Alabama woman, 84, forced to sell home of over 60 years as land could be worth $20M

An Alabama woman is being kicked out of her longtime home as investors are looking to buy the 40-acre plot from her family, which could be worth upwards of $20 million.

Corine Woodson, 84, has been living in the same house on the outskirts of Auburn for over 60 years and is forced to leave the residence because the house sits on land with shared ownership throughout her family.

“I would like to ask them why. You know, why, but I don’t. I can’t figure it out. Thinking about it, wondering about it. It’s not easy. I can tell you that,” Woodson told WTVM.

The land is part of a 40-acre plot designated as heir-property, family-owned land that is jointly owned by dozens of family members, where no one has any specific land, just a percentage of the ownership.

Woodson came to live on the land through her late husband, whose father purchased the land in the early 1900s and has since passed it down through multiple generations of the family.

Interesting responses. My mother in law is getting up in age and my wife and I have discussed this as I assume her home on a river will be divided between her three kids.

We assume that we’ll ask her brother to buy out the shares of the other two. He doesn’t live nearby but stores a lot of stuff there including a couple collector cars We assume he’ll want to buy it so he doesn’t need to ever make any decisions about the stuff. (Yea, he takes advantage of his mom and she refuses to put her foot down. If it was me, I’d buy him a calendar for Christmas with a big red X on July 1. When he asks I’d say “that’s the date you have to get all your stuff moved out of my house, otherwise it becomes mine to sell or throw out.). He’s a nice guy and we like each other but it’s gotten ridiculous.

People get led into some really bad situations between Joint Tenancy and Tenants in Common. This Tenants in Common situation is common in the South and we saw it often in the mineral estate for oil and gas leasing. Some parcels remain in limbo and undeveloped for ages with hundreds of undivided owners that can't be found. I dealt with it for four decades in regard to the mineral estate and also in private land ownership. I am not a land man or lawyer but as a manager knew what went on. It is sad but not at all uncommon for one person to be forced out in a "partition by sale" action. The developer has patiently bought up interests until he controls enough to execute the partition action and acquire the rest of the property whereupon he can take possession. She will not be left without something depending on her share of the ownership she will get a part of the sale price that is agreed by the court.

The two conditions can be confusing when presented in legal terms by a lawyer as they have been taught and usually do not vary from.

The thing to remember is that Joint Tenancy (with rights of survivorship) is a "last man standing" proposition who is often called the "remainderman". So long as more than one person who is named on the deed is living nothing can be done to the property without full concurrence by all other living parties. No party the agreement can do anything without full agreement by all other parties or some legal action resulting in "partition by sale".

In Tenants in Common transfer of the property upon death of co-owners must be conveyed by probate and does not happen automatically as in Joint Tenancy. The other problem is that each living party in the arrangement can sell their interest but can't convey title without agreement by all other parties to the deed, some of them may be complete strangers. The property is owned by the holders of the TIC deed as an "undivided interest" meaning you own a part of the whole that can't be parceled out but your part may be conveyed by sale or inheritance. IF it were divided who is to say what part any individual owns? They can't. No "partition by sale" is mentioned for TIC but based on this article it appears it can happen when a party such as a developer gathers up shares and eventually controls the property. Sort of like a hostile takeover.

There are cases for both types of ownership but in general Joint Tenancy is the vehicle of choice for ownership.

Something that seems so simple can become so complicated by the time the legal eagles get through with it.

We just bought a property with a cloud on the title owing to TIC being misconstrued as JT upon the death of the wife and no probate was done. The property was in limbo and not dealt with until the death of the surviving husband. Not sure how they got by with that but they did. Upon the father's death the son conveyed the property to the surviving siblings as TIC as if the father had held the property with his wife as if they were JT, they were not. The son later got the siblings to do a quit claim and put the property ownership in a JT condition between he and his siblings. He ended up being the last man standing and thus carving out any of his nieces and nephews from their inheritance. In the title opinion my attorney caught the invalid transfer of the property on the death of the wife/mother of the fellow, the last man standing, I bought the property from. He did not have a valid title to the property he had agreed to sell. Going back to the death of the wife/mother her estate had to be probated to clear the title. It was. However, in that time someone could have made claims on the property further making a mess of the whole transaction.

Always buy title insurance. It may not cover everything but at least you have an interested and experienced party involved in seeing that the title is clear. Nothing is iron clad though.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.