Title & Boundary Dispute Law in Missouri

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 these situations, neighbors usually have the option to resolve the dispute by themselves. If the neighbors are on amicable terms with each other, and the dispute is minor (for example, it only involves a difference of a couple feet), and enforcing the property lines would be a major inconvenience for one or both of the neighbors, they'll probably decide to just go on as they had before. This is a viable option, to be sure, but it's not a perfect one: if, sometime down the road, one of the neighbors wants to attempt to enforce the legal boundaries, they might find themselves unable to do so.

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.

In addition to the boundary disputes mentioned above, land owners and buyers in Carrollton, Missouri should also be aware of the possibility of a title dispute. Rather than being a disagreement over the exact boundaries between two pieces of land, a title dispute is a disagreement over who actually owns an entire plot of land. Uncertainty over ownership of land can come up more often than you might think, and is most often caused by a buyer's failure to correctly record a deed, or the accidental loss or destruction of a deed. Sometimes, however, these disputes can be more dishonest in origin: on occasion, unscrupulous sellers of land will attempt to sell the same parcel to more than one person. Obviously, once you've sold land to one person, you can't sell the same land to someone else, as you no longer own it. These tricksters know this, but are attempting to gain a large amount of money through the multiple sales. Once this is done, they usually attempt to flee the state or country before the buyers discovery they've been duped. This leaves it up to the buyers to figure out amongst themselves who owns the land.

Possible Outcomes of Boundary and Title Disputes in Carrollton, Missouri

Courts have many tools at their disposal to resolve boundary disputes. One way is to simply re-draw the property lines to reflect how the neighbors had been using the land before the discrepancy was discovered. This doesn't really change the position of either neighbor, and is sometimes the fairest result. This is most often done because the neighbors were both aware of the legal property lines, and that they differed from how they were using the land, and went on using the land anyway.

However, a court might also enforce the legal property boundaries, especially if failing to do so would place a significant burden on the owner of the encroached-upon land. If the owner of the encroaching land knew of the encroachment, and concealed it from his neighbor, this fact would also weigh heavily in favor of enforcing the legal property lines.

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

Without delving into the details too much, courts usually 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 prevail in a dispute like this, a buyer will generally 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 Carrollton, Missouri Attorney Do?

The legal issues surrounding title and boundary disputes can get pretty complicated, and there are usually very high stakes involved (most people think their land is pretty important). For that reason, a good Carrollton, Missouri real estate attorney will prove invaluable if such a dispute arises.