Author: James S. Tupitza

Over the years we have had numerous matters involving “Paper Streets” in various counties all across the street.

What is a Paper Street?  This type of street is a product of the times before municipalities enacted Subdivision and Land Development Ordinances.  At that time a landowner would simply have an engineer prepare a survey of his or her property and then lay out lots, streets and alleys.  Not every lot was built upon and not every street or alley was opened and improved.  After the streets or alleys were shown on a plan and after either the plan was recorded or a lot shown on the plan sold, public and private rights were created as a matter of law in each of the streets or alleys.

Let’s start with the public rights.  By virtue of the recording of the plan or sale of a single lot, the local municipality obtained the right to improve or open the street or alley and hold it as a public street.  No condemnation was necessary.  There was a catch.  The municipality had 21 years to improve the area, or all public rights evaporated. When the public rights evaporate, the title line of the adjoining lots MOVES to the center line of the proposed street or alley, subject to private rights.

Private rights are different from public rights.  EVERY owner of EVERY lot shown on the plan creating the streets or alleys retained the right to use the street or alley.  Because some of these streets existed only on the survey or recorded plan, they became known as paper streets. These private rights exist even though a particular owner’s lot may be 3 or 4 blocks away from the paper street.   For this reason, any time a person owning land next to a paper street wants to make a claim to the street, they must name as a mandatory party EVERY owner of EVERY lot shown on the plan.  If they cannot readily find the plan, they have to keep looking by searching title to every lot in the area until they trip on the first lot out of a common owner.

Paper streets are sometimes not logical. We recently dealt with one in Shaler Township, Allegheny County.  The street probably looked good on a flat piece of paper.  In the real world, the street dropped down a cliff onto Route 8. The same thing occurs across the state.  Fortunately, modern subdivision ordinances are preventing the creation of new paper streets.

What do you do if you have a paper street or alley behind your house?   First of all, you have the right to record a deed from yourself to yourself, moving the lot line to the middle of the paper street.  But what if you want to block off or terminate the private rights of your neighbors? Our Courts have held that it is not easy to do this.  Generally, you need to prove a act by each holder of the private rights which indicates an intent by that person to terminate their own rights.  Absent that, you need to do something to absolutely block the paper street.

Is a fence or garden enough?  Our appellate courts have said no.  So, what does work?  We had a case in Chester County where we represented a church with a paper alley separating the church building from a buildable area to the rear.  We wanted to make the termination of private rights clear. Since the issuance of a building permit may not be denied for title issues, our client built an addition to the church across the entire alley.  It was constructed in a manner that the portion on the alley could be removed if a neighbor raised a fuss.  No when raised a fuss until more than 21 years later when one neighbor wanted to open the alley and put in a garage.  OOOPS.  She was too late.  In another case a client was successful because they had created a blockage using Jersey Barriers.

We have one now in Lebanon County.  A property owner sought to claim that by mowing the lawn on the paper street and only paving part of it, he had obtained title by adverse possession.  The Court ruled that he did have title absolutely and that the Order did not interfere with easement rights.  The problem is the title records.  A Court Order granting a party title in the paper street would generally be interpreted by the public (and a prospective buyer) as terminating private rights.  The Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits this result, but there is nothing in the public record to avoid litigation over this issue.  We were brought in to handle the appeal to the Superior Court.

Lower Merion Township, in Montgomery County, is riddled with paper streets. While there has been some litigation over these streets, most has been avoided because of the number of parties one would be forced to name in litigation.

With great sadness, we announce that we have lost one of our key people this week. Viola “Oley” Whitfield joined our team in 1977. She cleaned our offices, kept them sanitary and always had a smile and kind word. She will be sorely missed

VIOLA’S OBITUARY

Life began for Viola “Oley” in West Chester, Pennsylvania on October 28, 1932. She was born the daughter of the late Julius Anderson and Gertrude Saddler Hill. On April 15, 2021 God called Viola home peacefully passing away in West Chester,Pa. She was the last of 10 children.

Viola was a student in the West Chester school system. Viola then went on to work at New England Cleaners and Orth Cleaners as a presser, also Viola took pride in her cleaning job. She was able to clean for West Chester University and the offices of James Tupitza, Saling,Litvin, & Hambleton and Dr. McCausland.

