Posted on 01/05/2012 8:18:57 PM PST by SteelToe
In Texas, who gets stuck with the tax liens? Everywhere I've ever lived it is the posessor, not the original owner. That decreases the inducement to adversely posess. A lot.
I also completely own my home. I religiously pay the taxes, too. Should I ever come home and find a squatter, well...let’s just say the ‘squatter’ wouldn’t be squatting any more.
In land law you are more than right. I was in land surveying for a decade and the scams we encountered ranged from downright silly (a dude who moved his fence onto his neighbor's lot a few inches a week...his neighbor had Polaroids of him doing it in broad daylight) to Machiavellian. A lot of the really old parcels in western Maryland have a non-contiguous "wood lot" included in the description. One county surveyor spent an entire career "forgetting" to include these wood lot parcels in the new description when the main parcels would sell, and then later quietly deeding them to himself. Because the old descriptins were handwritten in a script that almost no one could still read, no one caught him in his lifetime.
In land law you are more than right. I was in land surveying for a decade and the scams we encountered ranged from downright silly (a dude who moved his fence onto his neighbor's lot a few inches a week...his neighbor had Polaroids of him doing it in broad daylight) to Machiavellian. A lot of the really old parcels in western Maryland have a non-contiguous "wood lot" included in the description. One county surveyor spent an entire career "forgetting" to include these wood lot parcels in the new description when the main parcels would sell, and then later quietly deeding them to himself. Because the old descriptins were handwritten in a script that almost no one could still read, no one caught him in his lifetime.
Yep.
Our deeds go back to the 1880s. Since there was no access to our back 40 once the State highway went in, the *convention* was that we had an easement from “the center line across the contiguous parcel”. The owner before us was not farming and we don’t farm, either, although both rented occasionally to others. The description got left off the deed. The convention is no longer recognized. It is almost 50 years later. Therefore: we lost road access across the neighboring parcel into our back fields. This makes it impossible to sell off the back 40 unless we grant an easement through our our driveway or manage to buy one from the neighbor. It is only across a field, but it is one that can flood, so we would not only need to buy the right, but put in a culvert. I don’t know what it would take to buy an easement, today. The cost of even a simple road with a culvert is several thousand, today.
Did those landowners ever get their woodlots back or compensation?
Yep. Not that I would DO that of course, but...accidents DO happen.
Around the same time I also uncovered a pot-hunting operation. A lot of money was changing hands, so when a couple of the "boys" found out I was onto them they had a "word" with me. I was young and just getting the family started, and decided to forget both matters.
Sorry to hear about your problem. I've seen folks successully sue the title company who truncated a description, but there is a statute of limitations (in MD it used to be 20 years).
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