Very interesting. I ran into a similar situation when purchasing my first home. My mortgage company required that I get title insurance and the title company came back and stated that it was a clean title. The day I went to walk into the house the sheriff had changed the locks and had a notice on the door. I had my entire family with me whom just moved from another state with all our belongings packed into a U-Haul and very little money. One phone call to the title company and putting them in contact with the sheriff. The wheels of progress suddenly jumped into high gear. My realtor called me within half an hour asking me to meet them one town over where I was given the keys to a beautiful big home where I stayed for 90 days until they straighten the mess out. When it was time to leave I really missed the temporary home but they paid all of my moving expenses and it was nice to finally get into the home that I purchased. Yes title insurance it was so worth it 😂
Only problem with title insurance is that it often doesn't cover any claims that haven't been filed yet. There are numerous situations where there may not be a title issue on record yet, but someone might be able to make one.
If I were the homeowners I would move my fences, or other items abd stop mowing the property. Then call the city and complain about the property not being maintained. Then not let him cross your property to maintain it, tell him he has to buy an easement. Eventually he would get sick of fines from the city and proably sell for cost.
@WebCity Films Agree, but you can "allow" them to maintain it and start forcing them to pay some costs. As they add up it becomes less profitable. Not sure if that could backfire though.
@WebCity Films Perhaps not. One thing is for sure, if they all ban together and stop maintaining the property, the "owner" will have to maintain it himself. You can wait it out, watch the property and file complaints every time the grass is an inch higher than it should be and see how long he keeps wanting to deal with it.
I can almost guarantee the owner is one of their neighbors. #1 how will they know when someone "trespasses" and #2 that would explain why they want to keep their identity secret.
Possibly, or a foreign investor. If it is one of the neighbors, they could figure it out fairly quickly by how the person accesses it to maintain it once they stop maintaining the land.
I was a mortgage loan officer for 12yrs. There are 2 other professionals that could be liable. The appraiser should have looked at the survey because of potential flood zones and the total Sq footage of land in the appraisal. Also the seller and realtor offered land for sale they did not have a right to sell.
I went thru a bit over an A-H flood zone almost thirty years ago. Bought a house twelve years ago and when i asked them about flood elevations, they had absolutely NO idea what I was talking about. Everybody has gotten stupid these days.
Seen that before firsthand! There was a separate issue that was since resolved, but it meant we ended up having copies of all of the surveys/maps from over the years. One day, my family and I were enjoying this piece of property minding our own business, when a realtor from the house for sale across the street came on the property with prospective buyers for that house in tow. The realtor was like "And this is..." And we are all like "No, THIS is private property. YOU need to get off of it, and need to look at your deed again!" Fun times.
Shortly after i bought my first home the neighbor pointed out the steps on my back porch actually cross the property line. He was a decent guy but if i asked them to turn down their music or have their guest move out of my drive so my guests could use it his wife would mutter about tearing off my steps or other threats about the infraction. 2 years later i bought that property too and will decide who can be my neighbors as long as i live here.
I was thinking the same thing if you get injured on someone else's property they're responsible for damages the only hard part is proving injury but I'm sure someone with a little creativity could solve that
Well they can take a trespassing charge but they can still sue remember there's always the old case of a burglar breaking into a building after hours with no trespassing signs posted all over he hurt himself trying to break in and sued and won even tho he did go to jail for trespassing and breaking and entering
Still just at the beginning of the video, but this isn't a title insurance problem. This is a survey problem. Had they done the survey, they would have learned that the property being sold was smaller than the property being marketed. I am amazed at how many people will make their most expensive purchase and not have any idea what they're getting into. Usually it's just not reading the HOA DCCRs but yeah, surveys is another example.
@@MichaelGreen831 did you not listen to the video? He said get a survey and title insurance to take care of things like this. OP was just saying that even if they had it, the title insurance would probably fuck em too.
I owned a house years ago that had no utility easements in the backyard. I had to run off a cable company guy that came on my property and intended to dig up my flower beds against the fence when the cable box was in the neighbors easement behind the fence. He was trying to work on someone else's cable and he had to clear a lot of plant material to access the box, so he wanted to dig my beds up because it was easier. When I showed him the survey, he left. It's very important to know what's on your survey.
I had something very similar but I wasn't home at the time. Came home to find a backhoe in my yard, several of my ceadars I had as a hedge uprooted and a trench across my yard. It was a neighborhood with all the wires underground. The guy looked at me and said, "Do you want cable?" "I already have cable." "We need to replace the line." "Well, not through my yard, are you crazy?" So, the way it was arranged, the main cable junction box was on the main road running by our neighborhood and the distribution box was in the middle of the neighborhood. Originally, they ran the wires along the roads. The neighborhood was private and we all owned the road as well. So, anyway, the way it was arranged, it was way shorter to run the line through my yard, so the guy just decided to do so. I told him to get off my property and then we had a big deal with them trying to do the line through my yard and me suitor damages. The Einstein dug up my septic tile field. In the end, there was no easement, they had to fix everything but it was a giant hassle.
The lawyer(1) probably owns the property or is in cahoots with the owner who is also another lawyer(2) doing the same thing with lawyer(1) being the owner.
More likely I suspect it would be either one of the home owners or a realtor, lawyer, or other person who knows the owners and was involved in the sales process and found the property that way. I would look hard at anyone who recently had conflicts with his/her neighbors before this came about. Might have held the knowledge since the sale then when mad, did it.
