Surveyor flagged it. Title insurer excluded it. He bulldozed anyway. Guess how that ended
A Spokane developer razed a neighbor's fence, pet cemetery and memorial tree. A Washington appeals court just said the land was never his to touch.
In a decision handed down on April 16, 2026, the Washington Court of Appeals, Division Three, ruled that a Spokane County homeowner had quietly won title to a disputed strip of land years before a developer clearcut it, reversing a lower court and reinstating claims that could prove costly for the buyer who ignored every warning sign.
The story begins in 2006, when Robert Sydow built a fence to mark the northern edge of roughly two acres he expected to receive from a family-run company, Medar Properties Washington LLC. The enclosed ground was more than landscape. It held family memorials, a pet cemetery, and trees where Sydow's mother's ashes were later spread. His sister had even built a perch in one tree to watch golfers.
Almost immediately, the fence became a problem. Medar and a prospective buyer, Star Saylor Investments LLC, believed Sydow had placed it roughly 60 feet too far north. Lawyers exchanged sharp letters. Sydow eventually signed an offer agreeing to let Medar move the fence. It never happened.
When Medar formally split the parcel in 2008, the recorded deeds and surveys described a boundary that did not match the fence. Sydow took title to 1.76 acres on paper. On the ground, he kept using everything inside the fence, mowing, clearing, installing wildlife cameras, electrifying sections of the fence, and posting no-trespassing signs. That routine continued, undisturbed, for roughly a dozen years.
Douglass Properties LLC entered the picture in 2017, under contract to buy the adjoining 14.84-acre parcel for an apartment project. Its own surveyor flagged the fence as an encroachment. The title insurer went further, excluding what it called a "MAJOR FENCE ENCROACHMENT" from coverage. Douglass closed anyway in March 2018.
Then, in December 2020, Douglass entered without warning and clearcut the disputed strip. Down came the fence, the pet cemetery, the wildlife habitat, the chairs, and the tree where Sydow's mother's ashes had been spread.
Sydow sued, claiming he owned the land by adverse possession, a doctrine that lets someone who openly occupies another's property for ten years acquire legal title. A trial court sided with Douglass. The appeals court did not.
Chief Judge Staab, writing for a unanimous panel, found that every successive owner, Medar, Saylor, and Douglass, knew Sydow was possessing the land up to the fence. A change of ownership, the court explained, does not restart the clock. Douglass had actual knowledge before it bought, which doomed its fallback defenses of equitable estoppel and the common grantor doctrine. Whether a boundary marker had been moved, and by whom, did not matter. What mattered was the fence, plainly visible for more than a decade.
The court ordered partial summary judgment for Sydow, reinstated his claims for trespass, timber trespass, negligence, and emotional distress, and awarded him attorneys' fees, with the amount to be determined on remand. The panel pointed to the developer's unannounced incursion and the destruction of cherished landscaping and personal property as particular grounds for the fee award under equity.
For real estate professionals, the lesson is direct. A known encroachment, flagged by a surveyor and carved out of a title policy, is not a problem that goes away at closing. Buy with your eyes open, and act accordingly. The clock does not reset when the deed changes hands.
