My Story: The Lawsuit |
The Aichinger's purchased 3 lots on Governors Island in February of 2002.
The property is part of the Governors Island Club Homeowners Association. In the spring of 2006 owner Barbara Aichinger contacts the town about rebuilding her home on lot 10. The building inspector inquires about the property and tells her 'you are one of those people'....'you had your lots merged'...'we don't do that anymore'. The Aichinger's are told that they can merge the two lots together using the voluntary merge form (RSA674:39;a) or 'take the unmerge'. The Aichinger's decide to take the unmerge and sell lot 9 to finance the construction of lot 10. John Ayer, the town planner, David Andrade the Building Inspector and Will Cocoran the Assessor confer and agree that the parcels were caught up in the Nighwander edit and per 674:39;a can be given 2 tax id’s and thus unmerged. This was done via email in late October 2006. Letter affirming follows in January of 2007. During these conversations all three town officials told Barbara that they had unmerged many other lots in Gilford that got caught up in the Nighswander edict. The abutter Sutton notes septic work being done on Lot 9 (adjacent to his property) in November of 2006 but does nothing. The Aichingers tear down their house and contract to build a new house (in a factory, Epoch Homes) for lot 10 and have both lots rebuilt with new septic systems and dock's. Lot 9 has a mortgage taken out on it to fund the construction of the house on lot 10. Lot 9 is put up for sale. The abutter Sutton protests to the town. The town planner reviews his decision with town counsel and revokes the Aichinger's two lot status on May 29th 2007. The town's reversal of its decision is the real cause of this lawsuit. The Aichinger's through their attorney Patrick Wood contact town counsel (Walter Mitchell) and advise him of the Aichinger's reliance on the Planning Directors original two lot decision. The Selectman take this under advisement and sign an Agreement with Mrs Aichinger restoring her two lot status. In retrospect this Agreement would not have been necessary had the town admitted to all the other unmerges. The abutter Sutton now furious over the 'special treatment' received by the Aichinger's files a lawsuit against the town, the Aichinger's and Governor's Island Club. In reality 2 1/2 years later we now know that the Aichinger's did not receive any special treatment by the town. They were unmerged just like many other property owners in Gilford who walked into the planning office between 2000 and 2007. A few unmerges even occurred in the late 1990's. However this is not what the lawyers want to hear since that would mean they don't have anything to sue about!
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