It started with a stone wall and ended with a call for legislative reform
A borrower can legally own land that their title policy does not cover. A Massachusetts appeals court just made that official.
In Lester v. Old Republic Title Insurance Company, decided April 10, 2026, the Massachusetts Appeals Court sided with Old Republic in a dispute that started with a stone wall and ended with a ruling mortgage professionals cannot afford to ignore.
The backstory: Douglas Scott Lester and John Tyler Mandeville purchased property on Hillcrest Acres Lane in Westport, Massachusetts, in 2013 and obtained a title insurance policy from Old Republic. The policy described the insured land as sitting "on the northerly side of Hillcrest Acres Lane, so called, (private way - min 40 feet wide)."
Six years later, neighbors sued over the owners' restoration of a stone wall that sat south of the property's deeded boundaries but north of the actual road. The owners turned to Old Republic for a defense. Old Republic said no — the land under the wall fell outside the policy.
Here is where it gets interesting. A judge in the neighbor dispute ruled that the owners did, in fact, own the land under the stone wall. Their ownership came through Massachusetts' derelict fee statute, which presumes that a deed for property next to a road also conveys the grantor's interest in the land under that road. So the owners had the land. They just did not have the insurance.
The owners filed suit against Old Republic on March 4, 2022, seeking coverage, reimbursement of legal fees, and pressing claims including breach of contract and violations of consumer protection laws. A Superior Court judge granted summary judgment to Old Republic on every count.
The Appeals Court affirmed. Writing for the majority, Justice D'Angelo held that the derelict fee statute governs deeds — not insurance contracts. The policy's language was unambiguous: it defined Hillcrest Acres Lane as at least forty feet wide, and the stone wall fell within that width. A separate exclusion in the policy reinforced the same result. The court found no breach, no bad faith, and no consumer protection violation.
But the story does not end there. Justice Wood, concurring in the outcome, urged the Massachusetts Legislature or the state's insurance regulators to change the rules. Wood pointed to California, where title insurance is understood to extend to ownership interests that attach to insured property by operation of law. Wood called the gap exposed by this case "a problem worth addressing."
For mortgage lenders, title agents, and closing teams, the takeaway is practical and immediate. The legal description in a title policy — not the borrower's full ownership under state law — defines what is actually insured. In Massachusetts and any state with a similar statute, that gap is now a confirmed risk. And with a sitting appellate justice publicly calling for reform, it may not stay quiet for long.