She leaves to cherish her memories 2 sons: Gregory Whitfield of West Chester, Pa and David Whitfield(Vida) of Downingtown, Pa. 2 daughters: Zelda Whitfield of Coatesville,Pa, Eva Whitfield-Scott of Coatesville,Pa. 13 grandchildren,35 great-grandchildren. Her lifelong best friend Emily Purnell. As well as many nephews, nieces, cousins and friends. Preceded in death by her parents Julius Anderson Sr & Gertrude Hill, her son : Duke A.Whitfield and her daughter Deborah Lee Anderson.

Last year we won a case at the trial level where Deutsche Bank, represented by a very large New York law firm, assisted by one of Philadelphia’s largest law firms sued our client. The case was an attempt at collecting on a claim of $350,000,000.00. ($350M) The Superior Court upheld the lower court and our victory. Deutsche Bank appealed to the PA Supreme Court, which refused to accept their appeal. David vs. Goliath!!!

West Chester, March 30, 2020

We have noticed many businesses were not ready for a disaster. Their phones are being forwarded to an employee’s cell phone. They cannot get at the files on the in-house servers. The have not figured our how to meet with clients, except by phone.

We are fully open for business. Many years ago we abandoned premises base phones in favor of Voice Over IP (VOIP) phones. This enables us to have 100% access to all features of our phone system from anywhere. That’s anywhere in the world. We took our office paperless so all files have been scanned. While we still have on premises servers, they are mirrored in the cloud and were scheduled for retirement April 30.

More importantly we have fully implemented Microsoft Teams® as a primary communication and collaboration tool. We are able to communicate with clients in a secure manner, even when they have Gmail accounts (where Google reads every email and sells the data). All of our Teams® messages are fully encrypted end to end. Teams® allows us to have video conferences and to share what we are seeing on our computers or theirs.

Our related title insurance agency is conducting closing using a combination of technology and social distancing. As an insurance agency it is exempt from the governor’s order to close.

Its a whole new world, but I thank our staff for adopting new technology.

Technology will keep us open and serving.

The health and safety of our clients and staff is our foremost concern during the Coronavirus Outbreak. We will continue to provide legal services, but not in the traditional, come in and meet with your lawyer, mode.

ALL client conferences will be conducted using phones or our video and document sharing technology. Here is how it will work:

— Mary will be available to answer the phones. She may be at her home, sitting at the kitchen table, but it does not matter. Our entire staff is equipped with phones that work over the internet (VOIP Phones). That is how they work in the office and they work equally well at home.

— We have the ability to create a Microsoft Teams® site for every client. What does that mean? First of all you do not need to buy anything. Of course, you will need a home computer with internet access. At the appropriate time we will send an you an invite to your team. You will be able to download the Teams® software free of charge. Within the site you will be able to upload documents and download documents from your file. You will be able to securely message us, with all messages encrypted end to end. If we schedule a conference with you, you will have the ability to have a video face to face meeting (or you may turn your camera off). The advantage of a video conference will be the ability to share documents and images appearing on both of our computer screens.

This will take some adjustment, but it is better than simply closing the doors. If you have questions, call us at 610-696-2600.

Property Owners may be Holding the Bag

The sudden closure of Lehman Property Management may leave owners of 329 Harrisburg area properties holding the bag. They will be looking for their rents, their security deposits and more. The owner, Glenn Lehman suggests he “found irregularities” in the accounting process and then laid off 24 employees. That tells me lots of money is missing and he will play the delay game. If this was a small irregularity, those 24 people would be correcting everything and producing revised reports to the owners.

Property management companies are like brokerage companies. They must have a broker of record who supervises the conduct. Look elsewhere on the this web page and you will see we already sued that broker and collected $1M this year from her insurance company. We have 2 other cases pending.

Because this case will involve numerous small claims, the owners must band together and get a 150 car freight train on the tracks pursuing the broker and the company.

There is a private group in Facebook for victims of this company. Members of that group will be having a legal conference call Monday August 19 at 3 p.m.