Average people should be able to rely on knowledgeable professionals to keep them from doing something stupid...like selling the street.
Roughly 12 years ago we prepared a subdivision plat to assist a landowner and city to work together to make money for the landowner and to add new housing in the city. It was a simple rectangular tract with existing city streets on three sides. In order to cut the parcel into eight tracts there was a need for a street stub up the center so far in order to provide access to three lots that would be landlocked otherwise. Said street was correctly handled on the plat and the wording on the plat explaining how the street was dedicated to public usage, etc. etc. All the standard phrases were used.
Immediately upon finalizing the plat, the landowner sold seven of the eight lots to a quasi-governmental organization to erect seven, subsidized, low-income housing units and the city promptly assisted in constructing a proper street and extending utilities to each lot. The landowner kept the lot where his residence was already situated.
A couple days ago a fellow saw me in the grocery store, strolls up and asks if I'm still surveying. Following a brief discussion he decides to have me survey his tract, which happens to be the one lot that had been retained by the landowner of the above subdivision. Today I do a quick check to make sure that he was, in fact, deeded Lot 4 a few years ago. Imagine my surprise when I discover his deed says Lot 4 AND a tract described (by some unknown person) as : beginning here, going there, then over there, then so forth and so on; aka Steuben Court Street.
The original landowner clearly didn't understand that he had relinquished all claim to the area dedicated in the plat as Steuben Court when the plat was accepted and filed with the County. No one else bothered to mention this fact when he included the street in the deed with Lot 4. Not the buyer. Not the title company. Not the bank who loaned money to the buyer. Not the bank employee who typed up the deed and mortgage papers and whose husband is a real estate broker. No one at the courthouse when the deed and related paperwork made the standard circuit from the Register of Deeds Office, to the County Treasurer Office, to the County Clerk Office, to the GIS Department, to the County Appraiser Office and back to the Register of Deeds Office.
Oh, and even better, Steuben Court does not abut Lot 4 because Lot 3 and Lot 6 separate those two entities. It had to be a simple case of a simple landowner trying to deed away the remainder of what he thought he owned.....but didn't.
At least the owners of the Steuben Court lots sold prior to Lot 4 abutted, and therefore "owned", their portions of the dedicated street parcel he described in his deed. He couldn't sell what he didn't own. I wonder if the selling price of landowner's Lot 4 included the street acreage described in the deed?
I wonder if the land owner did that intentionally to completely remove himself from liability if someone were injured in the street, or street/utility maintenance costs, etc.. Since it's dedicated to the public, I don't think the deed means much.
> At least the owners of the Steuben Court lots sold prior to Lot 4 abutted, and therefore "owned", their portions of the dedicated street parcel he described in his deed. He couldn't sell what he didn't own. I wonder if the selling price of landowner's Lot 4 included the street acreage described in the deed?
The same is true in CA. Those lots own to the center of the street.
Don't know about the Cow's state.
He neglected to mention that all those folks mentioned in paragraph five are also cousins to one degree or another;-)
Don
I can hear all the old goats sitting on the "dead-pecker bench" in front of the feed store talking about the "swatch" of land:
"I bought and paid fer it. But that fella that suh-VAID it all off made a mistake an' I caint nevah use any of it."
I'm afraid you're in for a bum rap on this one, HC. :pinch:
The City Owns the Street
The platting process gave the area identified as Steuben Court to the City. The landowner gave up any claim to it at that time. Apparently, he did not fully understand that minor fact. It's obvious the buyer of the lot he had kept for several years had no comprehension of what the deed actually said. It amazes me that no one listed in my fifth paragraph above noticed the major error in the deed.
What form of conveyance was it? If it's anything other than quit claim the seller may have just stepped in a legal cow pie. ..
Nopey, nopey. The lots have no claim to any part of the street. The street became City property.
Sorry to disappoint you Don, but, the only family connection I can think of in the various guilty parties listed is that the bank president is about a fourth cousin to the bank employee who typed up the deed and the mortgage. The County Treasurer has distant cousins who also happen to be distant cousins of the Register of Deeds, but those two people are not related. The original landowner has a second cousin whose wife is a second cousin of the bank employee. Is that close enough for you?
It was a General Warranty Deed. The seller could be in trouble.
The buyer (my client) is not an astute business-oriented type of character by any means. The seller fits the same description although he has magically survived two very financially-rewarding house fires. If he ever learns how to start a flood his current home will surely get wet.
The client said he wanted to build a fence along his south property line because the woman living in the low-income subsidized house closest to his doublewide entertains too many (insert ethnic epithet) on a regular basis. Said epithet does not start with the letter "N" but is probably just as politically incorrect. What he probably does not realize is that the neighbor surely views him with an equivalent level of disrespect and will welcome a fence.
Sorry, Paden
There's no bench outside for you to sit on. Everyone goes inside, closer to the big urn of free coffee and the cute office manager/writer of checks.
The City Owns the Street
Did the city accept the dedication of the street as a public road? Seems to me that, yeah, the city owns it (the public) to be used as a public road. Even the city can't sell it. They could vacate the road and it would go back the the adjoining owners I'd think. If this was all done right nobody is land locked but, maybe I just don't understand the situation.
