I don't understand why the title industry has such misunderstandings about vacations.
1891 a patent is issued for the NE4 of a Section.
1892 a county road is created north of the patent in the adjoining section, the south 60' of the SE4.
1895 the SE4 is patented to a different owner.
From that time on the Section line stays a boundary line.
In the 1970's a subdivision is created south of the section line in the 1891 patent lands.
The county road north of the subdivision was never developed and the county started vacation actions in the early 1990s.
They never followed through, but they did write quit claim deeds to the owners of the subdivision lots for 30' of the road which the owners of the lots have now on file at the courthouse,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Jeeeeezzzzzzz!
WT!*#%&.?ÿ
I thought you were going to be hunting or fishing or skiing or laying on a beach somewhere or smiling with Mickey and Minnie.
+1?ÿ
anyways, working on a similar one here- 1911 subdivision.?ÿ square lots, few acres each, grid pattern, with 3 N-S streets and 4 E-W streets running through everything.?ÿ streets never improved, built, maintained, or vacated, and only occasionally subsequent to the recording of the plat was any of the ground sold or described referencing the plat- all acreage by metes and bounds (save one deed that mentioned "all of lots 2 and 3 and the streets adjoining said lots" [which is its own headache]).
in 1966 my client (a local MUD) buys a metes and bounds tract which not only has a plain-as-day p.o.b. of "the NE corner of Lot 3 of (the original subdivision)...", but when laid upon said original subdivision (as reconstructed by found monuments set and/or recognized by several adjoiners, including state r.o.w.), includes small slivers of 4 of the lots as well as two of the original streets.
here's where it gets real fun:?ÿ i only discover this when, in the exercise of trying to determine how to set on of my client's corners, that what the client fenced off, improved and occupied (which is a large water storage tank) is roughly 65' north of what they were conveyed by deed.?ÿ which opens yet another can:?ÿ namely, they are mostly sitting on land that was deeded to the predecessor in title to their north adjoiner (that issue has been solved with a recent conveyance)... and their south adjoiner has been farming about 2 acres of what the MUD has deed to for the last 50 years.?ÿ said adjoiner having junior deeds to my client's that contain conflicting elements- namely reference to my client's senior deeds that don't jive with their measurements on the ground.
so of course one of the things i do is call the county (because it is still outside city limits- just barely these days), and emergency services still shows the original platted streets in their files, which means vacation has never formally occurred and would need to occur should anyone want to ever get a permit for anything.
so, basically, i have a client occupying a tract to which they have clean title to roughly the north 1/3 and the south 1/3 of what they fenced and put their municipal water tank on.?ÿ the middle 1/3 is still un-vacated right-of-way.?ÿ and the adjoiner to the south is now also part of the equation, as neither party can go forward with much of anything until title is cleared to the 65' that isn't under fencing.
?ÿ
I don't understand why the title industry has such misunderstandings about vacations.
1891 a patent is issued for the NE4 of a Section.
1892 a county road is created north of the patent in the adjoining section, the south 60' of the SE4.
1895 the SE4 is patented to a different owner.
From that time on the Section line stays a boundary line.
In the 1970's a subdivision is created south of the section line in the 1891 patent lands.
The county road north of the subdivision was never developed and the county started vacation actions in the early 1990s.
They never followed through, but they did write quit claim deeds to the owners of the subdivision lots for 30' of the road which the owners of the lots have now on file at the courthouse,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Jeeeeezzzzzzz!
WT!*#%&.?ÿ
The county quit claimed land they were never conveyed?
and their south adjoiner has been farming about 2 acres of what the MUD has deed to for the last 50 years.
Is there a definite enough line for them to go for boundary by acquiescence?
most likely yes- it sounds like the adjoiner's title company is willing to insure it, but this is all underneath negotiations between client and that adjoiner for a purchase. so it's become a little bit of a lever for both parties.
the astounding thing is that it took 53 years to come to light. there haven't been too many owners of the what the adjoiner now owns in whole, but there have been a fair number of conveyances of portions of it.
i have parole evidence (and- to reference yet another thread- old aerials) that indicate the client's tract has been fenced and occupied in present place from day one. what i haven't ever managed to flush out is whether the description was written in error or the fencing and occupation was in error. if you notice i kept using the number 65'. guess what the width of the frontage of the client's tract is...
They did it a number of times. The title companies pushed it. You know get it in the record...….
Funny you should bring up Micky and Minnie, I can say I know it's going to rain Sat, Sun, Mon there.
Mr, Jones obtains the patent to the ne 1/4 of section 8?ÿ
County (buys/condemns/???) road that is entirely in se 1/4 of section 5.?ÿ
Mr. Smith obtains patent to the se 1/4 of section 5 (is this except south 60 feet?)
If Mr. Smith's patent is for the se 1/4, then why would any part of the ne 1/4 have any part of the vacated road in the se 1/4? My understanding is that vacation of a road is reversionary, meaning that the land goes back to the owner.?ÿ Or does the County own the road in fee simple and are trying to be fair?
Curious, because vacations can be quite interesting.
i have parole evidence
not-picking, that's?ÿ parol: agreed orally, or in writing but not under seal.
versus parole:?ÿ the conditional release of prisoners before they complete their sentence
yes, of course. can't blame that one on autocorrect. more like lazy proofreading (in case my original two-edit post doesn't indicate as much).
Mr. Smith still owns the lands that the road occupies.
County roads here are easements, less of an ownership than a dedicated road in a subdivision and much less than a fee simple roadway, which are almost exclusive to State Highways.
The quit claim deeds are a slander of title on Mr. Smith's deed,,,,,,,at least in my non-lawyer opinion.
The record needs to be cleared up.
Had a fellow once employ me to locate an easement that was on record with the county.?ÿ He wanted to buy said easement from the current holder.?ÿ Sounds good in theory.?ÿ The catch was that this was an ingress/egress easement to access a tract that had originally been landlocked without the easement.?ÿ The owner of that tract later purchased adjacent property which then removed the necessity of having the easement.?ÿ However, he never filed a document to release the easement.?ÿ The fellow employing me to locate the easement (as it passed through a convenience store) had no interest in the tract that had initially required the easement.?ÿ He was in a battle with the convenience store owner over a totally unrelated issue and thought if he could buy the easement he could force the convenience store owner to give up on the other battle.?ÿ Once he consulted an attorney he discovered he didn't have a leg to stand on.
Such is the case above.?ÿ The county had nothing of value that?ÿ they could convey with those worthless quit claim deeds.?ÿ Our state statutes require county road easements to be vacated and that be the end of it.?ÿ Any land held in fee, though, can be deeded as they see fit, so long as specific statutes on the sale of county property are followed.
As it now sits the road is abandoned but not vacated. This means, I guess, that it's still a county road, but it's not maintained or used by the public.
Because of public advocate groups it's become impossible to carry a road vacation through to the end, but of course there isn't any way to maintain these unused roadways.
