared as common property. But the portion of the field closest to the court told a different story. One of our neighbors had enclosed it with a fence, built horse stables, and kept his horses there. He maintained the enclosure, controlled access to it, and used the space as if it were his own.

As it turned out, a detail-oriented general contractor had purchased a nearby lot and, while preparing to build his home, reviewed the neighborhood’s CC&Rs. In doing so, he noticed that the fenced horse enclosure sat squarely on common-area land. The contractor discovered that the horse owner neither held title to that portion of the property nor had explicit permission from the HOA to fence it off or keep horses there. After a contentious HOA meeting, the other HOA members demanded that he remove the fence and vacate the land. The horse owner initially refused, and arrogantly claimed that, through years of exclusive use, enclosure, and control, he had acquired the land by adverse possession.

The doctrine of adverse possession as articulated in Cahill v. Morrow provides insights into the horse owner’s claim. In that case, a homeowner claimed title to a neighboring lot through decades of use, including maintaining the land, planting vegetation, hosting gatherings, and treating it as her own. Over the years, however, this homeowner made several offers to purchase the property from her neighbor. The court held that “obtaining title by adverse possession requires actual, open, notorious, hostile, continuous, and exclusive use of property under a claim of right for at least a period of ten years.” Furthermore, hostility requires “that the claimant is holding the property with an intent that is adverse to the interests of the true owner…accompanied by use of the property in an objectively observable manner that is inconsistent with the rights of the record owner.” Here, the homeowner did not satisfy the hostility requirement because her offers to purchase the land showed that she recognized her neighbor’s superior right to his land. Ultimately, the homeowner did not adversely possess her neighbor’s property.

Cahill provides insights into whether the horse owner adversely possessed part of the HOA’s common area. “Obtaining title by adverse possession requires actual, open, notorious, hostile, continuous, and exclusive use of property under a claim of right for at least a period of ten years.” In the horse owner’s case, he satisfied the actual use of land requirement because other homeowners also kept horses on their own properties, and we lived in a ranching area. The horse enclosure he built was open and notorious because all the homeowners passed by the horses each day. Additionally, the enclosure was exclusive to the horse owner because it prevented the other homeowners from accessing that part of the common area. Last, the horse owner kept his horses there for over 10 years showing continuous use of the land.

The central issue is whether a co-owner of common property can satisfy hostility requirement against fellow co-owners. On one hand, the horse owner’s conduct appears hostile because he built a fence, constructed stables, and treated the land as his own without permission, sending a clear signal inconsistent with the HOA’s ownership. But in the context of common-area property, that conclusion may be less certain because all the homeowners have a right to use shared land and did use the surrounding common areas. Because hostility is unclear, it is difficult to tell whether a court would award adverse possession.

Although this dispute was settled, allowing the horse owner to acquire title would undermine the collective property rights that define the HOA’s common ownership and erode the shared expectations of all residents. Adverse possession resolves boundary uncertainty and rewards productive use. In theory, the HOA should police boundaries in this scenario. In reality, common ownership can create inaction, and adverse possession may be able to reward the person who treats common land like a single owner. Where ownership is shared, the law should recognize that inaction is often a function of structure (like an HOA board), and adverse possession should not convert a collective action problem into a forfeiture of common area property.

Braxton Johnson is a student at the American University Washington College of Law.

Image: Darius Soodmand, White-striped horse in an enclosure (Unsplash).