@edwardschlosser1 knocking the guy off doesnt necessarily improve the situation. An issue here is that its much easier, at least conscience-wise, to do that to this guy (because he had some intent) than it is to do it to whoever or whatever inherits the land next. If you are rubbing arbitrary people out for land, then why the hell are you doing it for a few crappy back yards?
A few years ago the town I live in realized homes that backed up against town owned conservation land had slightly expanded there back yards mostly done by previous owners. The town inspector found homeowners had sheds, fences, and swing sets on the town land. The homeowners got letters telling them to move the stuff or pay huge fines. It was a huge problem. Most of town didn't care. The only person with a problem was the inspector. A few sheds where moved but the problem went away the inspector got in trouble for going into peoples yards, trespassing to see if he could catch people. He had the right to inspect the conservation land, from the conservation land. Instead of walking the land he decided to take multiple shortcuts and really got in trouble when the cops were called and the yard he trespassing in wasn't bordering the conservation land
My sister had a lakefront property in Florida. It was in a small town and she was fortunate that someone in the tax office called here to say that the lake was up for tax sale. She was able to purchase it and avoided a situation like you described.
@@cnault3244 Post holes. Vertical, gravel lined bottom, with a 4ft post and cement making sure he provides a solid footing for a secure fence around his own property. If you're going get rid of a body, at least put the hole(s) to good use. At least with a fence you can show it off to your neighbors and brag about your hard work.
I live in gold rich northeastern Georgia and worked for a real estate attorney. A lot of people are surprised to learn that they may not own the mineral rights to their property. The right are usually owned in a large block by one of several families in the area. To have the rights researched can cost thousands. My brother-in-law did not own the mineral rights to his property until the man who did screwed up and didn't pay one year. He payed the fees and picked them up. There is an actual gold mine (not operational) on the property.
The first home that I purchased nearly fifty years ago was known as a "battleaxe" block with access via a laneway between the two homes in front of me. The homes in front of me also used the laneway to access their respective garages. When I purchased the property I was required to have a survey done for financing. The property had a rear access large enough to allow a vehicle to enter the property. There was no vehicular access at the front of the property as the home fronted a public golf course. Several years after purchasing the property one of my neighbours in front of me sold his home. Shortly after the new neighbours advised me that my vehicular access was infringing on their property and what I believed to be a driveway in reality was just a single gate entrance less than one metre in width. I requested a copy of the survey report on my property from my finance institution and sure enough the survey showed the actual legal access plus indicating the non approved vehicular access. The finance company advised me that my solicitor should have advised me of the situation, which unfortunately he had not. It seems that many, many years previously a gentleman's handshake agreement had been made allowing vehicular access to the property and that subsequent purchasers of the property in front of me were not aware that my property line infringed on their property. It was only for an observant new owner intent on claiming his rightful property that I was made aware of the situation. In effect my property value was reduced dramatically due an oversight on the part of my solicitor who should have made it known that the driveway access within my property had not been made legal. To further add insult to injury what I believed to be a driveway down to my property entrance was actually a pedestrian walkway and thus vehicular traffic was not allowed.
In Texas, that's known as An Unrecorded Easement. Depending on how long it had been going on, continuous use might have established a permanent right to continue doing so. Especially if one could show that there had actually been an agreement at one point. Settling it would probably still involve lawyers and courts, the best thing would have been for the homeowners to work it out between themselves and record the agreement for future property owners.
The assessors office owes you the taxes, with interest, that you paid for every year that access was included in their assessment and the tax bill they levied upon you. They collected twice on the same real estate from two different people, and you were not liable for yours.
In the past, including 2008, I've performed lots of real estate appraisal work in Holiday, Florida. Back then it was fairly standard for the lender to require a land survey. I would imagine there might be some culpability there with the lender.
The period of time for adverse possession in Florida is seven years, so the proeprty owners have used and maintained the disputed parcels WITHOUT permission of the land trust. Ergo, possession has transferred to the homeowners.
I was wondering about this. It's also seven years in Tennessee and my first thought when he said it was bought in 2008 was "how long is the period of time of open and aggressive use for hostile possession?". Hopefully the homeowners get an easy win here.
@@boblewis8838 oh, then you understand that when you said what you said that you were wrong. Merely using and maintaining a property for 7 years is insufficient for a party to obtain the property via adverse possession. They'd also have to either have color of title or pay taxes on the property for those seven years, in addition to occupying and maintaining the land, then have to the land conveyed to them by the courts. It doesn't just happen after 7 years by operation of law as you were intimating.
I know someone else who bought a tract of land and when surveyed it included many people's back yards and their fences and whatever they had on there. He sent them a letter to move it off. Maybe this is the same story but his was a large tract of land and not some strip. There was even a highway Billboard on it the neighbor was collecting the money from. When he sent a letter to the billboard company they moved it off. This stuff does happen.
12 years, adverse posession is 7 years in Florida... I would suggest they get a lawyer to file in the courts. They have been maintaining it, and the previous peaple had been.
This is the land they are talking about: www.google.com/maps/place/Bigelow+Dr,+Holiday,+FL+34691/@28.1976833,-82.7608231,20z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x88c28dde447fd30f:0xe982d52d85852787!8m2!3d28.197437!4d-82.7581275 Click on satellite view to see the house with the pool (left side), as well as the one with the shed (rightside). Now... Here is what the development looked like in 1971 when it was new: www.historicaerials.com/location/28.1974206844397/-82.75993228584193/1971/18 Note that the easement is not clearly defined or broken out. Even the house with the pool was not built yet. I assume the easement (from its shape) was planned as a water line that would go to a new development being built to the left of this development but was never used.
