The Quiet Title Action That Didn’t Quiet the Easement

An abutter filed a quiet-title action without naming a neighbor who claimed an easement over the disputed property. The case gave the New Hampshire Supreme Court an opportunity to apply its recent estoppel-by-deed jurisprudence to a tangled chain of title and conflicting plans. The result serves as a reminder that decades of survey errors and conveyancing confusion may matter less than what the original deeds said.

Background

The plaintiff (Owner) and her neighbors (Neighbors) owned properties in Durham between Route 4 and Little Bay. ‍

The dispute concerned an easement running north-south from Cedar Point Road toward Little Bay.

The properties originated from a larger tract once owned by Mary Ackroyd. After Ackroyd conveyed several lots, she retained a strip of land between two parcels. Over time, deeds and plans referenced a right-of-way, but uncertainty arose over its exact location and who owned the land beneath it.

Owner purchased her property believing it benefited from access over the right-of-way. She and her family used the route to reach Little Bay and a school bus stop. The issue became more significant when Owner sought to subdivide her property and use the right-of-way for access to one of the proposed lots.

Neighbors opposed the proposal. They later installed a fence and posted a no-trespassing sign.

Neighbors also filed a quiet-title action concerning the strip of land over which the right-of-way ran. Despite knowing that Owner claimed rights in the area, they did not name her in the action.

The resulting order granted Neighbors “fee simple” ownership of the strip, effectively extinguishing Owner’s easement claim.

After learning of the proceeding, Owner successfully asked the court to revise the order to preserve her claim. She then filed a separate action to establish her easement rights.

Superior Court

Following a bench trial, the superior court found that the original deeds treated the retained strip as the right-of-way benefiting Owner's property. Because the prior owners had conveyed the adjoining property by reference to that right-of-way, their successors could not later deny the easement. ‍

The court concluded that the disputed parcel consisted of land retained by Mary Ackroyd and that the relevant historical deeds treated the parcel as a right-of-way. The superior court also found that Neighbors had pursued the earlier quiet-title action to extinguish Owner's easement claim. Based on that conduct, the court awarded attorney's fees.

On reconsideration, however, the court narrowed the fee award. It determined that Owner could recover the costs associated with having to commence the separate lawsuit, but not the broader costs of litigating the easement dispute because much of that work would have been required regardless.

Neighbors appealed the superior court's rulings regarding the easement and attorney's fees. Owner cross-appealed the decision to limit the fee award.

Supreme Court

The Supreme Court focused on what the original deeds conveyed and what land the prior owners retained. ‍

Neighbors relied heavily on historical plans that appeared to place the right-of-way elsewhere. But those plans conflicted with the governing deeds and contained significant errors, so the Court found them unreliable evidence of the boundaries.

The deeds told a clearer story. The owners of the larger tract retained the strip beneath the right-of-way but later conveyed adjoining property using the right-of-way as a boundary. Under New Hampshire law, that conveyance carried with it at least a presumed grant of an easement in the right-of-way.

Because the deeds themselves recognized the right-of-way, those claiming ownership of the retained strip could not later deny that the easement existed. This doctrine is called estoppel by deed. ‍

The easement therefore burdened the disputed parcel regardless of Neighbors' later claim of ownership.

The Court also rejected efforts to limit the doctrine. It declined to require proof that Owner personally relied on the deed language when purchasing her property and rejected the argument that estoppel by deed applies only when a private way runs parallel to the conveyed property rather than perpendicular to it.

Finally, the Court upheld the limited attorney's fee award. Although Owner should not have been forced to file a separate quiet-title action after being omitted from the earlier case, the Court agreed that substantial litigation over the easement would have occurred even if she had been properly joined from the outset.

Key takeaway

When historical plans, surveys, and boundary descriptions point in different directions, New Hampshire courts may give greater weight to the legal effect of the original conveyances than to later mapping errors. For lawyers handling New Hampshire easement litigation, quiet-title actions, deed interpretation disputes, and waterfront property conflicts, the decision underscores how easement rights established in earlier conveyances can survive decades of conflicting plans, surveys, and ownership changes.

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Laris, Trustee v. Weglarz, Trustee, No. 2024-0391 (non-precedential order) (N.H. Aug. 14, 2026). (Because the Court issued an order rather than an opinion, the decision is non-precedential. It nevertheless may provide guidance on how New Hampshire courts may approach similar issues.)

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