If you were an heir-at-law

[Navotifarm]

Some folks on here, I am sure, are very interested in genealogy. My mother was a genealogist so when I was growing up I said, "I will NEVER. So you know the punishment for that! Access to my land ran over a parcel which people bought in 1900. They died, and the estate was never settled. The man whose property bordered on the access started brandishing guns at me and saying he was seizing the right of way so I would have to abandon my land and he could have it. A lawyer advised me to find the heirs to the legatee property and get them to give me a deeded right of way. (The row was shown in my plat but not mentioned in my metes and bounds description).
The first place I looked for an heir was the taxpayer. Uh oh! She started demented screaming and yelling. One thing she hollered was "Gertrude Houchens thinks she's going to get that property but she's not." Hooray. My first clue! After calling about 23 Houchens I found Gertrude who, wonder of wonders, had a family tree in her Bible.. I spen three years, three days a week, hunting heirs to this property. I looked in court records, marriages, divorces, wills, partition suits, criminal records. I searched the census records, Mormon microfiches, old social security records, etc. I found over 1,000 heirs at law. Ha, someone reading this might be one! The probable domain of numbers is about 5,000. There were the two parents. They had TEN children. So an average of five children per child. As you step down the geneartions you reduce the number of children because few people are heavy breeders any more.
I contacted and spoke to about 200 of these heirs at law I had traced so arduously in the court records, telling them. What I thought was the good news, that they were legal owners of an unknown fractional interest in a parcel of land and would they sell me their interest? Mind you, offering them money for something they owned they didn't know about!
Now, my question to you is, if a stranger contacted you in such manner, what would you say and do??

[Patt]

Well if you called me and told me I was a legal owner of an unknown fractional interest in a parcel of land and would I sell you my interest? I would probably say what the heck are you talking about?

Then after you explained your story I would say you can just have it what do I need to do?

[taylorlambert]

Have your lawyer check the ROW laws. In MS if its grandfathered in they other man cant do a thing about it. You cant put a row anywhere. I haved a friend that went through this and the man owned the surrounding area. My friend was harrassed some more till the neighbor found out my friend was about to put his row 10 eet from the end of his house. Now they are great friends.

[Narshalla]

Are you the person who has been maintaining this property? (the access road, I mean.)

Have you been paying taxes on it? Has anyone?

If you have been doing both, or just the first and not the second, but the hasn't been paying taxes on it, either, you might be able to get the access land via adverse possession.

In fact, if it has been long enough and no-one has been paying the taxes, the state might have seized it for back taxes, at which point, you can either buy the whole thing, or establish a legal right-of-way before or shortly after the sale, if you can't buy it yourself.

Honestly, chasing down the heirs is, at this point, pointless, given that the original executor has probably died.

Get a lawyer and go through the courthouse, instead, because you've spent the last three years finding many, many people -- and are not even a fifth of the way through. (At this point, though, I'd want to go through a fifth!)

As for the original question, what would I say if you contacted me -- I would think it was some kind of scam, I'm afraid, and would probably hang up the phone.

[Alice In TX/MO]

If you call me with that, I'd ask for documentation and then take it to my lawyer.

[texican]

Sounds like title insurance would have been very cheap, considering the years of research trying to figure it out.

I've heard of the same problem you're having... unsettled estate, heirs at law, with rights and privileges that can come back to haunt current landowners generations later.

I'd say no matter how much research you do, there's always going to be a chance that there's an heir not mentioned. I've dealt with a couple of estate questions, and on one, I found an extra heir... talked to the children of the other heirs, (ones that were paying me).... they said Uncle John was the black sheep, no one liked him, and they didn't consider him a relative. Well, what someone thinks, and what's legal, is two different things.

If you ever decide to sell your property, maybe you can pass off this red headed stepchild problem to them...

