Evansville Boundary Dispute Lawyers and Evansville Title Attorneys

Find the right Title & Boundary Dispute attorney in Evansville, IN

Title & Boundary Dispute Law in Indiana

If you discover that you and your neighbor's use of your respective properties do not reflect the legal property lines, this can create a problem.

In a seemingly-ideal situation, the neighbors will choose to ignore this new revelation, and go on as they always have. Of course, this doesn't happen frequently, and might have consequences down the road, including title eventually changing to reflect the perceived property lines, without the choice of either neighbor.

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.

People in Evansville, Indiana should also be aware of the possibility of title (ownership) disputes. Unlike the boundary disputes discussed above, the outcome of a title dispute can determine who owns an entire parcel of real property. Confusion over who actually owns a piece of property is more common that some people might imagine. Many local property records are still kept on paper, are not very well-organized, and sometimes date back a hundred years or more. A lost or misfiled deed is the most common way for a title dispute to arise. However, sometimes fraud on the part of a seller can lead to title disputes. Unscrupulous individuals will sometimes try to sell the same piece of land to more than one person. And some people even try to sell property they don't own, occasionally succeeding (and this isn't just limited to bridges in London). Typically, once the buyers discover they've been duped, the "seller" is nowhere to be found, leaving them to figure out who owns the land they all thought they had purchased.

Possible Outcomes of Boundary and Title Disputes in Evansville, Indiana

There are many ways to resolve boundary disputes. One way is to change the legal property lines to reflect the use that the neighbors had been making of the land before the discrepancy was discovered. This is usually considered a sort of "neutral" result - nobody's situation changes. If both neighbors knew about the real boundaries for a very long time, and did nothing about it, a court may view this as them having acquiesced to the status quo, and decide that it would be unfair to force the neighbors to change their use of the land after such a long period of time. This might also be done if enforcing the property lines would place a very large burden on one neighbor, and re-drawing them to reflect their actual use would put a comparatively small burden on the other neighbor

On the other hand, a court could decide to take the opposite approach, and order the neighbors to abide by the legal property lines. When deciding which course of action to take, courts consider many factors, but most of them boil down to common-sense principles of fairness. For example, if the owner of the land who was encroaching onto his neighbor's land knew of the encroachment, and hid this fact from the other neighbor (hoping to continue to use more land than he paid for), that will weigh heavily in favor of enforcing the legal property lines. On the other hand, if neither neighbor knew about the error, and it turns out that the actual property line goes through somebody's living room, a court probably won't enforce them.

In Evansville, Indiana courts have many options when it comes to resolving title disputes. However, these disputes are usually governed by some fairly confusing (and old) legal principles. While they're usually 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 typically 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 succeed in a dispute like this, a buyer will usually 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 Evansville, Indiana Attorney Do?

Real property disputes typically 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 Evansville, Indiana real estate attorney, who will help you navigate these murky legal waters.

Talk to a Real Estate Law Attorney now!

Life in Evansville

Evansville is located in Southern Indiana and is nicknamed the "River City" because it creates a "horseshoe-like bend" on the Ohio River.

The National Civic League named Evansville the "All-American City" in 2004 because of its diversity, stable economy and vitality. In 2008, it was voted the best city in the county to live in by Kiplinger.

Popular attractions include the Angel Mounds Historic Museum, the Mesker Park Zoo, the Wesselman Woods Nature Preserve and the annual Evansville Freedom Festival.

Many large corporations have their headquarters in Evansville. Such corporations include Accuride, Atlas Van lines, Mead Johnson, Old National Bank, Berry Plastics, and Vectren. AK Steel and Toyota also have manufacturing plants there. Overall, the city is pro-business. Therefore, the legal force in Indiana is present and capable of handling all the legal needs of these corporations, as well as Evansville residents.

Overall Evansville is seen as a great place to live.

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