New bill in congress which gives person who believed he/she held lands found to be on federal lands as part of a resurvey, the ability to purchase those lands. While it has a lot of merit, I'm of the impression its a little thin on addressing the myriad of situations possible, such as the level of effort the owner made or relied on to locate themselves. The qualifier "having knowledge" that they were on federal lands is likely going to end up being defined in the courts if it isn't better defined before (or if) passed.
Bill's text:
http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c113:H.R.5075:
My memory is a little foggy right now (imagine that..) but I believe this has been attempted previously.
There was a recent (15 years) case that involved private properties that bordered on Federal lands with evidence that their boundary was the boundary as set by the GLO. A later resurvey placed the line some 200 or 300 feet into the private holdings and there were structures involved.
I can't remember the particulars, or even the State, but there was a State Senator involved and a public outcry that there existed no channels for the long term residents to purchase their homesteads from the government.
There are cases where this could be just.
Likely you're remembering U.S. Rep Ann Kirkpatrick's work (signed into law last year)to get the sale of federal lands to those homeowner's whose houses were deemed to be partly in the Coconino National Forest in Arizona after a federal resurvey rejected the exterior boundary of a private subdivision. I would imagine H.R. 5075 is spawned as an attempt to avoid these "encroachments" from requiring individual congressional acts by making them purely administrative actions. While similar to the Small Tracts Act, it is far more broad based.
There is a current issue in Missouri also.
The clause referring to tax records will need to be looked at. I assume the bills authors did not intend to exclude land owners with property not located within the jurisdiction of a taxing authority.