If there are several hundred heirs at law you need to get to sign a quitclaim, that could add up to tens of thousands, in filing fees alone. Maybe ten times that if a lawyer needs to draft each and every quitclaim document. Last document I filed cost 25$. Jurisdictions vary.

I'd NEVER quitclaim anything to anyone, without researching it myself. There could be mineral estate involved (and minerals [oil and gas]) and the mineral estate can be worth 10x the surface estate.

[Iowagal]

Have you investigated an adverse possession claim to the property under your particular state's real estate law?

[kyweaver]

I just want to commend you for saying AN heir-in-law. Not many follow that obscure grammatical rule anymore.

[rambler]

After a bit of surprise, I'd say thanks for the info, I'd like to look into it more, and have some documentation on it, and see what it's all about. Once I understand the situation, I'll consider your offer, but with all the scammers & so forth out there these days I'd like to get a better handle on what we really are talking about here as far as shared owners & value of property.

As I'm interested in my family roots, I'd be interested in eeing the info you've come up with on the family tree, ans sharing such would help me look into this in your favor as well.

--->Paul

[Navotifarm]

Narshalla and TaylorLambert, I'm in Virginia which allows people to roam about threatening others with guns if they are on their own property or if there are no witnesses. Part of taking land or property or a road by adverse possession is by being hostile and notorious which this old drunk with the gun certainly was! An heir-at-law was paying the taxes on the legatee property, though, so the gun guy didn't meet that criterion. The lawyer advised me to find heirs to deed me a right of way across their land so that the gun guy would not have a legal right to brandish his gun at me. He also advised me not to have these permissions (written as deeds) specify where I would cross so that I could make a new way in not near the gun guys property.
Fortunately the Houchens set of heirs, 13 of them, were like Patt and Paul. They trusted the genealogy work Gertrude had done and were very interested in what I found out. One of them even came to court with me one day to do research. However, many more hung up on me. Some were like Alice and wanted me to give them documentation to take to a lawyer. Their lawyer then effectively said, Now we known who needs you?" And advised them to just take the fruits of all my hard work and research and apply for ownership, employing him. That didn't work because as texican points out, there were too many of them so the cost of their lawyer was higher than the worth of their share of the land. The one paying the taxes wanted the others to quit claim their shares to her which some did and some got mad because she had been trying to take the land without telling them.
The most interesting thing was, most of the ones I contacted did not ask to see the genealogical research, they wanted to see the actual land! Naturally, when they went there, out came the gun guy. He would tell them if they joined with him, he would keep me from going to my land which I would have to abandon and then they could join the two properties together and sell them both, theirs and mine. This confused their little pea brains into paralysis or a kind of dog in the manger attitude.
Lucky for me, I found enough who either gave me deeds of right of way or sold me their shares because a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush that the taxes were put in my name. The gun guy got so angry and frustrated he died but that's another story. What I wish I could know is how to communicate with the heirs who did not know about their fractional ownership in this land so they would respect me for the work I did and what it took for me to find them. I had a very compelling reason, someone trying to take my land away from me at gun point. In this experience, I noticed it was mainly the oldest ones who would listen and understand. The younger they were, the faster they blew me off. What I wish I could figure out was, was this more for lack of interest in family connections or more because there are so many scams nowadays that , no matter what the proposal, people are just too afraid to listen?

[dezingg]

Is the late drunk with the gun the same guy that was trying to flood out your road by building a dam? If not you certainly have been unlucky with neighbors.

[Navotifarm]

Actually, I have TWO separate neighbors who have built dams to flood out two different accesses. (There were originally five access roads). One made a big dam across a strong creek so now there is a very nice lake which I'm happy to have on the edge of my land. The other is the one who made a coffer dam which floods my access (the one I use) in wet weather. Neither of them are drunks. The other drunk is the nefarious schemer I sold three acres to who cooked up a law suit to try to get such a big judgment against me that he could take all my land. Quite a cast of characters keeping me from ever getting bored!

[fantasymaker]

PM me and Ill tell you what Id do.