What Hallmark Channel Movies get wrong about Property Law
- Kate
- 2 days ago
- 7 min read
I am a lover of Hallmark Channel, but as an attorney, there are a few movies I cannot rewatch (or even finish) because they get the law wrong. The below 3 Hallmark Channel Movies all misunderstand how adverse possession works.
As always with my law blog posts, this is for informational and entertainment purposes only. It is not legal advice. If you have specific legal questions, you should consult with an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.
(1) Love, Fall & Order
Love, Fall & Order (2019) follows Claire, a real estate attorney in New York City, who goes home to save her dad's annual Fall Fest on their family pumpkin farm, which is being threatened by a real estate lawsuit from her old school rival, Patrick, a former Silicon Valley attorney. Sparks fly, but will it turn into a relationship while the court fight rages on and they have miscommunication issues?
Setting: Small town Vermont
My rating: 1/10 (hate the ending)
IMDB rating: 6.5/10
Spoilers Below for Love, Fall & Order
The set-up of the movie is full of cliches. Our main character is good at her high-powered city job, the only person of color in the movie is her assistant there to give encouragement, and there is a break up with her unlikable city boyfriend before returning to her quaint hometown in the New England countryside.
The ex-boyfriend, Drew, is written like he has Autism-spectrum-disorder and is a charming city planner. Usually unlikable city boyfriend is written like Eric Trump. It made the movie more enjoyable to have so many side characters. Sometimes, Hallmark movies can be like a one-room play with the lack of characters. I do wish there was more diversity.
The movie opens with our main character defending a landlord and evicting a small business. Her dad then gets served for a lawsuit, saying he's farming land that's not actually his. Claire returns to Waitsford, Vermont to find an attorney to help her dad. She learns Patrick, her school rival, is now hot and the primary town attorney. His aunt runs a florist shop and has tried to buy the pumpkin farm before to start her own flower farm, but Claire's family has always refused. Patrick and the aunt find an old deed and are using it to sue for part of the pumpkin farm to turn into a flower farm. Only, oh no, that part of the pumpkin farm is the location for the town's annual Fall Fest, which would mean an end to the festival!
Win: There's a funny segment where Claire goes to the other attorneys in town but everyone is conflicted out so she does the case herself. That's actually a thing that can happen, where if your small town only has 3 attorneys, they may not be ethically able to take every case in that town.
Sparks fly between Claire and Patrick as they face-off in legal arguments, compete in bar trivia, and coaching high school debate. Claire misunderstands one of Patrick's clients is his girlfriend but it's quickly cleared up. Claire brings in her ex-boyfriend, Drew, to do analysis of the deed's property lines for validity in return for helping him with his condo purchase contract. It's really refreshing to see exes get along amicably. However, Patrick thinks Drew and Claire are still together and this misunderstanding goes for the entire movie.
Draw: Based on Drew's property analysis, Claire proposes a settlement where the aunt only gets some of the land claimed in the deed. While that's reasonable, the movie doesn't give the settlement enough time. < I thought this plotline would be the settlement is the town gets the land for the festival and Claire has to see it from the perspective of a looser in real estate case. Armed with that humility, she goes back to NYC and helps that renter she evicted reach a settlement with the owner. In other words, learn the power of compromise! > That does not happen. Drew rejects the settlement and then we get falling in love during the Fall Fest montage. Also, they share autumn greeting cards and there's a cute dog. So the movie is full of fall vibes, but low on settlement negotiations.
Loss: Adverse possession and easement is never once said in the movie. Vermont adverse possession law is 15 years. 12 V.S.A. § 501. Here, the farms have been in their families for multiple generations and Claire's family has been openly and exclusively farming at that land for pumpkins with no objection from Patrick's family other than a few offers to purchase the land. Even if that ancient deed says differently, Claire's family has a true claim to that land from adverse possession.
Based on the length of time, fictional Claire should have filed a motion to dismiss based on adverse possession. However, the families go to court, where Claire, at the insistence of her Dad, agrees to give up all the land. Patrick proposes a different settlement, in which they farm the land together. Cue happy ending.
I understand Claire's father feeling guilty that he's been making money off of land that was adversely possessed and wants to reach a settlement. However, it's crazy to have the ending where Claire apologizes to Patrick for fighting for a lost cause WHEN SHE WOULD HAVE WON IN THE REAL WORLD. That apology made me mad. She wasn't in the wrong, the movie just pretended there's no such thing as prescriptive land rights (see the colloquial "possession is 9/10ths of the law") to let the man graciously offer a settlement.
