nextwife and lwpat, follow up

What is the name of your state? MS

You both replied to an earlier post regarding marsh(wet) lands that my family is in disagreement on selling. I have researched this somewhat and the following is what I came up with.

The land in queston was deeded to 6 children, each an equal share of 400 acres, one of these children was my grandmother. Of those six children only 1 survives and she is in her late 90's. Since she is the only living heir named in the deed does she hold all rights to that property?

Thanks

The property was deeded to the 6 children by an estate? Only one of the 6 is still alive?

My presumption, and you likely need to verify this with a probate attorney, is that, unless it was deeded otherwise, each partial undivided interest should have passed to the estates of each upon their deaths. To five different estates. Sounds as though NONE of their estates did anything about transferring their interests legally in this property to their heirs. And betcha those estates are long closed. Yikes!

Who has been paying the taxes on the property and where does the county send the tax notices? Take the notice to the courthouse and find out what you can about the title. Be sure to get copies of everything.

This does not sound good. Getting a clear title to the property is going to take a lot of research. I would start with the mineral rights that were assigned about twenty years ago. You might be able to determine who was able to legally sign the document. Otherwise you are going to have to trace each person through the probate court.

It doesn't sound like this is worth the effort. The property is now split so many ways that it is probably of little value to any one individual. You may be better off quit claiming it to the conservation group and trying to take a tax deduction.

And in many places, the party who gets the tax bill is NOT necessarily the party in whom title is vested. It is merely the address that the treasurers office was given for tax payments. I've seen so many properies where the tax bill is not the same as the titled ownership.

Title is likely a mess if nothing was ever done with those decedants' interests.

I'll do my best to answer your questions.

The tax notice is sent to the only living person listed on the deed. I think it actually comes as "Elva Strong, et aux. (and others??, with the others?? being deceased).

Since the taxes are so low, less than $100 per year, Elva has always paid the taxes. As I previously stated, she is in her 90's and all she wants to do is sell this worthless property, which is what the vast majority of decendants want also. She is a very reputable and honest person. If this property is sold she knows exactly how much each family would deserve. We are talking about 400 acres and the offer is $70,000, more then a fair amount for swampland. Of the 15 or so people that would have a claim in this only 2 are against selling. I even offered to pay for their psychiatrists if they would agree to go. I would love to know what the hell they are thinking!!

Perhaps Aunt Elva, since she is the only person listed on the deed that is still alive, can appeal to their "you know this is what your mama would want you to do" sense of family loyalty.

Anyway, at this point I'm so confused and frustrated I can't think of an intelligent question to ask either of you! In any case, thanks to you both for your input.

What you need to do is to contact an attorney and start collecting signatures of as many heirs as possible. Then the attorney will need to go through the process of clearing the title of any unknown heirs. This procedure will depend on state law.
After that he can petition for a sale if the others have not come around by that time.

My suggestion would be to talk to the foundation and get them to agree to help with the legal fees. They may have a staff attorney.

I am sorry if I confused you about the tax notice. What I meant was that by taking the notice with you to the courthouse the clerk would be able to better help with the title research. Anything that you can research yourself will lower the legal bill.

Another suggestion would be to deed her share and let the others sink or swim.