Posted on 05/14/2002 5:05:40 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
And this shell game speculator bought the lake for $1000 and tries to rip off the honest folks. He is a lazy parasite.
Sounds like somebody needs to introduce the homeowners in the situation to Paladin Press and George Hayduke...Any student of Hayduke knows that a house is a hell of a lot more vulnerable than a fence.
Again, if anyone vandalizes the fence, he has both the right and the demonstrated need to protect his property. Here come the floodlights and the security cameras.
-Eric
Blame the gov't first for that: they took someone's property for non-payment of "protection money" (aka "taxes"). This guy just did what none of the other homeowners bothered to do: buy the property, either from the prior owner or from the gov't. He didn't steal the property, the gov't did.
He may find that he doesn't own the lake either since it is, by law, part of the "waters of the United States" and therefore subject to the wetlands regulations.
He may not own the water space, but he does own the 10-20 foot strip around it.
The Speculator owes no "legal" duty to the homeowners, unless he inherited them with the property. The real "bad guy" would be the developer if the homeowners were mislead into believing the lake was a "common area" for their benefit.
Another point that has not been mentioned is the unintended consequences of an eminent domain condemnation. I am not sure the homeowners would like the lake to be taken as "public property" and therefore open to all of the "public."
And how do we know this? If true, it's the lawyers' fault. The homeowners can sue their lawyers for leaving a loophole in the deed!
Great book but so-o-o depressing. Not one of the characters had any redeeming attributes. I do recommend it, though.
These folks aren't freeloaders, though. They bought their properties surrounding this lake with the verbal, and very likely the written understanding of how the lake fit into the development. There is an easement of some sort that coame with it - because it was implicitly part of the marketing of their properties, and yes, tied into the value.They could have formed an organization to buy the lake at any time. Instead, they kept it in the presumed-to-be benevolent hands of the developer. I have no doubt that the tax delinquencies were listed and the auction was as well. That's the notification required by law. Government isn't required to hold people's hands, nor do we want it to be.Pursuant to their part of the bargain, they kept it up - which makes them "not freeloaders".
When I was growing up, there was an undeveloped street behind us. My one friend's family had a baseball field extending from their backyard to the lot behind them. My one next door neighbor on one side extended his backyard by cutting the grass beyond the property line. On the other side, the neighbor had a vegetable garden in the lot behind him. We had a dense wooded patch that me and my friends made use of. :snicker:
The difference between us and these people: we knew that street was eventually going to be developed. We didn't have the nerve to use the property for free for all those years, and then try to claim some sort of "squatter's rights" when the owner decided to make use of it.
That's what these people (and their allies on this thread) are advocating: "squatters rights". There's no such thing in a society that respects private property.
-Eric
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.