PORTLAND, Maine — The Maine Supreme Judicial Court is considering the appeal of a New York couple challenging an easement the community of Owls Head asserts it has over a strip of the couple’s waterfront property.
The town has spent more than $100,000 to defend its easement. Neighbors to the New York couple also maintain they have the right to cross the disputed strip. The state high court heard arguments on Thursday.
Attorney David Soley, who represents Darlene and Lewis Edwards III of Saugerties, New York, told the court the town erred when it approved the easement in 1986 by not describing specifically what was covered under that dedication.
Soley said the municipal government is taking away the property rights of the Edwardses by its action. He said when his clients purchased the property they had no way to know that the town would claim an easement over it.
He said soon after the owners moved into the house, the next-door neighbor would cross their property six to seven times a day and would give them nasty looks.
Owls Head’s attorney William Dale said it was clear where Coopers Beach Road and where the easement were located. Dale also argued that anyone challenging the dedication of an easement has 30 days to appeal, not 30 years.
One justice questioned Soley, asking whether the Edwardses’ legal claim should be against the title company rather than the town. Soley argued, however, that state law requires specific descriptions and none was included in the 1986 action by the town.
The Edwardses also filed a lawsuit against their title company. That case is pending in the Maine Business and Consumer Court.
Residents have voted three times at town meetings to support spending money to defend the town’s interests.
The case is at the state high court level after the New York couple filed an appeal of a decision issued in July by Justice Jeffrey Hjelm, who ruled that a public easement exists, giving the neighbors and other residents of the town of Owls Head the right to cross a 300-foot-long slice of the Edwardses’ waterfront property.
The couple argues that the easement does not exist and that the land in question is their private driveway.
The Edwardses purchased the 1.7-acre lot at the end of Coopers Beach Road in March 2011 for $274,300 after a bank foreclosed on the previous owners. Coopers Beach Road runs from North Shore Drive to near the harbor.
“Homeowners, both year-round and seasonal, have developed strong friendships with each other. As an aspect of the relationships among them, they sometimes walk on or otherwise use each other’s property. Families visited with each other, and there were neighborhood parties and events,” Hjelm stated in his ruling, also citing property records that a public easement existed.
He stated that use of the beach by local residents was a long-standing practice, ruling that the record shows the neighbors have the right to use the intertidal area of the beach that the Edwardses own, for bathing and boating purposes.
There is no timeline for when the state supreme court justices will issue a ruling on the appeal.