We went thru a property line dispute in coo's county oregon. 2 surveys were done and they were conflicting. After going to court, (the judge originally found in our favor and reversed his own decision the next day). Our neighbor won the dispute. We have a utility easement recorded on our deed and after the "kangaroo court" decision, nothing has changed. We are still paying taxes on the full piece of property we originally purchased. The easement is still on our deed. We had a current property profile done and it is the same as when we bought the property. What are our options?
Can you give some more details, like what are the details of the dispute, how long
was the dispute existent, how does the easement play into this?
What exactly was the judge's decision, and was this a circuit court case?
Only two. Appeal the decision to the next highest "kangaroo on a trampoline" court. Or, if you're not rich, go relax and forget about it.
You still pay taxes on an easement. You just give whoever a right to do their thing within it. How is that a property line dispute?
If you lost a large amount of land as a result of the court decision, you might be able to get the assessor to reduce your taxes because what you now have is not worth as much. If you only lost a narrow strip of land, it would be harder to make that case.
Either way, you would need to take action yourself, for example by filing a property tax appeal. Assessors have thousands of properties to keep track of. It would be highly unusual for an assessor to read all the court decisions to see if someone's taxes ought to be changed.
What is a property profile? Who prepared it, and what information is on it?
What does your lawyer say about this? He or she knows all the facts and could answer your questions right away.
Gotta appeal...
Concerning Boundary Law cases, usually anything and everything can happen with the decision at the trial court level (lots of "split the baby" decisions happen there). You have appeal it to the appellate court (where they might actually look at the merits of the case and apply the correct law to it) to get anything close to a correct decision. Also, make sure have a good dirt lawyer and surveyor who are knowledgeable on boundary case law in your area on retainer.
Our original property line was on the south side of the Power Companies easement. After the court ruling, our property line now is on the north side of the easement. We lost about 1/8 of an acre. This has a major effect towards building on the property. We tried to appeal the courts decision, The Oregon state supreme court reviewed the case and decided to not to accept our appeal.
> We went thru a property line dispute in coo's county oregon. 2 surveys were done and they were conflicting.
Oregon is a recording state, so each of these surveyors would have had to produce, and record with the county surveyor, a map not only showing their results but describing their reasoning. If you can post copies of these for us we may be able to tell you if you have a case to proceed to appeals with.
These surveys are public record in Oregon, so I don't think any blacking out of names is necessary.
In spite of my log-in name, I am an Oregon registrant located in Portland. There are several other Oregon registrants active on this board.
Gotta appeal...
> ... anything and everything can happen with the decision at the trial court level ...
Including getting it right. Appealed lower court rulings get upheld at least half the time.
>The Oregon state supreme court reviewed the case and decided to not to accept our appeal.
Then you're done with the lawsuit. If the neighbor isn't too bitter (having won), you might try buying the strip. It will probably cost less than you've already spent.
> ... We are still paying taxes on the full piece of property we originally purchased.
If you have a survey showing that your lot area is less than what the tax assessor has in his records you should go show your survey to the county tax assessor and apply to have his record amended.
>The easement is still on our deed.
Of course. It isn't written is magic disappearing ink, is it? If your property line is now different from that described in your deed you will need to file new deeds, and probably go through a property line adjustment process with Coos County. Without knowing more details about your case I can't advise you in more detail. But generally, you have a lot of following up to do to correct the public record. Your lawyer and your surveyor aught to be able to advise you.
>We had a current property profile done and it is the same as when we bought the property.
A title company property profile is just a raw data dump list of those things on record that have to do with your property. They don't attempt to resolve them or judge the merits of each record.
> We went thru a property line dispute in coo's county oregon. 2 surveys were done and they were conflicting. After going to court, (the judge originally found in our favor and reversed his own decision the next day). Our neighbor won the dispute. We have a utility easement recorded on our deed and after the "kangaroo court" decision, nothing has changed. We are still paying taxes on the full piece of property we originally purchased. The easement is still on our deed. We had a current property profile done and it is the same as when we bought the property. What are our options?
