Agenda - Planning Commission - 04/03/2014

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Zoning Bulletin March 25, 2014 I Volume 8 I Issue 6 NEW HAMPSHIRE (08/21/13, as amended 02/06/14)—This case ad- dressed the issue of whether landowners' conduct merged adjacent lots. The Background/Facts: In 2004, Steven and Philomena Landrigan (the "Landrigans") purchased land (the "Property") in the Town of Newbury (the "Town"). At the time of the purchase, the Landrigans understood that they were buying a single lot. The history of the Property was as follows: In 1935, the Town deeded two contiguous lots, known as lot 3 and lot 4, as well as adjacent "cottage lots," to a private party. In 1961, that owner recorded a plan of the Property, which identified boundary lines separating the "cottage lots," but not showing any boundary line between lots 3 and 4. A portion of lot 4 was sold in 1972. As of 1973, the Town began assessing as a single lot: lot 3, the remaining portion of lot 4, the "cottage lots," and an adjacent triangular parcel of land that had been deeded to the owner. After the Landrigans purchased the Property, they applied for building permits, and, in doing so, described the Property as a single lot. In 2006, the Landrigans recorded a survey plat showing lots 3-and 4 separated by a dotted line labeled "Old Line." Then, in 2010, the Landrigans executed two deeds purporting to transfer the Property to themselves as separate lots. In response to the deeding of the Property as separate lots, the Town filed a legal action against the Landrigans claiming they had subdivided their Property without prior planning board approval in violation of state statutory law, RSA 676:16. Under that law, any person who transfers land in a town without first obtaining any required subdivision approval from the planning board is subject to a penalty of $1,000 for each lot transferred. The Landrigans contended that they did not need subdivision approval because the Property always had been and continued to be two lots. The trial court found that "[g]iventhe manner in which the current and former owners ha[d] treated the [P]roperty, it ha[d] been merged and treated as a single lot for 50 years, or more." The trial court concluded that the conduct of the Landrigans and the previous owners of the Prop- erty had merged the lots under the docirine of merger by conduct. The Landrigans appealed. DECISION: Judgment of superior court affirmed. The Supreme Court of New Hampshire held that the conduct of the landowners —including the Landrigans and their predecessors in title -in abandoning or abolishing the individual lot lines constituted merger of the contiguous lots by conduct. In so holding, the court explained that, under the common law doc- trine of merger by conduct, landowners can "effectuate a merger of con- tiguous, non-confoiining lots, independent of any town ordinance," "by ©2014 Thomson Reuters 3