Rockford Boundary Dispute Lawyers and Rockford Title Attorneys

Find the right Title & Boundary Dispute attorney in Rockford, IL

Title & Boundary Dispute Law in Illinois

If you know that you and your neighbor's use of your respective properties do not reflect the legal property lines, this can cause 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 commonly, and might have consequences down the road, including title eventually changing to reflect the perceived property lines, without the choice of either neighbor.

Nonetheless, 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.

In Rockford, Illinois, property can also be the subject of title disputes, rather than boundary disputes described above. These types of disagreements 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 acquired 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 Rockford, Illinois

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 regarded 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 an extremely 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 may 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 actions 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 likely change the property lines to reflect this prior use, to prevent that neighbor from being rewarded for "sitting on his rights."

In the case of disputes over title, courts have to figure out who owns a specific piece of real property. Courts will consider many factors, and there are some perplexing and (in some cases) antiquated legal issues that guide Rockford, Illinois courts on these matters.

Without going into too much detail, the individual who recorded their deed initially 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 Rockford, Illinois Attorney Do?

As you might have gathered, it's not uncommon for the legal issues controlling boundary and title disputes to get very complicated. Additionally, any dispute that can affect one's use or ownership of land has very high stakes (land isn't normally cheap, after all). Therefore, it shouldn't come as a surprise that hiring a competent Rockford, Illinois real estate lawyer to help in situations like this is always a good idea.

Talk to a Real Estate Law Attorney now!

Life in Rockford

Rockford, Illinois is a city on both banks of the Rock River, in Northern Illinois. It is the county seat of Winnebago County, and the third-larges city in Illinois, with a population of over 150,000 people.

Rockford, IL experienced a major economic boom in the first half of the 20th Century, largely due to the massive industrialization of the entire country that was necessary to the war effort in WWII. However, like many industrial cities, Rockford, IL went into a steep economic decline in subsequent decades.

However, with the manufacturing industry in the U.S. bouncing back faster than the rest of the economy in the wake of the recession of the late 2000s, Rockford, IL has reaped some of these benefits. One of the biggest employers in the city is a major Chrysler manufacturing plant. Part of this recovery has been due to government investment in the area, and was made possible, in part, by the government bailout of the two largest auto companies in the U.S. Several Rockford, IL lawyers were probably involved in coming up with this deal.

The lawyers of Rockford, IL are skilled in handling a wide range of cases. If you live in the Rockford area, and need a lawyer, you can't do much better than hiring a Rockford, IL attorney.

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