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Heir Property

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Krexrode

Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Virginia
My family has a large amount of Heir Property. It's 87 acres and is landlocked. The title has been clouded since 1902. Virginia Burkholder died a widow without a will. The land passed to her 5 children. Those 5 children died and the land was passed to 9 children by will. This is where it gets tangled...My mother's mother is 1 of those 9 children who own the land. My mother and father purchased the interest of 5 of 9 owners of the land (other owners were no around to sign their interest at the time). My father has been using the 87 acres and paying all the taxes on the land for over 30 years. Nobody has ever made a claim or utilized the land in any way. My father passed away in 2013 and all of his property was passed to my mother by will. My mother is wanting to sell the land and consulted a lawyer. A title search was done (incomplete) and according to information on title search my mother has a 1/9th interest in the land. We were told that decendants of 4 of the 5 children of the original owner of the land as well as 4 of the 9 siblings needs to be located. I have begun the process of putting a family tree together and there are an unbelievable amount of decendants. Most all of them are out of state and I haven't found and information that would put me in contact with any living decendants. Is there anything we can do to sell the land without having to partition sale? Would Adverse Possession be an option?
 


FlyingRon

Senior Member
I suspect no matter what avenue you take, you're going to have to locate those who are presumed to be heirs. I do not believe adverse possession applies here. If it was just a "cloud" on the title, a quet title action would probably clear things up. However, I suspect that if you start to do this, you'll find that some of these heirs will want to assert their interests in the property. You need an attorney on this.
 

Krexrode

Junior Member
If an heir did want to assert their interest in the land would the fact that they are out of state cause any issues? Would they be required to reimburse my family for the 30 years of past taxes we have paid?
 

tranquility

Senior Member
No one knows. I think not, but I don't have a case. First, I would try adverse possession. Then, partition. Once things are screwed up, fixing them is a mix of fairness and the law that no one has any claim of knowing the result. (I had a better and more blunt quote before. I just don't recall it.)
 

Zigner

Senior Member, Non-Attorney
I'm thinking adverse possession is a non-starter. For one, the party with a right to claim adverse possession is no longer alive. Another thing is that the person who could claim adverse possession never seems to have asserted a claim that he owned the entire property. Additionally, the possession of the land does not seem to be "hostile". I don't disagree that attorney(s) are going to need to be involved.

For reference (not an endorsement): http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/who-can-claim-property-based-adverse-possession-virginia.html
 

tranquility

Senior Member
I'm thinking adverse possession is a non-starter. For one, the party with a right to claim adverse possession is no longer alive. Another thing is that the person who could claim adverse possession never seems to have asserted a claim that he owned the entire property. Additionally, the possession of the land does not seem to be "hostile". I don't disagree that attorney(s) are going to need to be involved.

For reference (not an endorsement): http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/who-can-claim-property-based-adverse-possession-virginia.html
Yet we have a guy that supported the property for a long time. Which element do you think the party did not fulfill?
 

Krexrode

Junior Member
I was hoping that maybe Adverse Possession would be possible since my father had entry and exclusivity that was open and notorious for the past 30 years. I was thinking that the fact that the other heirs have abandoned the property maybe we could use that also. Since the property hasn't been through probate since the late 1800's the task of trying to find all of the heirs has been overwhelming to say the least. I really want to avoid a partition sale because it seems like we would be losing out. As of right now the majority of the money from a partition sale would go to the state. No sense in doing that because we use the entire 87 acres without any question. Any idea of where I should go from here? The land is in a great area and has a lot of potential. With us paying all the taxes and caring for the property for so long I would just like to sort everything out. Ive hit a wall and dont know where to go from here.
 

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