Rock Hill Boundary Dispute Lawyers and Rock Hill Title Attorneys

Find the right Title & Boundary Dispute attorney in Rock Hill, SC

Title & Boundary Dispute Law in South Carolina

There are times when neighbors will find themselves in a situation where how they've been using their land doesn't match up with the property boundaries that are on record. This can be a source of considerable conflict, as one might expect.

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.

Thus, neighbors more commonly end up in some type of legal dispute over whether and to what extent the property lines should be enforced. Obviously, when the property lines are changed, one neighbor wins, and the other loses. It should come as no surprise, then, that legal fights are often the result.

Title disputes in Rock Hill, South Carolina, 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 Rock Hill, South Carolina

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 typically 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

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 Rock Hill, South Carolina 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.

In general, the person who first recorded the deed at the appropriate government office will be the one who the court deems to own the land, if they didn't have any reason to know about the existence of the other deed, or other sale, or whatever else gave rise to the title disagreement.

What Can A Rock Hill, South Carolina Attorney Do?

The legal problems that can come up in boundary and title disputes can get very difficult. Given this fact, and the high stakes of such disputes, most people shouldn't approach these problems without good legal representation. It should therefore go without saying that the counsel of a reputable Rock Hill, South Carolina real estate attorney is essential in most of these disputes.

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Life in Rock Hill

Rock Hill is the fourth largest city in South Carolina but is the largest in York County. Rock Hill is popular among locals and tourists. It's position in the far North of the state earned it the nickname "the gateway to South Carolina" but the motto remains "Shop here. Stay here. Dine here." Rock Hill is so attractive that almost 100,000 residents call the city home. It's just 25 miles south of Charlotte.

Rock Hill is very popular among Charlotte professionals because it provides a more suburban setting that is great for families. The Rock Hill School District is one of the best in the State of South Carolina. In fact, the city of rock Hill is a three time winner of the America's Promise Alliance 100 Best Communities for Young People and a two time winner of the All-American City Award.

Twenty-seven public schools serve Rock Hill and there are also private institutions located within Rock Hill like St. Anne's Catholic. Winthrop University, a four year university, Clinton junior College, a two-year institution founded by the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, are both inside Rock Hill City limits and together enroll 15,000 each year.

Many of the residents and locals of Rock Hill frequent the Rock Hill Galleria Mall and seasonal events like the Cone-See-Me that was voted number one South Carolina Festival.

Rock Hill is home to notables like Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jim Hoagland, children's author Matt Christopher, country music singer David Ball, and Tony Award winning costume designer William Ivey Long. Rock Hill also plays host to lawyers who are familiar with practicing in local courts. Rock Hill lawyers can help you with a wide variety of legal circumstances including divorce, real estate, immigration, personal injury and wrongful termination cases.

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