@@TEverettReynolds adverse possession doesn't matter whether or not the land belonged to them. It all depends on whether or not rightful possession of said land was enforced. For 12 years, nobody took actions to enforce the possession of the land, therefore the homeowners do have a case for adverse possession prior to the sale of the land. Adverse possession could be a valid defence.
It's pretty hard to have adverse possession of property for 7 years if you never set foot on it more than 5 or 6 years ago. According to Zillow one of the properties was last sold in 2002, so that owner is probably going to be fine. Another was sold in December of 2013. That's a hair under 7 years ago, and I'd bet that's the one that got the trespassing notice, which means the owner hasn't let them have adverse possession for 7 years. The others have all sold more recently, so they may be SOL. Here's the link to Zillow: www.zillow.com/holiday-fl/?searchQueryState=%7B%22pagination%22%3A%7B%7D%2C%22usersSearchTerm%22%3A%22holiday%2C%20fl%22%2C%22mapBounds%22%3A%7B%22west%22%3A-82.7611994857656%2C%22east%22%3A-82.75806130121818%2C%22south%22%3A28.196707211992525%2C%22north%22%3A28.198671605559866%7D%2C%22mapZoom%22%3A19%2C%22regionSelection%22%3A%5B%7B%22regionId%22%3A11940%2C%22regionType%22%3A6%7D%5D%2C%22isMapVisible%22%3Atrue%2C%22filterState%22%3A%7B%22ah%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3Atrue%7D%2C%22sort%22%3A%7B%22value%22%3A%22globalrelevanceex%22%7D%7D%2C%22isListVisible%22%3Atrue%7D
@@NYpaddler maybe, I did suggest lawyer... There might be a way around it in that it is the whole parcel on the other side. And the previous owners erected the fence. I don't know about specific procedures, it may for example be possible to file it as a class action of all of them beeing similarly situated, at the point the judge is carving up the parcel, well, it gets a little more interesting.
How do you sue somebody for not holding up their end of an agreement you made on their behalf? "Your honor, dickwad owes me ten grand for landscaping services." "How did you know dickwad wanted your landscaping services." "What do you mean? I forced them on him w/o his knowledge. You know, like government taxes and regulations." "You're not the government. GTFO my court."
Some of the home owners seem to have a pretty good claim for it, if they band together and get a really good lawyer. FL law is 7 years of occupation. The question is, can the courts apply that retroactively to the previous owners so the current owners get the relief as well?
@@bretwalley4673 it doesn't matter if they've known about it since 2008, those homeowners have had an "open and notorious" occupation of the land since then.
@@bretwalley4673 You want me to feel sorry for some asshole who knowingly buys development limited properties and then tries to bully homeowners? Now the question becomes what has this land trust company done in the past 12 years other than trying to sell this property on Craigslist.
@@bretwalley4673 Nobody here is talking about the guy with the room addition/pool except for you; it has nothing to do with this land company harassing homeowners. If this land trust company is so desperate for the property, then they should take the homeowners to court for it. They won't because they'll end up with nothing. Have you even seen the backyards? i.imgur.com/MxoVEkS.png If you think I'm overstating the land company harassing homeowners, then you haven't read much about them www.tampabay.com/archive/2008/05/04/the-invisible-land-grab/
People need to pay more attention. All land I have ever purchased was researched and I purchased title insurance. 1 time I had an issue that was discovered and I used it to negotiate with the seller. It has been well worth the extra cost in all cases, just due to that one time a problem was discovered.
Technically, the municipal or county government owns all land within the boundary of that city or county, hence why we must pay an annual rent to live on that land
I bought my property with a 4 party well on it. I assumed my water was covered. Much to my surprise, I got water bills, and NO I did not own the water rights with the property. Not only that, in the fine print on my land contract was a clause that forbids me to use pesticides or herbicides because the well is on my property. Now there are like 9-10 houses on my well, and my water pressure has dropped a lot from 25 years ago. (One of the reasons I bought the place, the water pressure was awesome and the water delicious) I bought a house when I was young and ignorant. Lessons learned the hard way. I got screwed over 6 ways to Sunday buying this place, but hey it's only 16 payments from being paid off, and when it is, I am moving, with a lot more knowledge in my head than before.
The hedge part of your story was so similar to my brother. He bought a house and almost 2 years later discovered his property was 10-15' past a row of lilac bushes that was a nice separation from the neighbors house. He had really nice neighbors. The only "issue" after the discovery my brother's lawn mowing responsibilities grew slightly, while the neighbor saved time on maintaining his lawn. Good neighbors are a blessing!
I had a similar issue with a neighbor. We had big yards but the boundary wasn't clearly marked. The only issue was mowing. We both just mowed a bit over where we we believed the line to be. When I moved in there was a vegetable garden that was clearly on his property but he said the previous owner of my house had made it and I was free to use it if I wished, which I did. I gave them lots of vegetables and they gave us deer meat.
Considering they want to remain anonymous I would guess one of the 9 homeowners involved is the actual owner of the backyard strip and is looking to skin his neighbors without them finding out it was him.
Something similar happened to one of my Aunts. Her and her husband bought a house on some land, later to find out they did not actually own the land. All paperwork even through the title insurance said it was theirs but a document that pre-dated their purchase showed that the land and the house were separate entities. The bank and the title insurance all ducked responsibility and told them that they were on their own.
That can happen when a mobile home is purchased on acreage. The seller might not disclose that the land and mobile home are in fact separate until later when the land is sold out from under you. The mobile home is considered personal property (with a title of ownership) while the land is real property (deeded to the owner of the land). To attach the mobile home to the property, it must have the hitch and axles removed, placed on a foundation. Then submit forms to the DMV to have the title cancelled and declared the mobile home is real property.
