After my parents died in the mid 1990’s I became the sole owner of a lake cottage near Detroit Lakes, MN. My family and I summered there for a month or so each year and rented the cottage out for three seasons.
We paid the property taxes shortly after receiving the statements from the county. A couple of months before the statements were to be sent out, I checked the county records to see how much we owed. Surprise! it showed a zero balance. Someone paid the taxes for us. I immediately contacted the treasurer for Becker county and informed him that we had not authorized anyone to pay our taxes. We paid them and never heard from anyone after that. I am sure someone was trying to pull a fast one.
Same thing happened to me not long ago. I could not act to snub either the intentional action or mistake. Turns out it was a mistake by the county treasurer’s office. Allegedly just paying the taxes does not imply or build evidence of possession but I’m not taking any chances on that.
Waives red flags and sets off all kinds of alarm bells to me in this article.
For one thing it reminds me of “squatter’s rights”. What the heck is that? A neighbor was victim of that and the sheriff threatened him if he set foot on HIS property until it was “sorted out”. What part of a recorded deed is invalid? What part of not having one is valid?
That out of the way, this reminds me to check my own property more often but how often is often enough? Here are a few reminders:
1. Always get a title opinion and title insurance. Notice a clause in policy of title insurance that requires you to inform of change in value and potentially pay additional premium. Who ever does that? How many have actually read their policy of title insurance? I just finished buying land that the seller said, “has a good title”, it had been in the family for about 100 years but the title opinion revealed they didn’t legally own it because of a series of errors in transfer upon death and one outright fraud. It took months to clear title by use of a quiet title settlement. It also has easements that are a mess and I did not buy the associated property for that reason.
2. Check your property for squatters and take immediate action to remove them if you have any.
3. Build good fences on the property line and maintain them.
4. Have a professional survey in hand
5. Most shocking to me of all in this transaction is the prices of the lot and the house.
6. Be greedy with grant of power of attorney. Even with restrictions you are signing your rights away and you will find too late that people you thought you could trust are not trustworthy. If you do assign a POA it needs to be task specific and have an automatic termination in time or upon completion of the specific task.
7. The unsolicited offers for land I get in the mail I used to throw away. Now I answer them in a forceful negative reply via certified mail with a copy to my attorney. If they want the land bad enough to scour land records and solicit sales they are only a step away from some other nefarious means of taking it. It is coveting your neighbors property.
8. When you do get things people immediately begin to try to take them from you. It is best to maintain a low profile but that is getting harder all the time with open access to information.
—”a lake cottage near Detroit Lakes, MN. “
A friend built a place on acreage he owned way north in Wisconsin near Minnesota and sold plots to family and friends. Mostly summer and some winter hunting/snowmobile use.
All very nice.
But they were forty-plus miles from the nearest police and had frequent break-ins.
The local Indian tribe had no concerns about going to jail for the winter months! And a major snowmobile trail was adjacent to his property...
They built a small cottage and provided it rent-free in exchange for a local couple to keep an eye on the place.
Not perfect but worked very well.