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Title & Boundary Dispute Law in Texas

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 significant conflict, as one might expect.

Sometimes, neighbors will decide amongst themselves that the issue isn't worth fighting over, and will go on as they did before. This is especially likely if the neighbors are on good terms, and the difference between their use of the land, and the actual property lines, is small (say, a few feet or less). This is an ideal situation, at least in the short term. It can, nonetheless, cause problems in the future - preventing a neighbor from enforcing the actual property lines, if they suddenly have a reason to do so.

In these cases, what often happens is that the owner of the property which is actually 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 Beaumont, Texas, 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 Beaumont, Texas

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 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.

On the other hand, a court could determine to take the opposite approach, and order the neighbors to abide by the legal property lines. When deciding which course of action to take, courts consider many factors, but majority of them boil down to common-sense principles of fairness. For instance, if the owner of the land who was encroaching onto his neighbor's land knew of the encroachment, and hid this fact from the other neighbor (hoping to continue to use more land than he paid for), that will weigh heavily in favor of enforcing the legal property lines. On the other hand, if neither neighbor knew about the error, and it turns out that the actual property line goes through somebody's living room, a court likely won't enforce them.

When a title dispute comes up in Beaumont, Texas, the court has to apply some pretty confusing legal and equitable principles. These rules are sometimes very obscure, mainly because they can trace their origins back hundreds of years, to the common-law courts of England. However, a close examination of them reveals their basic goal: deciding ownership disputes based on longstanding conceptions of basic fairness.

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 Beaumont, Texas Attorney Do?

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

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Life in Beaumont

Beaumont, Texas is a city of about 118,000 people in Jefferson County, of which it is the county seat.

Beaumont, Texas is part of an area known as the "Golden Triangle," which is an area between Beaumont and two other cities, which is a major industrial sector along the Gulf Coast of Texas. One of the largest employers in Beaumont, Texas is the Port of Beaumont, which is the nation's 4th largest seaport by tonnage. It is also the second-largest military seaport in the entire world. A large transport battalion of the U.S. Army is headquartered at that port.

This port, and the businesses associated with it, employ thousands of blue-collar workers, but they also employ many administrative professionals, including Beaumont, Texas lawyers.

Thanks to its diverse economy, many Beaumont, Texas lawyers are highly skilled in a wide variety of practice areas. So, if you are in need of legal services, it's very likely that a Beaumont, Texas attorney can help you.

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Beaumont Boundary Dispute Lawyers and Beaumont Title Attorneys

Title & Boundary Dispute Law in Texas

Possible Outcomes of Boundary and Title Disputes in Beaumont, Texas