The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in favor of Middletown Township yesterday in a tangled dispute over a plot of land on Shadow Lake.
Upshot: the town will have undisputed ownership of a 1.08-acre lakefront property, and the guy who’s been paying taxes on it for years and wanted to build a house on it will now go back to a lower court to get his money back.
Today’s Asbury Park Press has a story. From the Press:
“This is good for the township,” township attorney Bernard Reilly said. “The public has a guaranteed open space and public park with access to Shadow Lake.”
Frankly, the background on this case is almost too complicated to digest here, but it involves a long-overlooked parcel from a 1929 subdivision that was intended by the owners to be dedicated parkland. Over time, the parcel became “attached” to an adjoining residential property, a fact that only came to light in 1988.
Efforts to collect unpaid taxes on the land, and subsequent sale of a tax certificate, resulted in Richard Simon laying claim to land, a claim that was overturned by the top court.
Here’s a link to the the court opinion: Download a8506_middletown_v_simon.pdf