>Our original property line was on the south side of the Power Companies easement. After the court ruling, our property line now is on the north side of the easement. We lost about 1/8 of an acre. This has a major effect towards building on the property. We tried to appeal the courts decision, The Oregon state supreme court reviewed the case and decided to not to accept our appeal.
I find it quite common in the cases I've been involved with that the lawyers frequently fail to properly document the conclusion of the case. By the time the trial is over, the parties have spent all their money (and more). They (the lawyers and the litigants) leave the courtroom thinking it's all said and done. It's not done until the paperwork is complete.
Based on the information you've given in your two posts, It would seem that the two surveys overlapped one another by the width of the easement and that both deeds seemingly included an overlapping area defined by the easement. I gather that your position claimed title to the south side of the easement while their position claimed to the north side of the easement. That doesn't sound like a boundary dispute. It sounds more like a title dispute (at least it seems as though that's the way the attorneys argued the case). Was the case argued as a Quiet Title Action (QTA), a Reformation Action (RA), or a Declaratory Judgment (DC)?
If it was truly a title dispute (QTA), then the proper way to resolve the record would have been to record the final judgment in both the county clerk of courts office as well as the county recorder's office as part of the deed record. The judgment recorded in the county recorder's office, if properly formatted, should have included language releasing, relinquishing and quit-claiming any and all of your interest in the neighbor's property as described in the neighbor's deed. The judgment should have included a new description of your property clearly describing the remaining interest you hold after loosing the easement (overlapping) property.
In order to repair the title records after-the-fact, you may need to exchange quitclaim deeds with the neighbor to carry the judgment into affect in the title record. The recorder needs a document which clearly defines the case outcome. If the judgment failed to do that, then either amending the judgment or executing quitclaim deeds would fix it.
If this was truly a boundary dispute case (DC), then the judgment merely had to define the location of the boundary. No change in the title record would be necessary other than indexing the judgment to each of the affected properties. The judgment does provide an opportunity for new descriptions of each entire parcel to ensure harmony between them, but often that brings in questions concerning the other boundaries and adjoining neighbors not involved in the dispute.
If the case was argued as a mistaken deed (RA), then the judgment should have included specific language that repairs the mistaken description of one or both parcels. The judgment should have included language which relates back to the original descriptions and reforms them as if they were always described with the adjudicated terms.
It's crucial for the surveyors to stay in the game until the final documentation is complete. It is just as important that one (or both) of the surveys should be amended to reflect the final outcome of the case. Not only are you left with a title record in conflict with the judgment, you are left with two conflicting surveys on file as well. When the surveyors stay in the game, they have an opportunity to assist in the preparation of the final judgment helping to ensure that both the survey record and the title record are in harmony.
I'm making quite a few assumptions here, based upon a limited amount of information. It is possible to come up with a fix, but the fix is entirely dependent upon the specific facts of the case and the way the arguments played out in court. The attorneys, while they are great experts at trial, often don't have the expertise to properly document the final outcome. They certainly don't have the expertise to repair the surveys. I fix this type of after-the-fact problem way too often it seems.
JBS
Right on the money, Norman.
JBS
Does Title Insurance pay for these kinds of suits?
Great Information Mr. Stahl. Thanks for posting. As a side question, does title insurance usually pay for these kinds of suits? If so, are they required to defend the title as opposed to just paying you for the value of the lost value? Will they pay for suits to appeal?
One of the reasons I love working commercial/industrial real-estate is that a lot of the time, our client just wants to get the deal done and get their project built, rather than spend years arguing with their neighbor over where the line is. I just finished up a survey where there is a 0.25 acre overlap between the property we are surveying and an adjoining townhome development. Our client appears to have senior rights to the overlap, but the townhome development actually occupies the overlap and has the statutory number of years (7) to claim the property under adverse possession with color of title. I got an e-mail on Friday from our client asking what it would take just to quitclaim the 0.25 acres to the adjoiner so the project could go forward. In another instance, I surveyed a four-sided tract which had gaps and/or overlaps on three of the four lines. I duly noted these on the ALTA survey and sent them off to the client . . .and never heard anything about it ever again. I'd be heard pressed to think of a single case in 15 years where the developer wanted to fight over a few feet on the boundary line while holding up his multi-million dollar project for months or years.