City of Bloomington v. Bloomington Cemetery Ass'n

Citations

• 126 Ill. 221
• 18 N.E. 298

Syllabus

<p>1. Boundaries—division lines, by parol agreement. It is competent for the owners of adjoining lands to adopt the line established by a prior survey, as their division line, and if they do so adopt any such line, whether the correct one or not, by unequivocal acts, from which an agreement may be implied, and fence with reference thereto, they will be conclusively bound by their agreement, and thereafter estopped from disputing such line.</p> <p>2. While title to real estate can not be transferred by parol, yet the owners of adjoining tracts of land may, by parol agreement, settle and establish permanently a boundary line between their lands, which, when followed by possession according to the line so agreed upon, such fixing of the division line will be binding and conclusive, not only upon them, but upon their grantees.</p> <p>3. Dedication—of the proof required. A dedication of private property to public uses will not be held to be established except upon clear and satisfactory proof, either of an actual dedication, or of such acts or declarations as will equitably estop the owner from denying such intention.</p> <p>4. Unless a land owner, by some unequivocal overt acts or declarations given of his intention to have a strip thereof included in a street, and thereby inducing the public to use and a city to improve the same as part of the street, he will not be estopped from denying a dedication. Mere non-action will not raise an implication of an intention to dedicate private property to public use, nor will it estop the owner to deny such intention.</p>