The City Owns the Street
You are thinking correctly. The City accepted the street in the platting process. The lots all stop at the edge of street. The City owns the street.
Most people don't go around giving warranty deeds for property they do not own. Especially to a street that doesn't come close to touching the primary tract being conveyed.
Sorry, Paden
awww...
probably no checker board either? 🙁
I'm speechless..sigh
road R/W confuses some folks...
In Oklahoma there is a statute that "extinguishes" the statutory right-of-way on section lines if the county abandons the roadbed. As far back as the '30s and '40s a few counties acknowledged this by actually granting a quit claim deed to the adjacent owners when they 'officially' abandoned a section line road. Probably not a good idea on their part, but actually a benign act.
This can throw some folks at the title company into a tizzy. I have seen a conveyance that not only deeded the entire "SW/4" of a section; it also deeded the "West 33' of the SW/4" in the same conveyance as if it were another parcel...because the county had quit claimed it back previously to an earlier owner.
One title company employee wanted to know if the SW/4 shouldn't now have 162 acres, instead of 160..since the quit claim deed called for 2 acres of right-of-way.
The City Owns the Street
I wonder if including the street in the deed was an imperfect way of trying to express the concept that if the city ever abandoned the road, the road would revert to Holy Cow's client. I think my state has a law for easements, but not necessarily fee-simple roads, that if it can be proven that a particular person owned the land before the establishment of a road easement, the road reverts to that person or his heirs and assigns upon throwing up the road. In the absence of proof about who used to own it, it reverts to the abutters.
My own deed is kind of curious. I live on a corner. The deed shows me owning to the edge of the pre-Revolutionary road, but to the center line of the early 20th century road. I have not been able to locate the legal document which first established either road.
The City Owns the Street
Our County roads with a few exceptions are simply rights-of-way and permanent easements such that the abutters still own what they owned prior to the creation of the road or its expansion. They pay no property taxes for that area, though.
State roads are always owned by the State and are not rights-of-way.
A few current County roads were once State roads so are owned by the County.
All streets in incorporated cities are owned by the City.
All streets in unincorporated towns are treated differently. They are maintained by the County and require County approval to be vacated. But, they are not considered the same as normal county road right-of-ways. They are somewhat viewed as though they are owned by the town even though there is no town government in place to take responsibility for them.
The City Owns the Street
Our State statute is the typical 'presumed to go to the center but the contrary may be shown'. In essence owners adjacent to streets own to the center unless the underlying boundaries were different. .
The City Owns the Street
I'm guessing it's here...
West Lafayette (spoiler, I know)
It seemed to fit your description. 🙂
The City holds the streets as a trustee
Adams v. Merchants & Planters Bank & Trust Company, 288 SW 2d 35 - Ark: Supreme Court 1956
It is conceded that the governing law has long been settled. The city holds the streets and sidewalks as a trustee and cannot permanently divert them to a public or private use foreign to the purpose of the original dedication. Nevertheless the city has power to permit an encroachment— temporary in the sense that the city's permission may be withdrawn—which does not necessarily interfere with the public's use of the thoroughfare. Such an encroachment, however, may be abated upon complaint by anyone suffering special damages not common to the public at large.
Freeze v. Jones, 539 SW 2d 425 – Ark: Supreme Court 1976
When a city vacates a street in which it has only an easement, it has no further rights in the property. Kansas City Southern Ry. Co. v. City of Ft. Smith, supra. It cannot be sold by the city but passes to the abutting owners. Beebe v. City of Little Rock, supra; Arkansas River Packet Co. v. Sorrells, 50 Ark. 466, 8 S.W. 683; Town of Hoxie v. Gibson, supra. Neither can the city devote the street to another public use even though the legislature may have attempted to authorize such action, because to do so would impose an additional servitude upon the land in violation of the rights of the abutting owner, who would have the right to enjoin such use. Lincoln v. McGehee Hotel Co., supra; Arkansas River Packet Co. v. Sorrells, supra; City of Osceola v. Haynie, 147 Ark. 290, 227 S.W. 407.
Kralicek v. Chaffey, 998 SW 2d 765 - Ark: Court of Appeals, 3rd Div. 1999
Finally, we come to the question of whether appellants and appellees have an equal ownership interest in the alley by virtue of Ark.Code Ann. § 14-301-306(a) (1987). That statute reads:
Upon the adoption of [a city] ordinance [vacating a public way], the absolute ownership of the property abandoned by the city or town shall vest in the owners of the real estate abutting thereon. Each such abutting owner shall take title to the center line of the street or alley so abandoned, and the ownership shall be free from the easement of the city or town for public use as a street or alley.
DDSM:beer:
The City Owns the Street
My subdivision on the Kenai Peninsula is "to the edge of the road R.O.W.". The neighboring subdivision on the other side is "to the centerline of the road R.O.W." which means, I pay property taxes for only 8.33 acres, while the neighbor pays for 10 acres, part of which he can't use!
-JD-