"The neighbors should have have paid more attention to the surveys" Translation you were legally setup for a swindle and the owner knows he's acting in poor faith so will stay anonymous.
One homeowner even realized that she didn't own all the fenced in property. You are putting down an awful lot of money so maybe you should do your homework. In Germany this is mandatory when someone sells a property to give out an extract of the official map including the exact limits of your property.
@@svenweihusen57 Yes one should due their best to avoid being taken. It's no longer a world where you can assume both parties have good intentions anymore. It's like the Ebay scam where people would show a tv or other moderate ticket item for a good price and have small print saying only picture. The person should have watched out better the one tricking the buyer is still a crook.
@@theyaden The problem is: who knew about the problem? Did he knew about it and just didn't care or was it some oversight decades ago. So maybe, just maybe, the seller didn't knew better. Why else would he have build the fence around something he didn't own? And there seams to be a lot of people unaware of this problem. And I certainly can't understand the one who knew about the problem and still bought the house and is now complaining.
@@svenweihusen57 I have my doubts the people buying were aware a chunk in the middle of their property wasn't being sold with the rest of the parcel. (If someone buys knowing this they are to put it polity very unwise) That the person who owns strategic chunks within these properties decided to remain anonymous while reaching out to say they will need to pay a way higher than market price to have use of their property is why I believe this is a scammer who found a legal way to cheat some people. He's got multiple people by the short hairs and I'm a bit too cynical to believe it was all happenstance.
@@theyaden Lento stated that one women check the limits so she knew about the problem. It was never stated how old these houses are so they may have been sold many times and somewhere along this the information was lost. And IMHO the real culprit here is the city. It should be quiet obvious that this is a useless property for commercial or housing activities so they should have checked it and offered the stretch to the homeowners. The current owner is certainly a leech but he is profiting from the carelessness of the buyers. Not nice but legal.
When I was a child the homeowner behind my parents sued them and our next door neighbor for taking his backyard. Which even as a kid I thought was funny since I had watched his house built. I just remember him over yelling at my Mom. My dad looked stuff over and called the local bank holding the mortgage to see if they had any idea what to do. They sent someone out to survey since they held the notes on both houses and were concerned. In the end it turns out the street behind us was put in wrong. They built the road with the centerline about 10 ft off. So everything was off from there. Since my parent's street and house was built first the neighbor behind us lost out. But not after dragging everyone into court, etc. Lucky for my parents the bank represented them so they lost no money over it.
I have neighbor like that they try to take done my fence down when I had my land surveyed found out three feet of there property i owned before I had this done they telling me that two feet of my property was there's so put a bigger fence up
My Wife's Grandparents "lost" 50 Acres to Ft Knox when they started fencing in the Training Areas. But they had never had a Survey done so there was really nothing they could do. Nothing they could have done anyway because, hey, Ft Knox.
Someone in the government's land management office brought that land at an tax auction. Just business! File a suit to make the owner known to the public.
I don't think so. I think someone just saw an opportunity to sell the land to the adjacent landowners. See google maps: www.google.com/maps/place/Bigelow+Dr,+Holiday,+FL+34691/@28.1976833,-82.7608231,20z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x88c28dde447fd30f:0xe982d52d85852787!8m2!3d28.197437!4d-82.7581275 The property could even be sold to the houses on Tiki street, just north of Bigelow street. So it has value.
@@kennethjohnson4456 Probably not. Whoever is behind this is notorious for buying land and then harassing the local homeowners www.tampabay.com/archive/2008/05/04/the-invisible-land-grab/
@@ExpIohd The case of the private road would probably fail in court. The residents have used it for 30 years and maintained it all this time, including paving it. I don't see any court now denying access to their properties. I believe adverse possession in Florida is seven years.
@@TEverettReynolds - The houses on Tiki could not use it as there is a drop off between the two yards. A retaining wall there is with a 6 to 10 foot drop I am guessing. Look at your link and view it with satelite and zoom in. The shadows give away the 1 story drop from the pool to the area below. This was a driveway/alley access for the rear of the houses and very well might have right of way or use on the deed prior to this tax sale.
the banks definitely care. if you got a clean survey and title insurance, and the bank approves - at least nine real estate sales, presumably nine surveys, nine title insurance policies, nine property transfers w local county- every single one - at least 36 professionals in this field - had to have made big errors that no one caught. This is shady af.
That's outrageous. It sounds like the previous 9 homeowners didn't know about that tract of land either. I guarantee you that I wouldn't grant easement through any of my property to that "trust" without it costing it "more than [it] could pay".
If the nine prior homeowners never rose the issue, and the trust exercised its ownership of the property by paying taxes on it, the trust might have eminent domain rights over it.
Something similar happened to my folks. They didn't really know the neighbors. Neighbor sells house to new people . New people put up a privacy fence across my folks property. They had been lied to and tricked into thinking their property was three times the size it actually was. Talk about getting off to a bad start. Neighbor's finally let the house get foreclosed on. Can't say I blame them. A new neighbor thought for months that he owned a not insignificant part of a mutual neighbor's driveway. Nope. Turns out the neighbor owned several feet down the length of "his" yard including where he parked this trailer and yard equipment.
About 15 years ago I bought my hovel (some might call it a house) and hired an attorney to review the transaction prior to signing the paperwork. That couple of hundred dollars saved me over two thousand dollars. I was purchasing using my VA entitlement and the lender had tacked on fees not allowed under that provision. Yay lawyer. A week after moving in I got a survey done, put up a fence, cleaned up the yard, and made fast friends of otherwise ordinary neighbors. Lawyer+survey+fence=no drama.
