Land title, messed up estate.

[VroomVroom]

I know this is not the spot for talking about estates. Although being as it used to be a farm and it means alot to me and people here can be informative i thought I would ask.

Basically, there are more twists then I may put here but the story goes as follows

A father and his son purchased 48 acres in 1911 jointly. there is a deed. When the father died in 1937 without a will, I would have assumed that the land would have went to the joint owner his son. This son died in the early 1960s with a will leaving it to his 5 children.

When the father died in 1937 , his other son with the same name and even the same wifes name moved into the fathers house and lived there for a long time. next to the brother who jointly purchased it with his father. The brother with the same name later died in 1984 with no will. His wife then took the land or 1/3 of the land as matrimonial property, even though the land was never purchased by her husband. In fact, when the highway went though, the husband even sold pieces for the road to go through. The brother who jointly owned the land with the father moved to california and his kids as well. How can the women claim 1/3 of the 48 acres if her husband never purchase it anyway? Her husband has the same name and wifes name as the father, however, the son was born in 1899 only 12 years before the father and older brother purchased the land in 1911.....


any thoughts?

 

[sweettractors]

Sounds like a lawyer needs to do some leg work at the courthouse. Ken Sweet

 

[VroomVroom]

yeah no kidding...I dont know whats going to happen.

 

[ultrarunner]

Sounds expensive...

All kind of things come into mind. The first is who has been paying the taxes over the years.

In my state, squatters have to be open and notorious and pay property taxes to perfect title...

Another question that arises is why the delay?

I've seen cases like this where someone pulls out the family Bible and produces a well worn document claiming the land was a gift or it was willed...

My advice is to figure what it is worth and how much time and effort you are willing to commit before investing a lot of either.

 

[bigtiller]

Another thing to consider whether or not you want to start what could become a large family quarrel. 48 acres, depending where it is, could be worth a little or a lot but is it worth loosing your family? That is the first question that needs to be addressed.

 

[Transit]

Not just a lawyer, a real-estate lawyer.

 

[johnrex62]

The inheritance law will differ state to state, and even from time to time. Texas law has changed once or twice in the last 100 years as to how intestate estates are handled.

Currently, a separate property estate with no deed is passed equally to all legal offspring and a life estate passing to any surviving spouse. My father-in-law passed about 11 years ago and his three children received the house in equal shares and their mom received the right to live in it for the rest of her life, but no ownership of it. I believe that communal property passes the same way, but only the half ownership of the deceased.

If your state laws are the same, the father's half passes to his children. The son that originally bought the property with the father would retain his half and, assuming only two sons, would receive an equal share with his brother. He would own 3/4 and the other son should own 1/4.

The second son's wife would possibly own her husbands 1/4 after he dies assuming they had no children and the state law does not permit siblings to inherit as they once did in Texas. I do not see a 1/3 ownership under law similar to Texas law. When the first son left his property to his children, he would be leaving 3/4 of the original purchase to be divided between his five.

 

[blueriver]

The second brothers wife was never legally the owner. The first son's 5 children if alive are the owners ... if deceased their children if any are the owners ...It will wash out in a title/abstract search.

BTW ... I really do not know. That all just sounded good!!!

 

[VroomVroom]

Hi, Yeah its very tangly. To me where the land was joint, it would have went to the surviving joint partner, the son. He willed it to his 5 children before he died which was about 20 years after his other brother lived in the fathers house on that land. The lone brother, who didnt actually purchase any of it, lived another 20 years beyond the original owners ( his brother and father) . When he died, the will....well...it dissapeared. So his wife took 1/3 of the property by matrimonial law which was handed down to her kids. Though the deed was done in one of her kids names after she died, I was talking to one of the grand children of the brother who originally owned the land and I didnt say much , but he does know the land is his (he is across the country his whole life), and he assumed the surveyors were there on behalf of his aunt, ( one of the 5 children it was willed to when she died recently) . We left it at that. Were happy to leave it as is. He doesnt seem to know someone has a deed on 1/3 of it. Im sure he wouldnt be happy about it. And to me it is his rightly and truly. But we lived around here all my life and to me its fine the way it is. And thats the way he wants it left, so Im glad, because the paper work seems to point as he is the owner. though a deed under someone else was made up because it wasnt pointed out to the lawyers there were two people (father and son) with the same name. I'm amazed lawyers can miss that stuff. Do they think he was 11 years old when he bought the land? Im amazed.

 

[riptides]

Instead of working from the beginning of the ownership issue, perhaps it is best to work the taxes (who is paying them) from today to yester-year. Not knowing the applicable laws of the state the land is in, I'd opt for the ownership based on taxation and claim adverse possesion (again if applicable in state laws).

I slept at a Holiday Inn last night.