OTTAWA – An Illinois appeals panel has ruled that property annexations by villages or cities in Illinois cannot be challenged or changed after one year, even if errors in the legal description of the annexed real estate resulted in the wrong property being annexed.
But Illinois' Third District Appellate Court in Ottawa has remanded the question over when that final agreement was made in the underlying case involving a property owner and the Village of Elwood in Will County. The appeal under consideration has its roots in a dispute between Larry Coldwater, as trustee of the H. Kathleen Coldwater Trust, a farm owner, and the village.
The dispute is linked to the annexation of land in 2007. An annexation was agreed upon and approved at that time, but the legal description was incorrect. Nearly 10 years later, the Coldwaters filed a lawsuit to overturn the annexation based on the error.
Judge John Anderson of the Will County Circuit Court dismissed the Coldwater’s complaint as time barred, but the appeals court agreed to consider the core question of whether Illinois law prevents parties from correcting errors after the statutory period has ended. In a judgment delivered by Justice Vicki Wright, the appeals court stated that the legislature intended to bar such actions, even if errors were made. Justices Robert Carter and Mary McDade concurred in the decision.
“We observe that the modified certified question does not, and indeed could not, address the issue of when the annexation in this case became ‘final’ or ‘completed’ for purposes of the one-year limitations period," Justice Wright wrote in her opinion. “This is an issue for the circuit court.”
The Coldwaters argue that the one-year statutory period does not apply in their case because they were asking for a correction to comply with the agreement, rather than contesting the annexation. Further, their complaint was against the village recording the incorrect legal description in September 2017.
The plaintiffs then filed a first complaint in December 2017 and a second amended one in April 2018, well within the one-year statutory period.
“No matter how [the Coldwaters] attempt to minimize what they are seeking, the result they actually seek remains the same: an exclusion of property which has been annexed,” the Village of Elwood stated in its response.
In the village’s view, the relevant section of the statute was intended to bar all challenges to annexations after the expiration of the one-year limitations period.