Now the law requires a real estate agent and the banks interject all their regulations, the seller didn't accurately define the property and how the hell is any of this goes through without a surveyor?
Wow, such a different way of buying property over there! Over here we hire solicitors/lawyers to do conveyance on any property, part of the conveyance is carrying out searches of documentation for past and future planning, services, and "title", it's really not optional, and I'm pretty sure we don't even have "title insurance" because of this. On the adverse possession aspect, I think that 12 years is the UK threshold btw (it was the very first thing that popped into my head when you outlined the issues these guys are having)
In extremely rural, extremely southern Virginia one guy owned a right of way for a railway which was completely removed. He successfully forced some people to pay him for a right of way ACROSS HIS RIGHT OF WAY until his buddy the judge retired. In Indiana, a gas pipeline company was taking out trees and buildings in people's yards after decades of placement: legal control of a right of way, of course. I live in rural Pennsylvanian where the township ordinance states public roads have a 16 to 25 foot right of way, which is pretty funny since very old houses and barns frequently are as close as three feet. And of course, imminent domain trumps all private ownership. Welcome to the land f the free, if you can afford to pay.
Would it work to let the grass and weeds grow on the property, then file a complaint with the city that the condition of the property is a health and safety hazard?
@@kewlztertc5386 We don't know if the Land Trust did not pay taxes. It would make sense they did if they are claiming ownership not to mention that they bought it from the city. Nor do we know if the homeowners' property taxes included the strip of land. I doubt it did. I suspect everyone paid taxes but the home owners didn't realize that they weren't paying taxes on the contested strip.
@@fredflintstone4715 are you going to tell me that Criminals that have broken into a house and injured themselves have not successfully sued the home owner.
I'd wonder about whoever sold them those houses in the first place. *Somebody* built a whole slew of fences enclosing land that wasn't part of the properties. Could this be some sort of long con, where the property seller made it look like the property included more than it really did, so that they could come back later and demand more money for the rest? It'd certainly explain why the trust's owner wanted to remain anonymous - I doubt the courts would look favorably on such a practice.
It would be interesting to compare the properties legal description in the purchase and sales agreement to a current survey. Also it seems that title insurance could remedy this. If title insurance is in place it doesn’t matter if the banks care or not. The home owner can still make a claim.
In some older towns there use to be a road in the backyard that was used for coal delivery. This road is long abandoned but on the survey it is a 20ft easement owned by the town. The town can sell it at any time so it is a good idea to buy it first.
I'm located in Toronto, Canada and it's the norm here to have real estate lawyers as part of any real estate transaction. It is their job to review everything and point out issues like this. We also have title insurance as well. I wouldn't dream of purchasing a home without a lawyer reviewing everything.
Where I live, this is very common. I once looked at a piece of property that was 21 acres. After viewing it, it was very obvious it was not that big. There was a housing plan on both sides of the wooded area. After looking at the lot sizes on the plot map, I could see that all the houses, (about 10 on each side), on both streets adjoining the property had "extended" their backyards about a 75-100ft beyond their property lines into the wooded area. Buyer beware... I always compare the "legal" description to the actual property.
The city council can declare eminent domain, force the jerk out, and then sell the portions to the homeowners. It is quite legal and can wrap this up in short order.
My question is that since at least one of the surveys that was done did not specify where the land past the utillity easement belonged, did the government charge taxes on the same piece of land to two individual owners? Because if so it could be argued that the land in question was never delinquent in whole at any time in the past and therefore should never have been sold at auction in the past. Because if this is the case, and it is a big if here, then the local government could impose an imminent domain action, pay the land trust the appraisal value and distribute the land to the home owners as compensation. Done and done.
Bunch of new owners who have not owned for more than 7 years. Sale resets the clock. If one of the previous owners had made the claim and won then the deed and associated paperwork would have been updated and passed to successive owners and title insurance would cover it.
@@davidtherwhanger6795 from the story here it sounds like the county knows that the 20' piece existed and has kept tax records on it (hence being able to sell it at tax sale).the survey not coming back with information on land that was past the property line isn't surprising (once you establish where the lines and property adjacent to the client are and essentially make a property island who owns the rest of the county isn't a concern from a survey standpoint). eminent domain has a requirement to be for public use or public betterment so i dont see how a local government could utilize ED to use taxpayer money to redistribute land back to private owners with no public benefit.
@@markmckinley5989 ... The county Auditor could have altered the land maps and never shown the changes either. There is more to this than just a simple mistake of a deed being wrong or not.
I have an even better idea. Have the city/county seize the land under eminent domain, pay the current "owner" the assessed value of $937 (as stated in a news report), and then turn the land over to the homeowners. Thank you Kelo v. City of New London.
@@ExpIohd If you think the ruling in Kelo said the government can seize property and give it to a bunch of residential homeowners to make their yards bigger you should actually read it.
Kelo is about a private concern being able to take your property (legal plunder), because the new owners will be paying more in property tax than the present ones. One of the sad happenings in this case is the big pharmaceutical firm, after raising all this hell, abandoned their project and didn't build their multi million dollar project after all. In the end, New London wound up loosing big. A bird in the hand, right? A similar thing happened in Merriam Kansas. Someone was operating a used car lot out of an old gas station, the property of which they happened to own. Along comes the city of Merriam, who had been approached by a Mercedes dealership who wants to build there, except this pesky used car lot was in their way. The city says, "No problem, we can use eminent domain." The shiny new luxury cars go into the new lot. And during the next election, the majority of the city council gets voted out.
