Posted on 12/17/2003 10:21:55 AM PST by WinOne4TheGipper
-- For decades, Lynn Godwin split his time between two jobs: one at a welding plant and the other on his land, where he baled hay, tended cows and nursed 50 acres.
"He used to pass by and say, `I own that.' And we'd say, `Yeah, you do,' " said his 70-year-old wife, Marvin, who was named after her father.
Now she can't be sure. In September, Marvin Godwin opened a certified letter telling her that the East Texas land might not belong to her husband; it might belong to the state.
The Godwins are among the 1,800 land and mineral rights owners in Upshur County tangled in what state officials call the biggest land dispute in Texas history.
Texas Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson and a three-member panel will hear testimony today to try to settle questions about surveys dating to the 1800s.
At issue is 4,600 acres in the Piney Woods once owned by colonist William P. King. The result could be the loss of land rights, mineral rights or both for families, some of whom have lived on the land for generations.
In the mid-1990s, William Dixon, a Gilmer rancher, discovered a discrepancy in the patent granting King the land rights that he says gives ownership back to the state.
Dixon was researching the titles because he wanted to build a golf course and subdivision on some of his 750 acres included in the survey. The property is about 110 miles east of Dallas.
The documents Dixon found showed that King was given land west of the disputed property, Dixon's lawyer, Ben Jarvis, said.
"It was surveyed back in 1838 in one place, and for 150 years people have contended it was in another place," Jarvis said.
He said he thinks King waited too long to secure a patent on the original grant, and the land was sold. He thinks the land office tried to make up for it by giving King some unsurveyed land to the east.
Dixon's neighbors say his claims are groundless, and some think the rancher is just trying to collect a finder's fee the state awards to those who identify unsurveyed land that rightfully belongs to the state. The fee, a fraction of the land's mineral rights, could be worth millions, lawyers say.
"We're kind of breaking new ground as far as the magnitude of this dispute," Patterson said. "I've never heard of anything this big with this many people in it."
Since opening in 1836, the land office estimates, it has processed more than 16,500 claims of unsurveyed land, although claims are increasingly rare. Patterson estimated that as many as 1 million acres in Texas remain in question.
Part of the problem is that Texas, like the 13 original U.S. colonies, was surveyed under an old European system of metes and bounds, which led to more errors, gaps and overlapping than the more reliable rectangular system adopted later by most U.S. states, surveying experts said.
In the 1930s, the Legislature established a fee for citizens who helped identify land that's never been surveyed and therefore belongs to the state. Oil and gas royalties and other revenue generated by state lands help pay for public schools in Texas.
Many Upshur County landowners are retirees who depend on royalty checks they get from leasing gas wells on their properties. They're worried that along with their homes, they might lose the rights to natural gas, oil and other minerals underground.
Regardless of the decision from today's hearing, the issue is expected to end up in court.
"I ain't figuring on leaving," said J.C. Medlin, a 77-year-old retired welder who lives alone in his house, now that his wife is in a nursing home. "I'll either die here or they'll have to carry me off."
Dick Fisher, a 65-year-old retired oil field worker, said he'll aim his gun at anyone who tries to take the 23 acres that have been in his wife's family for more than 100 years.
"I'm not a militant. I'm not a violent person. But if somebody comes out to take my land, somebody's going to die," Fisher said.
The land commissioner said there's little chance anyone will lose a home. Even if evidence shows the land is the state's, he said lawmakers would probably remedy the situation through a constitutional amendment.
"All those people out there saying they're going to get their shotguns, they just need to shut their mouths," Patterson said. "They'll do a lot better for their cause if they don't start shooting. It won't be helpful."
Marvin Godwin said the dispute makes for some sleepless nights.
"You just don't understand how something like this could happen," she said, sitting in the living room of the house where she and her husband have lived for 46 years.
Her husband, who has Alzheimer's disease, entered a nursing home in November. He doesn't understand that his land is at risk, she said.
"It would break Lynn's heart if he knew," she said.
Doesn't apply to the government.
Texas-sized understatement.
IOW: the legal equivalent of you snooze you loose.
The problem is that in Texas, you cannot adverse possess against the State, only against private owners.
The claim is that thru a surveying error, or confusion in the land office, this land was never properly patented to anyone, and thus still belongs to the State.
The legislature can't remedy this matter.
In Texas they don't have that power.
A constitutional amendment will probably be put on the ballot as soon as the issue is decided, to ratify everyones title and grant a patent on the land to them.
There are amendments passed at every election. There are currently 432 of them in force.
Otherwise there is sure to be a killing, or several.
So9
Using the Monk's original ink and paper, he forges a Grant, inserts a duplicate at the Abby, leaves the "Monkhood" and makes a claim, using an orphan girl as the heiress of the original claim.
Eventually he gets caught. Why? Because the man who was taking care of the orphan girl knew her mother was a negro and not Spanish.
Anyways, I'd investigate this dude "who would profit greatly". Sounds like he saw the movie.
It takes a pretty big fool to talk about throwing people off land they have owned all their lives and not expect them to get violent about it.
And as far as their "cause" having your home jerked out from under you because of a bureaucratic error makes one heck of a cause.
Given the number of people involved, Mr. Patterson should probably seek to fix this quickly and quietly, bothering the landowners as little as possible.
Actually, I expect people to abide by the laws that they and their duly elected representatives have made.
I must be some sort of weirdo.
Oh yeah. They will be doing some heavy lobying for relief by Constitutional Amendment.
Unfortunately for many of these people, the land has been inherited for generations and there is no Title Insurance. So9
Now that is just plain wrong.
I can't remember the cites now, but there is a great deal of case law on adverse possession against the state.
You just can't do it.
In Texas there are no State taxes on property. That is the province of County and local Govt.
So9
Wait till you are involved in one where a Title Co has erroniously insured title in two different people. There is enough bickering, back biting and finger pointing to make a soap opera.
So9
I trust Jerry Paterson to do the right thing. he is and will be a good land commisioner. This is the only job that he wanted to run for after the Senate. this is not just a stepping stone for him. He knows the history and cares about the Texas people. He will make it work right
As long as those laws have some semblance of reason, sure.
But after someone pays for land, lives on it all their life, and the family owns it to the fifth generation and pays taxes on it, I somehow doubt anyone wanted the law to take it from them.
Yet these people have been faced with that very thing.
Good luck getting that bunch of misfits in Austin to provide legal remedy for this. More than likely Patterson will just have to find a way himself.
Want into one hand. Defecate into the other. Let me know which one fills first.
Land disputes are rather common in areas where land was surveyed by the metes & bounds system. That's because the "metes and bounds" are based on surface terrain features, and some of those features can and do change somewhat over time.
Yet these people have been faced with that very thing.
It's a well-known defect of Texas law governing real property that no one has seen fit to change.
Good luck getting that bunch of misfits in Austin to provide legal remedy for this.
If that's your attitude, you will never get any legal remedy--it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
More than likely Patterson will just have to find a way himself.
Be very careful when you say that.
When faced with people threatening to kill him for the apparently unpardonable crime of enforcing the laws that their representatives passed, he might feel a need to creatively "remove" the more troublesome folk.
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