Beaverton Title Lawyers | Title Attorneys in OR

Title & Boundary Dispute Law in Oregon

There are times when neighbors will find themselves in a situation where how they've been using their land doesn't match up with the property boundaries that are on record. This can be a source of considerable conflict, as one might expect.

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.

In these cases, what often happens is that the owner of the property which is really 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.

In addition to the boundary disputes mentioned above, land owners and buyers in Beaverton, Oregon 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 dispute 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 anyone 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 normally 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 Beaverton, Oregon

Courts have many tools at their disposal to resolve boundary disputes. One way is to just re-draw the property lines to reflect how the neighbors had been using the land before the discrepancy was discovered. This doesn't truly change the position of either neighbor, and is sometimes the fairest result. This is most commonly 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.

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."

With title disputes, a court has to decide who owns a particular piece of land. There are many factors that a court will consider, and this decision is governed by some fairly complicated laws in Beaverton, Oregon.

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 disagreement.

What Can A Beaverton, Oregon Attorney Do?

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

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Life in Beaverton

Beaverton is a city in Washington County, Oregon. It is near Portland. In 2010, Money Magazine listed it as one of the "100 Best Places to Live" amongst the smaller cities in the United States.

Top employers include Reser's Fine Foods, Leupold Stevens, Nike, Inc., Phoenix Technologies, Linux Technology Center (IBM), Tektronix, Maxim Integrated Products, VeriWave, and Intel. The legal force also has a strong presence in Beaverton because many attorneys practice and reside here. These attorneys work in small firms or law offices and focus on providing their clients with excellent legal services.

Other reasons for recognition include the fact that in 2006, Beaverton's very own Murrayhill Little League baseball team was qualified for the 2006 Little League World Series. Also, in 2002, the city's little league softball team won second place in the Little League Softball World Series. Beaverton is also known to have one of the largest fencing clubs in the nation--Northwest Fencing Center.

Overall, Beaverton is an exciting place to live in or visit!

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Beaverton Boundary Dispute Lawyers and Beaverton Title Attorneys

Title & Boundary Dispute Law in Oregon

Possible Outcomes of Boundary and Title Disputes in Beaverton, Oregon