Not sure if this would be a title insurance issue. Some things are missing from the story. If they had surveys done, there would have been a map of the property not including that portion. Story seems to me like an assumption on the buyers part. Unless there is proof someone with interest told them the property was theirs, it would be on the buyer. As for bank, the bank would lend under no assumption that the backyard was the buyers and would only go by what was in survey. Someone thought it was a vacant lot they could use but in real estate, vacant does not mean free.
When you buy property, it clearly states where. When these homeowners take more then Thier own, then yes this other owner has a right to evict you off the property your illegally on. Simple. There is no assuming you own something. Guarantee these homeowners took more then what's allowed.
Adverse Possession was my first thought. According to the internet(not a reliable source) , it's 7 years in Florida. They may want to check their tax records and see if they've been paying taxes on the land, but otherwise if they've been living there that long, it seems they meet most of the requirements of Hostile Claim, Actual Possession, Open and Notorious Possession, Exclusive and Continuous Possession, and cultivation, improvement, or protection from a substantial enclosure on the land. This is not legal advice.
I agree. If they've been paying taxes on that property, they need to have their property tax reassessed and bill the past paid taxes to the trust. ( I know. Unlikely to be paid)
I thought about this angle, but remember how the easement changed hands to be owned by the trust; it was sold at auction for unpaid property taxes. Nobody was paying the taxes on that land, and presumably the trust has kept their tax bill up to date. The most likely reason for the trust to own the property in the first place is to use it as a money pit to claim against other tax bills as a business loss deduction.
@@DaremoTen no..they had their homes prior to the tax sale that went to the trust, so they could not have been paying the taxes. I am leaning toward the idea that it was one of the neighbors who bought the land and does not like his neighbors.
I had something similar happen. My fence extended onto city property and one day the city showed up and told me I had to move it. Long story short; after at first refusing to do anything the city leased this area to me for 99 years after my great city councilor went to bat for me. Also I had my lawyer contact the previous owners and they paid for it under threat of them fraudulently selling me the property. When one looks at a fenced in area a resonable person would assume that is what was being offered to them in a land sale. Similar to changing out the existing carpeting or light fixtures after a house was sold. They played games with the survey too during the sale but no one cared at the time but we all knew why when this event happened. They knew and sold it under false pretenses. Ended up okay though in the end.
We had a slightly different situation here in San Diego years ago, involving the beach front houses that had a boardwalk behind them, between the houses and the beach. The city actually owned a strip larger than the boardwalk, but the homeowners, pretty much all of them, enclosed the unused areas up to the boardwalk, as part of their private yards. The city made it known that when the time came to enlarge the boardwalk, the land would be reclaimed. But until then they would leave things as they were. Then came the time when the foot/ bike traffic on the boardwalk was getting excessive, and it was time to widen it. And all the homeowners, who should have known they were occupying the city's property, screamed and cried and filed lawsuits and generally threw tantrums. They lost and the boardwalk was enlarged.
That's hilarious. They do a similar thing where I live, if you fence in part of the public owned utility easement as part of your yard, they usually won't do anything, but if they need to access or do work in that area, they'll take out the offending section of fence. It doesn't happen often, but when it does I always laugh.
had a similar situation happen here in Connecticut. Long story short, A railroad had a long spur line that was not used. They pulled the tracks up 30 years ago. There was a housing boom in the area, bunch of new developments, the builders had to of known the railroad had a right of way when they got the permits. The people who purchased the houses did not do there research, railroads decides to put tracks back down.... and now about 20 mcmansions are 100 feet from a railroad track. They tried going to court but lost. The railroad legally owned the land and it was well marked out in the towns records. If anything they should have gone after the builder.
A similar thing happened at Seacliff State Beach (south of Santa Cruz). Homeowners assume they own to the edge of the oceanfront bluff but the Lot lines are actually several feet back. They have patios, decks, planters, and fences on the State side of the boundary. They cured that over time by notifying the Lot owner every time a lot listed for sale, the homeowner cleaned it up quick so as to not get a lis pendins to mess up the sale.
Don't you have lawyers who check the title when you buy a house in the US? In the UK, the lawyers would catch this on purchase -- and if they didn't, they'd be liable for the cost of the land.
I've been a Texas real estate broker for 35 years, but I'm not an attorney, so this isn't legal advice. I've had surveyors fail to properly document something and then later have to pay to "fix" their error. That might help the homeowner whose survey didn't show the separate parcel at all. However, basic Texas title insurance might not provide any help in similar instances here because the policy has an exception for errors in boundaries. There's an addtional title insurance rider available for about 5% more of the policy that covers shortages in boundaries and encroachments. I think that the extra coverage would help a homeowner in a similar situation in Texas.
Every Home I've purchased, in SC and NC, required a land survey and marking posts to mark property until closing. Also at closing purchaser signs off on photos and maps showing property boundaries, I'm sure to avoid this kind of mess.
Great show. You brought up points I did not realize when I bought my home years ago (sold since). Question; if you paid taxes on the property in question, can you collect them back from the county/state or sue the new owner?
If it's attached to the property with a closed in fence, it's the home owners property... Otherwise the realtor MUST specify that BEFORE sale is made...
Alternatively, make them fence it off and maintain it. It isn't clear if there is any access to the plot in question, so the homeowners might be able to deny access to the bastards. Catch 22: they have to maintain it but must trespass in order to do so.
