Fairfield Boundary Dispute Lawyers and Fairfield Title Attorneys

Find the right Title & Boundary Dispute attorney in Fairfield, OH

Title & Boundary Dispute Law in Ohio

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.

In these cases, 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 includes 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.

In these cases, what often happens is that the owner of the property which is truly larger than he initially believed (due to the property line not being where he thought it was) wants to make use of the further property, and eject his neighbor from it. The other neighbor, on the other hand, will want to keep using the land as before, to avoid having his property shrink.

Title disputes in Fairfield, Ohio, on the other hand, involve questions of ownership over an entire parcel of land. This confusion can occasionally 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, particularly 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 Fairfield, Ohio

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 usually 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 always 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 confusing and (in some cases) antiquated legal issues that guide Fairfield, Ohio courts on these matters.

Without delving into the specifics too much, courts typically 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 succeed in a dispute like this, a buyer will usually 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 Fairfield, Ohio Attorney Do?

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

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Life in Fairfield

Fairfield, Ohio is a city that straddles Butler and Hamilton counties. It has a population of about 43,000 people. The area currently known as Fairfield was originally settled in 1877, by the Groh family. It was born out of a 50 acre land purchase in Fairfield Township. Modernly, Fairfield is a relatively quiet residential community. Since 2001, it has had a modern, central, "downtown" area, in the form of the Village Green Park development project. It serves as a commercial center with many pedestrian-accessible dining and shopping options. In the last decade, Fairfield, Ohio has undergone significant redevelopment, which was capped of with the completion of a community arts center, along with a new public library. Fairfield is home to the Cincinnati Mall, a large shopping center, as well as "Jungle Jim's International Market," which is something of a theme park for food, and sports a wide variety of international foods, as well as elaborate animatronics displays. If you live in the Fairfield, Ohio area, chances are good that you'll be able to find a lawyer who's qualified to handle whatever legal problem you might be facing. Fairfield, Ohio lawyers are skilled and competent, and like most lawyers, care about their clients' problems. It's almost certain that, no matter what your legal problem is, there's at least one Fairfield, Ohio lawyer who can handle it.

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