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Title & Boundary Dispute Law in Colorado

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.

Sometimes, neighbors will decide amongst themselves that the issue isn't worth fighting over, and will go on as they did before. This is particularly likely if the neighbors are on good terms, and the difference between their use of the land, and the actual property lines, is small (say, a few feet or less). This is an ideal situation, at least in the short term. It can, however, cause problems in the future - preventing a neighbor from enforcing the actual property lines, if they suddenly have a reason to do so.

It's more commonly the case that one neighbor wants to maintain the current use of the land, property lines notwithstanding, while the other neighbor wants to enforce the property lines that are on record. This is because moving a property line necessarily expands the land of one neighbor, while shrinking the land of another. Obviously, the neighbor whose land would be shrunk will probably oppose any attempt to enforce the property lines.

In Denver, Colorado, property can also be the subject of title disputes, rather than boundary disputes described above. These types of disputes stem from disagreements over who owns a piece of property. Confusion in this area is more frequent than one might think. If a deed is improperly recorded, land can be "owned" by 2 people simultaneously. Even more troublesome is when land is "sold" to more than one person. This is normally inadvertent, but some people do it deliberately, hoping to abscond the profits gained by selling the same thing twice. In cases like this, a court has to determine which buyer owns the land. This is a big deal, considering how unlikely it is that a defrauded buyer could get his or her money back.

Possible Outcomes of Boundary and Title Disputes in Denver, Colorado

One possible outcome of a boundary dispute is a court effectively re-drawing the boundaries to fit what the neighbors had perceived. This is most commonly done if the neighbors were aware for a long time of the "real" property lines, and didn't do anything about it. It also helps if the neighbor who is encroaching makes major improvements to the land, and enforcing the new property lines would place a major burden on him.

Of course, there are plenty of reasons why a court might decide to enforce the property lines as the records indicate. If one neighbor knew about the discrepancy, and hid it from the other neighbor (presumably because the neighbor with the knowledge of the discrepancy benefited from it), a court will, of course, not reward this kind of dishonesty, and will decide against that neighbor. On the other hand, if the neighbor whose land would be expanded by enforcing the "real" property boundaries knew this fact, and took no action for many years, a court will probably not be receptive if he or she suddenly tries to enforce them. This is referred to as "sitting on one's rights," and courts will not reward this, either. If you have a legal right, you're expected to make efforts to vindicate it as soon as possible. If you don't, a court will basically say "I guess it wasn't that important to you if you waited 10 years to bring this to our attention. Next case."

In Denver, Colorado 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 going into too much detail, the person who recorded their deed first will be the one who takes ownership, provided he or she did not know (or had no reason to know) of the existence of the other deed.

What Can A Denver, Colorado 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 Denver, Colorado real estate attorney, who will help you navigate these murky legal waters.

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Life in Denver

Denver is the largest city in the State of Colorado and is known to most as the "Mile High City." Nestled in the South Platte River Valley just to the east of the Rocky Mountains, Denver offers outstanding parks like Washington, Cheesman, and City Parks as well as one of the most scenic amphitheatres, Red Rocks Amphitheatre. It's hosted bands from the Beatles, Jethro Tull, John Denver, the Grateful Dead, and was the favorite of Rock legend Jimi Hendrix. There have been a number of famous recordings done at Red Rocks Amphitheatre for various bands live albums.

Denver is a bustling center of commerce. As the largest city for hundreds of miles, Denver's central location among the Mountain States makes it an ideal location for distribution and transportation of goods going to states in the Southwest and West. Manufacturing plants and corporate headquarters including those of United Airlines, Lockheed Martin, the Coors Brewing Company all call Denver home.

In more recent times the "Mile High City" has been the center of a dot-com boom. Mapquest, DIRECTV, Starz-Encore, and Qwest Communications are just a few of the telecommunications companies who have moved into Denver for it's low cost and high quality of living. Local Denver lawyer are well acquainted with local legal problems.

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Title & Boundary Dispute Law in Colorado

Possible Outcomes of Boundary and Title Disputes in Denver, Colorado