At one time the last ten feet of my backyard was an alley. Said alley was abandoned by the city many, many years ago. Whomever was in the home then took possession of that ten feet. That little fact became interesting when a development went in on the other side of my fence. My fence didn't move. The developer built one less townhouse ☺
Steve, you mentioned both mortgages and title insurance in this video, but I don't believe either would be valid. 1. The mortgage is only made on what is titled to the specific property, so they would already know the lot size and the area covered. 2. The title search would only be done on the property being sold, while not looking at the properties behind it.
I noticed a driveway into a townhome or condo community with no alternative ways in that's listed in an upcoming tax sale. Shoulder devil has been mulling the... possibilities. A case like this came up recently with a "private street" the developer didn't incorporate into the project correctly and it ended up privately owned and in the news but never saw a follow up story on the outcome.
Good point, since the owner has declared he owns it, by law, isn't he responsible for it's upkeep & what about all the taxes & fees these people paid on something that turned out to belong to someone else?
Can this be an example of title theft? You know, all those ads saying that criminals create a fake title and then sell the house or take out a loan against it. Could this be criminals activity?
@@imlistening1137 The way property in a subdivision is sold is by lot numbers. If you buy lot 5 of block 6 in subdivision XX, it does not include the alley behind it and can also have utility easements that encumber the title. You may have the use of the alley, but it was never part of part of lot 5, block 6. The utility easement may have gas, water, and/or sewer pipes on it or it may be a power pole with electric, telephone and cable lines on it. Utility easements can actually make the house more livable Title theft involves someone filing fraudulent documents stating that they purchased lot 5 of block 6. Most of the posts that I have seen involve efforts of the true owners in clearing the title to their property. This is when title insurance may be of use.
while buying my current property I noticed it didn't list an easement for access to the property. I brought this up to the title company and they easily fixed it ( for them ) buy excluding it from their policy. the selling RE agent and I spent 2 days at the court house tracking down the correct easement.
A little more fundamental than the arguments here: Who built their fences on the Trust's property ? The Developer ? Why didn't he have plot maps. Fraudulent/misrepresented sales ? The Trust didn't know the Developer building/ fencing in their property ? Why did the Trust wait so long to speak up ? In many places, if you do not contest a property line incursion within a certain period of time .... it becomes the other party's property. Same thing with "Right to Cross" easements. If people are allowed to access and cross your property for (what ever the designated time period is for that local), they now have a legal right to cross it permanently .... even if you now want to close access off.
Don't think so. It owns another sliver of land and has apparently owned others in Pasco. Its all part of a scheme to make money on loopholes. Pasco has some responsibility here too. Why would it allow such a parcel to exist?
This video just proves the fact that laws have to become more simplified. You seem to be honorable that can't be said about many of the legal profession.
Did the mysterious owner pay the property taxes for that 20 ft wide strip of land for all those years? If not, the mysterious owner would have lost the property. Shouldn't a title check have revealed this problem to each potential house buyer? Wouldn't the property descriptions on the house owners' property assessments and tax bills have shown them to not include those 20 ft wide strips of land in their back yards?
Something similar happened to me & my neighbors. Gross mismanagement by two HOA property manager co. & poor HOA board oversight lead to 2 or 3 tracts of HOA green space going into tax sale. After the purchase the new owner of the unbuildable land locked green space tried to extort purchases of the green space behind our lots. We all told him where to stick it. Then when he croaked his business partner & daughter inherited the land & tried a softer extortion feigning ignorant heiress just trying to offload land she didn't want. My guess is that these home might had been apart of a now defunct HOA & the homes might have been sold originally as HOA patio homes where you only own house & foundation footprint. It would explain the utility easement immediately out the back-door & why a seemingly abandoned track of unusable & unaccessible land would go to tax sale.
That's why you always get a survey before buying a house. My wife and I were going to forego, but our realtor highly recommended it. Within a month of moving in, our neighbor said she thinks our fence encroaches. Pull out the survey, all is good.
You know remember our laws will allow someone to squat on a property for years with the owners hands tied in legal bullcrap. However if you try to do things legally they still sometimes pull random BS like this.
No. I checked city records and paid for an official survey done on my property (got into a word exchange, minor, with my neighbor as to who owned the plant hedge between us) when I lived in Kansas. At least I knew exactly what I owned. City records got updated at my expense actually. You win a bit, you lose a bit...
@@jayrichards3572 "You win a bit, you lose a bit..." Since you did your homework, you certainly won peace of mind; lost headaches and many other troubles. 👍
In this case one of the owners had a survey done and knew of the issue. Not quite sure what rules are in that area, but seems pool, shed, and fences were probably put in without permits.
@@markmckinley5989 the pool is above ground so probably doesnt a need permit and if the shed doesnt need a foundation it also probably doesnt require a permit.
@@dougkleen9917 like I said it varies by area. Here permit is just for determining tax increase. Previous house I had to pull permit, verify swtbacks, overall lot coverage percentage, and pour concrete slap for tin garden shed.
When we went to sell the first house we had purchased, we discovered that the original survey was incorrect. The survey was a rectangle but with the 4th side described as going off 180 degrees in the wrong direction. We had to get the prior owner to sign off on the survey change, and he said, of course, "what's in it for me".
I don't know if this applies to Florida but I know in Missouri you can take over land if landowner does nothing to it in course of 7 years. There are more specifics to such.
It looks like Florida's adverse possession law (§ 95.16) requires 7 years occupation. By my layman's estimate, the homeowners likely satisfy the requirements, so they have a good chance of succeeding in this fight.
