BOULDER, Colo. -- A Boulder woman who removed a 45-year-old fence separating her back yard from two other neighbors has been ordered to put the fence back, and to give up a small strip of land the fence sat on.

It's another instance of an owner losing part of their property because of the adverse possession law.

"The law is a very cruel law," said Dana Marshall. "It takes away people's nest eggs and their hopes and their dreams."

Marshall bought her home on the 2200 block of Mariposa in 2006. Shortly afterward, she removed a fence that had been in place for decades.

Marshall said her Realtor and several surveyors told her the fence was hers because it was on her side of the property line.

"It was decrepit," Marshall told 7NEWS. "I thought that I'd rather look at the little forest and the stream (on the other side of the fence) so I took it down."

Her neighbors, Mohammad and Gay Salim and Patricia and Thomas Angerer sued, claiming the fence, which provided valuable privacy, was installed by the original owners who sold them their property.

Boulder County District Court Judge Lael Montgomery agreed, ruling in favor of the plaintiffs.

"They each openly and exclusively laid claim to and used all the property south of the fence as well as the fence," Montgomery wrote. "The Salims for 25 continuous years and the Angerers for 28 continuous years."

The plaintiffs declined comment Wednesday, but one of their friends told 7NEWS she agreed with the judge's ruling.

"Absolutely," said Shirley Keller, who has lived across the street from the Salim's property for 40 years.

"The property was always considered to be bounded by the fence," Keller said. "That was Mac's fence."

Mac was the neighbor who Keller said built the fence when he owned what is now Salim's property.

Marshall and her supporters dispute that.

Keller noted that Marshall has only owned her property for two years.

"She came in and six months later had cut down a fence that had been there for 45 years."

But Marshall's friends said she and the previous owner of her house are the ones who have paid property taxes on the strip of land where the fence sat.

"The fence was on her property," said Ann Tagawa, who lives next door. "Dana Marshall owned that fence. She had the right to take it down."

"I frankly don't think that (adverse possession) law should even exist," Tagawa said. "It should be abolished."

"I was really shocked to hear the ruling," said Katrina Mitchell, who lives across the street from Marshall. "It's just outrageous that this is even occurring."

Marshall said she plans to appeal the ruling, and will take part in a rally at the Boulder County Justice Center to protest the judge's decision.