We had a judge come to one of our local chapter association meetings to discuss land disputes. He told us the only thing people get more emotional about in court is child molestation. How true.
Some of the worst disputes I've seen were between family members.?ÿ Trying to divide up Daddy's property into 3 "perfectly equal" portions.?ÿ Of course one wants the house, another wants the pond, and the third wants to be sure the road frontage is exactly equal.?ÿ After about the 6th revision, with so many kinks in the lines it would take a whole sheaf of drawings to show them all, I finally told them the only way to EXACTLY split the property was to sell it and split the money - down to the penny.
Andy
@andy-bruner You are lucky with 3.?ÿ ?ÿWe had 16 family members and couldn't get them all to agree.?ÿ ?ÿEach had their own ideas and couldn't get the concept even with drawings, pictures, sketches, etches and Crayola scribbles.
When we go to job, it is often:
The ONLY job they have going right now.
The ONLY property they own.
This isnt the most important thing to them, it is the ONLY thing to them.
people that leave their land to their heirs this way must hate them...if you are leaving land, include testamentary plat in your will...the last gift of the dead should be to make the hard decisions.
Some years back my client needed an easement to get to tidewater for a submarine fiber optic cable and there was only one location that would work but the owner of the land had died recently and left the property to be divided amongst his three daughters. Part of the deal was I would do a bunch of surveying for them to help them divvy up the old man??s extensive land holdings. One property in particular was located on a prominent bluff with outstanding views of Anchorage across the inlet. The three sisters and their families were squabbling over who would get it. After completing my survey and recording an ROS that showed all but a hundred square feet of the parcel had eroded into the sea over the last 70 years since the original BLM survey was done. All hell broke loose and I was viciously attacked in a meeting with them how I had crushed all of their dreams. Took everything I had to keep calm and after they had run out of venom I calmly told them ??I only measure land, I don??t make it and I don??t take it away. You will need to take this up with a higher power??. Later they apologized and asked me if I could do more work for them. Not only did I say no, but HELL NO.
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
That's like a brawl breaking out BEFORE the ball game starts.
Sometimes the split is hard to make practical.?ÿ My wife and her brother inherited their parents' land, couldn't imagine selling the family farm, and we worked out what everybody accepted as a fair split of parcels and dollars to settle the estate. No bad feelings anywhere over that. But we created/perpetuated another problem.
The problem is that of the 6 legally described parcels, (mostly government lots or parts thereof with minimal monumentation), only one described parcel matches up with fences, road, and creek.
Her brother's crop field includes 4 or 5 acres of her "pasture" parcel (on the other side of the creek), her pasture parcel includes several acres of her cropland across the diagonal road that was moved in 1949 with no description change (back when bureaucracy was still minimal). One parcel would be landlocked if it didn't sell with the others or to one neighbor, and it is farmed as one field with another parcel that is split by the creek.?ÿ Carve out a piece where a neighbor owns a nominal 2 acre parcel that straddles the road, with a sliver being used as part of wife's pasture and we have to cross the rest to get to some of her land on the other side of the road, and the neighbor is adamant he won't sell.
Thus most of it can't in practice be sold in pieces and would have to go all together.?ÿ It's a total mess that needs replatting, but we haven't had sufficient incentive to spend the bucks yet. When her brother in questionable health goes, I hope his kids are willing to inherit undivided shares and don't want to sell, so we can kick the can down the road again.
@bill93?ÿ
The former Register of Deeds in a neighboring county took on the family challenge after she was retired so she could dedicate the time required.?ÿ As I recall the story. her great-grandfather had filed a claim to a quarter section in the western end of the Oklahoma Panhandle in 1907, much like the thousands of others filing claims in what had been No Man's Land until included as part of Oklahoma that same year.?ÿ I believe she said there were 81 or 87 descendants above the age of majority when she started on this project to finally reward the heirs equally. To make matters worse, this was a very short quarter.?ÿ Around 148 acres or so instead of the common 160.