On April 1, 2026, the Arkansas Court of Appeals decided 2026 Ark. App. 210, a fight over a 5.42 acre tract that both neighbors’ surveys placed on one side of a fence. The court let the fence stand as the boundary anyway. Two years earlier, in 2024 Ark. App. 185, decided March 13, 2024, the same court went the other way over an old tree line fence.
Read together, the two opinions show how a court decides who owns a strip of ground when the fence and the survey disagree.
What happened in the 2026 case
The two parcels were next door to each other. One owner bought 40 acres in 2001 and the neighbors to the south bought their parcel in 2005. Neither deed had a metes and bounds description. A fence and an east west road ran near the line between them. According to the opinion, surveys done in 2019 placed a 5.42 acre disputed tract south of the fence inside the title of the northern owner.
The southern neighbors sued in 2023 to quiet title. They argued boundary by acquiescence and adverse possession. At trial they and several longtime neighbors testified that the fence and road had stayed where they were for decades, that the southern owners had maintained and used the disputed area, and that the northern owner had rarely used it until recently. The northern owner testified that he always treated the land as his and had moved the fence and widened the road after buying.
The circuit court found a boundary by acquiescence along the fence line. The Court of Appeals affirmed. It reviewed the location of a boundary as a question of fact and found no clear error.
What happened in the 2024 case
In the earlier case, an old tree line fence separated land one family bought in 1980 from land to the north that a new owner bought in 2019. The fence was older than either purchase, and the southern family used it to hold livestock. The northern owner’s survey put the true line north of the fence and left a disputed strip of 0.4 acre. The northern owner had the fence removed and a new one built on the surveyed line.
The southern family sued for ejectment, an injunction and quiet title. The northern owner answered with affidavits from the previous owners of that land, who said the fence was only a livestock control fence, was never treated as a boundary, and that they had told the neighbors so. The Pope County Circuit Court granted summary judgment to the northern owner, and the Court of Appeals affirmed.
The appeals court held that the southern family offered no admissible evidence that both sides had recognized the fence as the boundary. Their own belief that the fence marked the line could not create a boundary by acquiescence. They also raised adverse possession, but the circuit court did not rule on it and they abandoned that claim in their notice of appeal, so the court did not reach it.
The rule both opinions apply
Boundary by acquiescence rests on conduct over many years. In the 2026 opinion, the court explained that adjoining owners’ behavior can imply an agreement to treat a visible marker such as a fence as the boundary even when it is not the true survey line. Mutual recognition is required, but it may be inferred from conduct and an express agreement is not necessary.
The same opinion states that the mere existence of a fence, or one party’s private belief that it is the boundary, is not enough. The 2024 opinion puts it from the other direction. The agreement and acquiescence, and not the fence itself, controls.
What this means for a homeowner
Before you pull out or move a fence, find out where the deeded line is. In both Arkansas cases a survey put the true line away from the fence, and the outcome still turned on evidence about how the neighbors had treated the fence over the years.
Gather facts that bear on that question. Who built and who maintained the fence, how long each side has mowed, planted or grazed up to it, whether anyone told the other side it was only to hold animals, and what earlier owners said. The 2024 case turned on affidavits from prior owners, and the 2026 case turned on testimony from longtime neighbors.
In the 2024 case, the owner had the old fence removed and a new one built on the surveyed line, which led to a lawsuit even though the owner prevailed.
Boundary and adverse possession law is set by each state, and the required time periods differ. Both cases are Arkansas decisions, so they show how one state’s courts reasoned and do not decide a dispute in another state. Look up your state’s statutes and your state court system’s self help pages, and speak with a licensed surveyor and a real estate attorney in your state. This article reports what the Arkansas courts said and is not legal advice.
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