Several years ago I received a call from a nice fellow to survey a two acre tract as an island out of an 80-acre tract. It was to separate an existing house from the remainder of property as the result of a divorce. The wife was to have the house and two acres and the husband was to have the pasture land and old farm buildings.
Why I had to do the survey is the fun part of this story. The divorce had become quite bitter by the time they had to appear before the judge to get matters settled. The wife knew the husband wanted that 80-acre tract. They had lived in the house for several years but both abandoned it when they separated. The house deteriorated rapidly. In fact, a bobcat somehow managed to get inside and lived there until it died because it couldn't get back out. At the divorce hearing the wife's attorney presented evidence that the house was still worth a great deal of money. The judge asked the husband what he thought. The husband responded with, "I wouldn't give 50 cents for that pile of junk!" So the judge immediately awarded the house and two acres to the wife, counting that as a 50 cent value to her side of things.
The husband had to pay for my survey. Then he had to pay a second time to have me come out and lay out a judge-approved location for an access easement so the wife could get to the house. I heard later that she got over $50,000 from a buyer for that tract.
You think that the husband would have appealed the divorce decree.
But maybe, he had enough of the ordeal of the divorce proceeding and jsy wanted out.
Judge should have been admonished in some way, IMO.
It makes for a nice folksy kind of story but kind of smells too. If you know what I mean.
I did a survey once in conjunction with a divorce. She got the house and 1 acre and he got 9 acres and every bit of junk he had ever hauled home...it was a mess.
She wanted every spot o' ground that didn't have something sitting on blocks. The boundary didn't turn out that irregular, but it was funny.
Twice while we were out there they got into a screaming and yelling match from car window to truck window. I bet they continued to fight even after the divorce. They probably should have stayed married....:pinch:
It was a weird house, too. It was one of those "earth" houses that is completely covered with dirt except for what you have to call the front of the house. There were a couple of good-sized ducts sticking up a short distance from the grass on top of the house. The bobcat had either knocked off the lid or the wind had already blown it off. It ended up sliding down the duct and crashing into the house but could not climb back out.
Yep. Some guys should just find a woman they don't like and buy her a house. It would be cheaper.
