Thread: Who owns it????

I've got a good one. We're thinking of adding a new building. But someone else owns a 30 feet by 50 ft square in my NW corner, it's just an old concrete foundation with full grown trees growing in it any building gone for decades. If I can get it we could have 8 more units if we can't the building would only have 42 units and be shorter than the other 2. I went down to the courthouse to find out who owned it and found out it was a tax exempt organization that disbanded 30 years ago and because it was tax exempt it's never come up on the tax rolls before. So basically no one owns it. I've talked to my lawyer and he's trying to find out what to do. It probably has reverted to either the city, the county or the state, but no one seems to know.

I have a friend that had a situation like yours, and the piece was also landlocked, and therefore of no use to others. He consulted his local surveyor, who suggested he start paying the taxes on the land for a year, and then apply through channels to gain ownership of the land.
The county was more than willing to work with him on it.
Just a thought!

You are going to need to get clear title to the property because without it you may have trouble selling your entire property in the future. You may find that the municipality is willing to do a quick "eminent domain" taking of the property - if they do not already own it outright. They are easily justified in this situation because you would be returning the landlocked property back to the real estate tax roles.

Just make sure that you have an understanding at the beginning that you would pay only a nominal amount for the property so you don’t get caught in some political back and forth about the “real value” of the land by some politician trying to make a name for themselves. You should work to clear up the title to the land in any case as a defensive move to protect your current property.

MisterJim444

Actually, The title is no problem. It is set up as an entirely seperate parcel with it's own deed and abstract and it does have street frontage. It was gifted to the Rosa Lee Masonic Lodge (Which was disbanded and unchartered in the 60's) by the original holder of the property (which was an Indian land grant from the 1890's), I had my title checked out before I bought. (you should see my abstract, the earliest pages are parchment)