somebody is paying taxes on it. get that last name and start digging.
Who needs the stinking adjoiner to co-operate?
Is your state not a Recording State? Here, an deed or other conveyance or property encumbrance is not valid until recorded. The Statute of Frauds require it to be in writing and public noticed. Recording complies both requirements, and the State has passed statutory law to require recording for validating any conveyance or encumbrance. If landowners can exchange deeds and hide them under the mattress or whatever, I have no idea how you guys could operate doing boundary work. Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!....
If there has been a death of a land owner, and the estate has settled undivided interests to multiple heirs, that is an ownership interest issue only, the last property description the deceased took title by in the recorders office rules. This would be a non issue here, just research the last recorded deed for the property. This site is interesting to see the regional differences. I still cannot comprehend how complicated it would be if unrecorded conveyances or encumbrances were valid... How can you work... What a setup for fraud, the property could be sold to 10 different parties, and they all produce a signed but unrecorded deed.. I still don't understand how real property title could not be in anything but chaos under those rules. You guys got my sympathy if that's how you have to operate, I cannot imagine the liability that gets placed on you beyond what it is in a Recording State.
> It is pain, but it is not terminal. Good deed research should resolve the question. This is why we get paid the big bucks.
Agreed, it should resolve the problem, but in rare instances it will not. Poorly written deed descriptions, lax recording standards by courthouse employees, records lost due to fires, floods and the War of Northern Agression; all of these things can be commonplace. Hell, I have been to courthouses where you are looking for, say, Deed Book number three, and the clerks say "that book has been missing for 50 years".
It is not unusual in my neck of the woods for land to be in the estate of someone who died over a hundred years ago, and the family member living on the land may not even know which ancestor originally bought the land.
The tax offices don't care whose name is on the tax bill as long as somebody pays it.
I can certainly see how Tommy might be having difficulty in finding the name of the actual grantee. As hard as it is for some to believe, that is just the way it is in VA, and I imagine some of the same types of things have happened in Tommy's area.
Tommy seems to be just beginning his search, and I am sure he knows all avenues to explore in his area. The search is the important thing. I think his due diligence is what is expected of him. Some deeds will just never be found.
Who needs the stinking adjoiner to co-operate?
You haven't been paying attention to the rest of this thread.
Yes, we record our deeds down here. However, when someone dies with a will, there is typically NOT a deed conveying property to the heirs. Unless you ask the people, or have a membership to ancestry.com, there is no way to know who the current owners ancestors are.
For those that are keeping score here is what I have found. The current name (A) on the tax card is dead. Her husband is still living though. The woman inherited the land from her daddy (B). He inherited the entire estate of some fellow (C) he might have not even been kin to because that man evidently didn't like his family very much. There is no deed of C, or anyone else with his last name, buying this property. I would have never gotten this far if I hadn't found a deed where B sold 1 acre to a church and the deed mentioned the will from C.
Who needs the stinking adjoiner to co-operate?
Go talk with the Preacher of the church that received the donation.
So You Have "C"s Name, Go From There?
1/ In the majority of estates passing the large tract of land generally goes to the son. Once you get before 1900 almost all courthouses have only 1 or 2 grantor grantee books. Start with "C"s surname, then visually scan each deed. I would start with the grantee book to see if and when "C" or predescessors acquired it. Do not ignore the grantor books, if someone acquires a large estate it is very likely they disposed of some part of it possibly to someone who was inclined to register the deed.
From the current tax map you should have a general shape of the land. The adjoiner in question should be surrounded by adjoining deeds you can find as current.
2/ Back date your rough description from the tax map to chains, rods, perches or poles with bearings to the nearest 5° and map it, so you have a good idea when you do see a deed match. N 25° W 17 ch (68 rd) on the line is sufficient.
3/ Most likely there are a few that appear that they came out of the tract in question, trace them back to when they were severed.
4/ Trace back large adjoiners to the adjoiners to see if any of them came out of a much larger common tract.
Don't be surprised if you find a 500 acre description with 4 100 acre exceeptions to take out to find the final 100 acres or so. Also do not be surprised if an irregular shaped estate is a conglomeration of numerous initial settlers tracts.
This sounds like a fun and educational project, if you treat it as if you are losing money you will not put professional effort into it. Money is not a consideration, you do what you have to do. If you are not lump sum but hourly, you may well be in dispute over the bill. Those considerations have no weight when it comes to what you have to do professionally.
Paul in PA
New England
cool...I didn't know you were in New England..
Who needs the stinking adjoiner to co-operate?
I am hearing you Tommy.
Some days you run across a property that involves a family and/or attorney that does not do the normal recording process and cuts corners by saving paper and inducing researchers into comas after attempting to locate a property description.
I don't know if I live in the worst place to research, but according to the students and professors of a nearby Surveying class, it is high on the list.
