A dispute between neighbours over access to a lake in Minnesota has taken another turn after nearly nine years in court. On Monday, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled in favour of the Blackwood Trust, confirming that its property has direct access to Prairie Lake in St. Louis County. The decision is a setback for neighbours Vicky Jo Ulvestad and Lawrence Craig Hammonds, who had earlier won $148,500 after accusing the trust of entering their land without permission. That award has now been cancelled.According to the court judgment, the disagreement began over where one property ends and the other begin. Ulvestad and Hammonds own a piece of land known as Lot 3, while the Blackwood Trust owns the neighbouring Lots 4 and 5. Both sides disagreed over whether Lot 4 reached the lake or whether a portion of Lot 3 stood in its way.What made the matter more confusing was that two surveys of the land gave different answers. A survey carried out in 1997 showed that Lot 4 did not reach Prairie Lake. However, when the same surveyor examined the properties again in 2010, he reached a different conclusion. The newer survey showed that Lot 4 did have access to the lake.After the 2010 survey, the trust built a cabin on its property. Over the next few years, trees were removed, and a path was created through an area that the neighbours believed belonged to them. The disagreement eventually became a legal battle in 2017. The trust initially asked the court for permission to cross Lot 3 to reach the lake. Ulvestad and Hammonds, meanwhile, accused the trust of trespassing and wanted it stopped from entering their land or removing more trees.
How Ulvestad and Hammonds initially won
At first, the court sided with Ulvestad and Hammonds. It accepted their understanding of where the property boundary lay and decided that Lot 4 did not have direct access to Prairie Lake.The neighbours also won their claim that the trust had entered their property without permission. A jury awarded them $49,400, and the court later increased the amount to $148,500.But the dispute did not end there. The trust challenged the decision, maintaining that its land extended all the way to the lake.In December 2024, the Minnesota Court of Appeals found that an important piece of evidence had not been properly considered. It was an old government map from 1870 showing how the land around Prairie Lake had originally been divided.The appeals court asked the lower court to examine this map before deciding the boundary again. This gave the trust another opportunity to establish that its property reached the water.
How an old map changed the outcome
The 1870 map became important because it showed the original layout of the properties surrounding Prairie Lake.It also contained lines showing the lake’s shoreline at the time. These are known as meander lines, which show where the water was when the land was first surveyed.However, the shoreline of a lake can change over time. This means the line drawn on an old map does not always mark the exact boundary of a property today. As explained in the court proceedings, landowners whose properties reach a lake can also own the land between the old survey line and the water’s edge.To understand where the properties should meet the lake, a surveyor working for the trust studied the historic map and prepared a fresh survey in April 2025.He used a method called the long-lake method, which takes the shape of a lake into account when deciding how the boundaries of neighbouring properties should be drawn. The new survey supported the trust’s claim that Lot 4 reached Prairie Lake without crossing Lot 3.After considering the evidence, the lower court accepted the new boundary. It ruled that the trust’s property had its own access to the lake. As a result, the neighbours’ trespass claims were dismissed, and the earlier $148,500 award was cancelled.
Neighbours challenged the decision again
Ulvestad and Hammonds disagreed with the new ruling and returned to the appeals court. They argued that the boundary should have been decided using the original 1870 map rather than relying on the survey prepared in 2025. They believed the southern boundary of their property continued in a straight line towards the lake.They also raised concerns about the surveyor whose findings had helped the trust. During the earlier proceedings, the lower court had initially restricted what evidence could be presented. It later allowed additional testimony from the surveyor.The neighbours said this change had left them without a fair opportunity to challenge his findings. They raised another objection as well. An earlier survey supporting their position had been prepared by the former owner of the same surveying company. They questioned how surveys from the same company could reach different conclusions.However, the appeals court did not accept these arguments. The judges found that the neighbours had been given opportunities to present evidence against the surveyor’s findings but had not shown how that evidence might have changed the result.The court also found no sufficient reason to prevent the surveyor from giving evidence simply because an earlier survey from the same company had reached a different conclusion.