Title & Boundary Dispute Law in New York

Occasionally, neighbors will find out that their use of their land (or what they thought was their land) is not reflected in the actual property lines on record. Obviously, this can create a problem.

It's usually possible, though not always easy, for neighbors to come to a resolution of these disputes on their own. If the neighbors happen to like one another, and the difference between the actual property lines and what they believed the property lines to be is very small (a foot or two, for example), they might simply decide to go on as they had before. This is certainly a desirable solution in the short term, since it saves everyone a great deal of time and energy. Nonetheless, in the long term, this can cause problems, particularly if one neighbor decides they want to enforce the legal property lines down the road.

Therefore, neighbors more often 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.

In North Tonawanda, New York, 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 common 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 usually 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 North Tonawanda, New York

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 generally 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

Nonetheless, a court might also enforce the legal property boundaries, particularly 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 further weigh heavily in favor of enforcing the legal property lines.

With title disputes (as opposed to the boundary disputes discussed above), a North Tonawanda, New York court has to determine who owns an entire parcel of land. There are some pretty difficult legal issues involved here.

In general, the person who initially 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 dispute.

What Can A North Tonawanda, New York Attorney Do?

Because of the high stakes, going it alone in a boundary or title dispute is rarely recommended. Therefore, it's almost always a good idea to get a good North Tonawanda, New York real estate attorney to help you with such legal problems.