Decade-old Middlesex land dispute finally resolved
MIDDLESEX TWP — A land dispute in the township which dates back to 2013 ended rather anticlimactically Wednesday afternoon, May 3.
At a work session, the board of supervisors finalized a settlement which ended a decade-long dispute between the Tisdale family, Craig Pracht, and Jeff Bonifate over ownership of a strip of land along Ferguson Lane.
“It’s all done now,” said board of supervisors chairman Michael Spreng. “Everybody agreed to the plan, so it’s all good. It’s all done and over.”
As part of the settlement, Bonifate and Pracht got what they wanted all along, with the disputed land split right down the middle. Certain easements also have been granted by each side to the other.
“They divided the right of way,” Spreng said. “They added a right of way to the existing property, and that’s all there is to it.” The land in question is 50 feet by 400 feet.
According to attorney John J. Bench, who represented the Tisdales in the final stages of the case, the agreement will become official when the deeds are registered.
"The parties did reach an agreement on ownership of the land and who has right of access over the land, and the final step in that settlement is the subdivision plan that the supervisors approved today,“ said Bench.
The roots of the dispute date roughly six decades ago, when the original owner of the land surrounding Ferguson Road subdivided it, intending for the then-private road to become a public road. However, for whatever reason, the township never adopted it.
Further complicating matters, no one officially owned the surrounding parcel of land since the township lost official claim to it back in 1980.
The dispute really began in 2013, when Bonifate and Pracht went before the township board of supervisors and asked it to close the end of adjoining Oakwood Drive to prevent unlicensed vehicles from accessing their property from the Tisdale property. At the time, Bonifate and Tisdale were arguing over who had the right to cut grass on that tract of land.
After the township told Bonifate and Pracht there was nothing they could do, the two sued the Tisdales, who claimed that the disputed land belonged to them under a state code that says untitled land belongs to the property owner who uses it after 21 years —otherwise known as “adverse possession”.
Bonifate and Pracht asked for the tract to be divided lengthwise in half, with 25 feet going to the Tisdales to the north, and 25 feet going to the Bonifates and Prachts to the south.
A “tentative” settlement was reached in January 2018. However, this didn’t last long, as according to court documents, both the Tisdale family and Middlesex Township “refused to memorialize and proceed forward with their end of the existing agreement unless matters outside the existing agreement were included in the formal memorialization.”
Throughout the dispute, Bonifate and Pracht had the tract of land blocked off completely, surrounding it with chains and yellow posts, allowing the Tisdales access only to check their mail. Bonifate also took action to surround the property with surveillance cameras, and alleged that the Tisdales were caught violating the terms of the tentative agreement on-camera at least 50 times.
The case lasted for so long that both sides repeatedly cycled through legal representation. Bench was the third attorney to represent the Tisdales, after their previous lawyer, Doug Linn, passed away.
According to Bench, the dispute ended with more of a whimper than a bang. Judge S. Michael Yeager’s replacement, Judge Kenneth Valasek of Armstrong County, led both sides in renegotiating a final settlement in late 2021, a process which finally bore fruit more than a year later.
There was no singular moment that led both sides to seek peace and end the decade-long conflict.
“As you get closer to trial, both sides naturally try to find a solution that is beneficial to all,” said Bench.
