Anchorage Boundary Dispute Lawyers and Anchorage Title Attorneys

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Title & Boundary Dispute Law in Alaska

Finding out that property lines are improperly drawn and learning that you have been partially occupying your neighbor's land, or vice versa, can create some fairly serious legal issues.

Ideally, the neighbors could just ignore the situation, and go on as they had before, effectively agreeing to change the property lines to reflect their past use. This doesn't always happen, however. Furthermore, such a course of action is not free of issues, and could eventually result in ownership of the land legally changing to reflect the past use, even if one of the neighbors opposes this.

However, it's more common for the neighbor whose land is being encroached upon by the other neighbor to seek enforcement of the legal property lines. The other neighbor will almost certainly want to use the property as he had been, since enforcing the legal property lines would cause him to lose some of "his" land.

Title disputes in Anchorage, Alaska, on the other hand, involve questions of ownership over an entire parcel of land. This confusion can sometimes arise from improperly recorded deeds, resulting in inadvertent (and, occasionally, deliberate) sales of the same parcel of land to multiple people. Obviously, each buyer wants to be the one who takes title, especially if it seems unlikely that they'll be able to get their money back. This can lead to some very heated disputes.

Possible Outcomes of Boundary and Title Disputes in Anchorage, Alaska

One frequent resolution for boundary disputes is a court re-drawing the boundaries to fit with what the assumptions that the neighbors were operating under before the error was discovered. This normally happens when both parties were, for many years, aware of the actual property boundaries, and did nothing about it. Additionally, if the neighbor who has been encroaching onto the other neighbor's land has made costly improvements thereto, this weighs in favor of that neighbor, since changing the property lines would impose significant hardship on that neighbor.

A court might do the opposite, and decide to enforce the property lines as they're drawn. This will generally benefit one neighbor and hurt the other. A court will probably do this if one neighbor knew that his land was encroaching onto another person's property, and actively tried to hide that fact from his neighbor. Obviously, such bad behavior shouldn't be rewarded. Conversely, if the neighbor whose land was being encroached upon knew about the discrepancy, and did nothing about it, the court will probably change the property lines to reflect this prior use, to prevent that neighbor from being rewarded for "sitting on his rights."

In Anchorage, Alaska courts have many options when it comes to resolving title disputes. However, these disputes are usually governed by some fairly difficult (and old) legal principles. While they're typically built around policies that most people would find to be quite fair and reasonable, their application can be nearly impenetrable, even for some lawyers.

Without delving into the details too much, courts normally resolve title disputes by looking at who recorded the deed first, and whether or not that person had notice of any prior sales of the same land. To win in a dispute like this, a buyer will typically need to prove that they were the first to record their deed, and that they had no notice (or reason to know) of any prior conveyances of the same land.

What Can A Anchorage, Alaska Attorney Do?

Real property disputes often involve very old legal principles that can even confound lawyers who aren't experts in real estate law. For that reason, you should almost always hire an expert Anchorage, Alaska real estate attorney, who will help you navigate these murky legal waters.

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Life in Anchorage

Anchorage has been voted an "All America City" four times and makes up over 40% of Alaska's total population. The city motto is "Big Wild Life" and there's plenty of it. A survey found roughly 300 black bears and moose, along side 60 grizzly bears call Anchorage home year round. The numbers of moose increase over 1,000 in the winter months. There are also wolves, foxes, beavers, and all other manner of moderate and small native animals that can be easily spotted in Anchorage. That's why so many people decide to visit Anchorage each year.

Tourism play a major role in the economy with natural resource extraction, local and federal government, transportation services, and the military. There are two major military installations in Anchorage, Elmendorf Air Force Base and Fort Richardson, as well as the Kullis Air National Guard Base. In addition to military personnel, the military employs another 8,600 Anchorage civilians. There are a number of airlines headquartered in Anchorage like Alaska Central Express and Hageland Aviation Services but the petroleum industry is one of the most important. Giants like BP and ConocoPhillips have drilling and transportation services in Anchorage that employ thousands of locals.

The International Ice Carving Competition is one aspect to the annual of the Fur Rendezvous Festival held in Anchorage's Alaska Center for the Performing Arts. The festival had a record attendance in 2000 with over 250,000 people visiting. The legendary 9-15 day long Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race begins ceremonially each year downtown on 4th Street and ends in Nome, Alaska. The race stretches 1,049 miles that are timed. It's known as one of the most intense sporting events due to the distance and blizzards.

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