The Fix: To make this better they should have a more recent, under 15 years, purchase/sale of that land area so it's a legitimate dispute. Lakeview Farm v. Enmans is an 1997 Vermont case where the farmers disputed their land borders. It was recent sale and had been a continuous fight, and the the defendant still won (which would be Claire in this case). I don't mind a character moving from NYC to Vermont to give up her big-law job for a hot husband, but I do mind them having her lose and apologize when in the real world, she'd be the winner.
(2) Love Under the Olive Tree
Love Under the Olive Tree (2020) follows Nicole as she's trying to prove she deserved promotion to lead the family olive oil business, Cabella Oil. Jake returns home to Sunset Valley from attorney job in Silicon Valley to learn the secret olive oil recipe of his family's business, Brandini. Their respective olive oil ranches border each other and are known rivals in the small California town, as the grandfathers started their business together and then split it when they had a falling out. To solve this dispute, the winner of the olive oil contest gets the land.
Setting: Small town California
My rating: 1/10 (the main couple is overly mean to each other)
IMDB rating: 6.2/10
Spoilers Below for Love Under the Olive Tree
Unlike Love, Fall & Order, where the two leads truly felt like school rivals a la Gilbert and Anne from Anne of Green Gables, here Nicole and Jake seem like bullies. She is mean to Jake when they have their meet-cute, bringing up school bully taunts which he throws back, and then he decides to mess with her building expansion by suing her over permits and land border. They both need to go to therapy, but I think it's supposed to be funny they're so mean to each other.
Draw: The judge of the land dispute suggests that instead of a trial or private mediation, they agree to have the owner be whoever wins the olive oil contest at the local Fall Festival as she's also the olive oil judge. That is an insane solution, but if they both signed a contract saying they agree to that as their non-traditional settlement method, I don't see why not. It's just unethical for a judge to suggest that as a solution.
I didn't enjoy this movie because I didn't like the main relationship and I didn't like the casting or general plot for the older family members. There's a way to do "the Montagues and Capulets of the olive oil world" without everyone seeming mean (which is necessary if this is a romance and not a tragedy). They do eventually become nicer to each other, but I had lost my goodwill.
Even though the movie failed to pull off the rivals-to-lovers successfully, it does at least set-up that the lawyer character who is moving from big city to small town is doing it because he hates his job. Other positives: the court scene was funny and the gay sub-plot (between Nicole's assistant and cafe owner) was cute but extremely short.
(3) Autumn in the Vineyard
Autumn in the Vineyard (2016) follows childhood sweethearts Frankie Baldwin and Nate Deluca who both have a claim to ownership of Sorrento Farm. While the court battle continues, they both live on the farm and complete the harvest so neither can claim adverse possession over the other. This rivalry intensifies with the Best Wine competition at the annual Autumn Harvest Festival. Will they rekindle the old flame while being "forced" to live together? The movie is based on the book Autumn In The Vineyard by Marina Adair.
Setting: Small town California
My rating: 3/10 (aggressively just okay)
IMDB rating: 6.5/10
Spoilers Below for Autumn in the Vineyard
While Love, Fall & Order pretended adverse possession didn't exist to let the man win, and Love Under the Olive Tree skips over it to go straight to the contest, Autumn in the Vineyard tried and missed. While if either party had allowed the other party to takeover the winery, they'd be at a disadvantage, splitting the land completely in half supports that they each only have half a claim.
Loss: The key elements typically include possession that is actual, open and notorious, exclusive, hostile, and continuous. If two people are competing over ownership of the same house, dividing it in half would generally weaken either person’s claim for adverse possession because it undermines the element of exclusive possession. Sharing or dividing the property suggests that neither party has exercised full control or dominion over the entire property as an owner would. To succeed, an adverse possessor must treat the property as their own to the exclusion of others.
Autumn in the Vineyard was so successful, Hallmark Channel made 2 sequels. Valentine's Day in the Vineyard follows the couple's engagement and and Summer in the Vineyard follows their first-year of marriage.
I don't have any evidence, but I also think Autumn in the Vineyard's success spawned the other two movies: Love under the Olive Tree and Love, Fall & Order. All 3 are autumn-themed romance-comedies where rivals-to-lovers face forced-proximity over a property line dispute between their family farms. Real specific plot you got there, Hallmark!
Have you seen any of these Hallmark Channel Movies? What did you think?
LegalEagle has posted a video about Hallmark videos as well if you're interested:
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