Moments ago, a guy knocked on my door and the following conversation ensued:
Me: Yes?
Man: Who owns this lot?
Me: I do.
Man: Is that so? The guy who sold me the place next door told me my land extends right to those trees, so it includes this lot.
Me: That is incorrect. I have a deed duly registered with the government of Saskatchewan.
Man: Is that so? Who sold it to you?
Me: Caroline and Charles. Caroline told me this week that there were some assumptions about the ownership of this lot, but it clearly belonged to no one. They bought it, and several other vacant lots, from the RM and sold it to me.
Man: Is that so? I’m going to talk to Charles about this.
Now, I know I am the rightful owner of this land and that Caroline and Charles will set this guy straight, but that was rather unnerving!
I would follow up with C&C, just to make sure all is well.
The excitement never ends. Just curious though, if no one owned it, how could they buy it?
The RM (rural municipality) held the deed before C&C did since no one was paying property taxes on the place. C&C had the deed registered in their name and kept up the property tax. They then transferred the deed to me and I am now paying the property tax.
I’m not concerned. This is the case of an out of town guy taking the word of someone who made an incorrect assumption. The law and records are all on my side.
Clearly you have legal title – so this guy must be some local character? C & C likely can fill you in on him……if he drove to your property, take a photo of his vehicle licence plate – good to have for record.
He bought the property next door. So the issue is that the guy who sold him the house and land gave him a bad property line description. So he got taken and, really, none of that has anything to do with me. I’ll talk to Caroline tonight and see if the guy showed up at her door and what he said. I’m really not concerned.
It’s not Caroline’s place to set this man straight. What she says means nothing, legally. The land needs to be surveyed and the land deed office notified that there is a challenge to where the property line is.
You need to have your land surveyed by the county and register what the results are. It is up to you to do this, and you will have to be the one to pay for this, no one else. That is unless Caroline has a recent legal survey already that she can give you a copy of that is registered with your county court house. Or what ever you call them in Canada. Even then you will be well advised to get a new survey.
You can go to the RM office and ask to see the file on your property. There may be a survey in there. In any case, there will be document showing the outline of your lot and where it lies in relationship to your neighbors with all distances shown. Are there survey pegs at the corners of your property?
Woah, woah, woah. Everyone relax! We’re talking small town here. Everyone knows each other. People settle things amongst themselves.
There is a recent survey on file. There is zero question that these 4,000 square feet are a certain land description and that title to said land description is held by me.
He went to Caroline and she explained all of that and that’s it. Now, he’s going back to the guy he bought his house from to get some money back because he got shorted on the square footage. That’s it. End of story. 🙂
So, it sounds like the house seller pulled a fast one. I say this because wasn’t it Caroline and Charles that mowed the lot while you were gone? House owner should have mowed it if he really thought it was his lot.
The house next door as been pretty much abandoned for years.
This exact same thing happened to my brother-in-law and his wife. They had a farm in a rural county in Virginia. One day a guy shows up and puts up a fence on their property. He says it’s his property, he just bought it. He, too, was given a faulty property line description (they had the deeds to prove it.) He was extremely annoyed that he didn’t own as much of the woods as he’d thought.
What’s interesting about this lot is that the guys on both sides of it thought they owned it. If I’m facing the lot from the street, the one I had problems with yesterday is the guy on the right. The guy on the left actually did own this lot once, or someone who owned that house did, and then the lot was subdivided.
So the only person who might have a weak claim to my property is the guy on the left and he is a friend of C&C’s and knows he missed out on the chance get it when the tender came up from the RM. I won’t have any trouble from him.
The guy on the right doesn’t have a leg to stand on. His seller made an assumption and had no idea of what he actually owned. He has never maintained this property or paid tax on it.
Caroline suggested I fence in my lot, which I actually vaguely considered, but it’s such a narrow space that I’d feel way too boxed in. Getting some improvements on it, like gravel, will really help define the property line.