Registries are not always complete and not by the clerk's fault. From a researcher's viewpoint, some legal documents simply do not include all the information they should. It is hard to list a property correctly when the document is incomplete.
Many of the registry listings are confusing with the same person being listed under numerous spelling of the same name and perhaps under their nickname.
Women's names can be confusing as their name can change from being single to married name and more than one married name for many.
Wills are not always recorded or do they even get to probate in some cases.
It is rare to find a sheriff's deed that includes a description. Most of the time it has the Tax Office information listed to describe the property.
It is not uncommon to spend more time on finding one reference than it takes to find all the others, do the survey and paperwork and have a blank space waiting for the name and recording info.
Here, my last resort is a set of old abstract maps and the card files at the title company.
Luck has been the absolutely saving helper many times by spotting one common element to ask or search for.
Then there are the cases that when you finally find what you are looking for, it becomes apparent that the only description there is to locate is defective and is useless. Its defect is usually the reason it was not listed correctly in the registry.
Defective Description?
"Then there are the cases that when you finally find what you are looking for, it becomes apparent that the only description there is to locate is defective and is useless. Its defect is usually the reason it was not listed correctly in the registry."
I agree, and that defective decription may be the most important one to find.
Paul in PA
> Ride around the neighborhood until you find an old man out on his porch,
That is exactly correct. I did that once to get some background on why the abutter's deed didn't fit the subject deed and an abutter (not the one with the conflict) who was 100 years young told me that when he was a very young boy there was a boundary dispute that went to court. There was no indication of that in any of the historic deeds, but after laboriously searching the Superior Court records, I found the settled case. Apparently the old original description was passed forward instead of the adjudicated one.
Northern
Actually, the Statue of Frauds doesn't require notice of the public. Just because a deed didn't get filed doesn't mean it's not valid. That's why you have race vs. notice states.
Who needs the stinking adjoiner to co-operate?
In the case of a death transfer I look for a Decree of Final Distribution or an Affadavit of Death. Those name the deceased and the heirs so you can follow the chain of title.
Unfortunately we don't have indexes by Township and Range or Subdivision or Rancho Grant like other places seem to do and some of our Counties are huge. If I could go back in a time machine to 1850 that is one thing I would tell them to do.
Who needs the stinking adjoiner to co-operate?
If I could go back to 1850, id tell them to require iron stakes instead of the ubiquitous stake.
Allodial, means "no earthly lord"
After about 5 years of research I am slowly concluding that there is no such thing, as much as I wanted it to be true. It only exists as a state of mind, a possibility.
After the Revolutionary War, the Americans were allowed to think they had allodial title, but read the Treaty of 1783 and you will find otherwise.
Who is paying the adjoiner's property taxes?
Allodial means that feudal law does not apply. The WI, (along with some other states), constitution specifies that all land in the state is allodial.
Cooley, in his 4th ed. of Cooley's Blackstone, includes a frontspiece titled 'Some suggestions for the study of the law'; and he includes the following caution:
All history teaches us that different peoples, or even the same people in different stages of advancement, are not to be governed by the like modes and forms; and while we all concede this as a general rule, we are too apt, perhaps, when we compare with our own the system which prevails in the country from which we have mainly derived our ideas of government and law, to forget that we erected our structure on foundation ideas of democracy which never pervaded in the governing classes in Great Britian, and that the aristocratic sentiment, which is there controlling, is here, in a political point of view, insignificant.
Richard Schaut
Tommy
I have only used this source twice in 30+ years, as a last resort I have given a lease hound friend of mine a call. If that area has ever been worked, it is almost a sure bet that they can put their hands on a list of owners back to day 1.
Mr. Schaut, respectfully,
If I recall correctly, your previous citations were that the Wisconsin constitution says land title in that state is "allodial in nature". Trouble is, most folks are not "in nature" they are "in commerce". Attorneys' word games at their finest.
We (Americans) tried really hard to establish allodial title, and the British were happy to let us believe it so we would work harder at extracting resources for them.
half bubble
Wisc. Constitution, Article 1, sec. 14
Feudal tenures; leases; alienation. SECTION 14. All
lands within the state are declared to be allodial, and feudal tenures
are prohibited. Leases and grants of agricultural land for a
longer term than fifteen years in which rent or service of any
kind shall be reserved, and all fines and like restraints upon
alienation reserved in any grant of land, hereafter made, are
declared to be void.
Richard Schaut
half bubble
I don't dispute what it says, but I have come to doubt that it means what we hope it means. The real question is, are they free of property taxes? And if not, then they do not have allodial title, they merely have fee simple title.
It might have had some standing in 1848 but the world has changed a few times since then -- 1871, 1913, 1933. Quit paying the property taxes and you will discover how allodial your title was.
