Quick v. Nitschelm

Citations

• 139 Ill. 251
• 28 N.E. 926

Syllabus

<p>1. Boundary—division lines—settled by parol agreement of adjoining land owners. 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 and the making of improvements, will be binding and conclusive, and can not afterward be disputed.</p> <p>2. But such an agreement must be clearly proven, and can not be implied from slight acts of the parties, though it may sometimes be implied from their unequivocal acts. There must have been a dispute as to the boundary lines, and the parties acting must have had authority to do so.</p> <p>3. Same—power of agent to establish. Power in an agent to sell two ■or more adjoining lots does not involve and imply authority to make a parol agreement as to the boundaries between the lots. A power to sell ■does not authorize a partition of the property.</p> <p>4. So one acting as agent of a non-resident owner of lots to sell the same, in effecting a sale of a lot represented that a fence on an adjoining lot held by a third person constituted the eastern boundary of the lot sold, in pursuance of which representation the purchaser, in fencing ¡her lot on the west, encroached eleven feet on the lot west of the one ■bought, which her grantor owned. At that time there was no dispute ns to the location of the lots, or their boundaries or division lines, nor was it shown that the agent had any authority to do anything more than to sell, or had knowledge that the fence first above named was not on the line of such lot. It was held, that there was no estoppel upon & subsequent purchaser of the lot on the west, to prevent him from showing the true line between the two lots.</p> <p>5. Same—estoppel in pais. Estoppels in pais, affecting permanent interests in land, are available only in courts of equity; and if one party makes representations, either in words or conduct, which induce . the other party to accept a particular line as the co