@@TEverettReynolds Not sure on the legalities of claims on a "vacated easement" or if the parcel even qualifies as an easement after it was sold 12 years ago.
---We bought a new home and the builder made fun of us for insisting we wanted to get an independent survey to check it against the plat. Makes me wonder why they cared when we paid for it.
I have seen this situation before,, and I can make a good guess as to how it happened. An easement,, a former intended alley perhaps,, was vacated. Easements and streets can be vacated. The city processed the paperwork to vacate that easement,, and then never told or explained that the now vacant property needed to have its taxes paid. Was the vacation of that easement requested by the current owner? Now that would make a very serious case about this incident. the thing to do, is look back in the city or county records to see who owned this property before it was purchased at auction. The developer? The city? There is a great probability that no one owned the property before that auction. The city or county,, in that case, should be raked over the coals,,, very slowly.
People mention easements, but I don't see how that would apply. An easement is another person's claim to use your property. If the strip were an easement, then it would be "on property owned by these houses." Right? So if they were like "nah, we're done with your land. thank you" then the house owners would be "cool, now I can build that monster brick pizza oven I've always wanted."
@@petermgruhn No, not always. Let's say,,,, Subdivision was platted in 1927. All lots laid out,, all streets laid out. The streets are still an easement,, owned by the city, county or state. Move on 70 years and the one street is never used,, never has been used, grass growing on it and mowed by the guy next door,,, he always thought it was just part of his lawn. The city may want to 'clean up' its map,, and it would love to have property taxes coming in. They vacate the property,, a process that removes it from public right of way and makes it private land again,,, which now they want to sell to make more money. The auctions are public,,, but that means you have to go to the property tax site to check,, or the surplus property lists. It is public,,, just rarely publicized. I have used a specific case as my example that I was aware of from day one. The really underhanded portion of my example is that the city never informed the guy who had been using the lot as his lawn for 40 years. No one knocked on the door, no none said, "You should bid on the property." They just sold it. Lost his yard and part of his garage.
Can't they find out the land owner from the township or attorney? And isn't title insurance and a survey required when selling the property? How did this not come to light when they made settlement? Did these people buy their homes before 2008?? They should charge the owner of the property for maintaining the property. Four years of mowing, edging, seeding etc has to add up to a lot of money especially in Florida where its done all year round. They need to start billing the property owner. In my state, hardly anyone gets a lawyer, but I did. I was buying a new construction from a builder and wanted him just to go over the paperwork. It was only $500, he reviewed all the documents and came to closing with us. Here, the builder had in the contract that the buyer was responsible for our state's seller fees, which amounted to several thousand dollars. The HOA they had said i had to get their approval to plant or remove any trees or plants in my front yard. The first thing I wanted to do is replace the silver maple trees the builder planted in the front yard, their root systems usually grow wild and can cause damage to underground pipes and can lift sidewalks, etc. My lawyer caught these 2 things, that everyone in the development, they didn't have lawyers, didn't catch and ended up costing them. My lawyer had the contract rewritten where the builder paid the seller fees and then notified the HOA that they would be responsible for maintaining my front yard, mowing, planting, edging, seeding, fertilizing, etc. The way they worded it made them responsible legally for maintaining it. Well, I didn't pay the sellers fees and the HOA removed the approval part from their contract. This lawyer only cost me $500, but saved me thousands, around 4k. Definitely worth it and I'll never buy property again without a lawyer!
@@JeremyEllwood I am hoping to move to a larger location. Get my 43 ft vertical up. Fire up the 'new to me' Collins S Line. Nothing like radios that glow in the dark. A bit rusty on my CW. Use to do about 18 wpm. 73's.
@@tompinnef6331 I am tech so don't do (need) CW (though I still want to learn it anyway - it's good info to have). I live within city limits and close enough to the approach path of Flint Bishop airport where I have to be careful of my height so once I get the needle up there, I'll be looking at a probable 25 to 30 foot vertical which, running on 2 meters isn't horrible. When at the farm, I was running a 90 foot vertical at 2 meters with 60W. God, I miss that thing. I have some HF equipment I want to get running but I need to upgrade my license to transmit for that. I've never run HF. I've listened, but never had the opportunity to chat on it. Was hearing Ireland with an HF horizontal run across the fields and excellent propagation (Winter). Real life took over and I haven't been able to hobby as much as I'd like.
When I purchased my first property 30 years ago, the Title Insurance only paid the mortgage holder. To add me to the insurance cost more, which I paid. Also I had a largish down payment, but not enough to avoid Private Mortgage Insurance. As soon as I met the 20% I believe it was requirement, I was able to cancel it. From what I understand some PMI is prepaid for the life of the loan, but I have not bought a property with a low enough down pay entire since to keep up on it. Steve will be happy to hear me say "You need to get a lawyer for these things."
There is a strip of unmaintained property behind my fathers backyard. It was supposed to be an alley for city trash removal but was never used. Now its a raccoon habitat.
I can understand the frustration. I bought 6.5 acres in Oregon. Then 6 months later found out that 1/2 of it is a right of way for Bonneville power. Bonneville power is basically the federal government so basically I have to ask their permission to do anything with that portion of the property. Wish I had known before buying.
Something similar occurred in Pinellas County some years ago when someone bought, for back taxes, an easement surrounding a large pond behind a dozen or so houses. The purchaser then built a tall fence blocking the view to the pond. Then charging the home owners for the easement .
Can't charge a fee to use an easement. He could charge a fee to access the pond but he'd have to set it up as a business and get licencing, permits and zoning changes. The zoning change won't happen unless he buys the zoning board.
