College Station Boundary Dispute Lawyers and College Station Title Attorneys

Find the right Title & Boundary Dispute attorney in College Station, TX

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.

People in College Station, Texas should also be aware of the possibility of title (ownership) disputes. Unlike the boundary disputes considered above, the outcome of a title dispute can decide who owns an entire parcel of real property. Confusion over who actually owns a piece of property is more common that some people might imagine. Many local property records are still kept on paper, are not very well-organized, and sometimes date back a hundred years or more. A lost or misfiled deed is the most common way for a title dispute to arise. However, sometimes fraud on the part of a seller can lead to title disputes. Unscrupulous individuals will sometimes try to sell the same piece of land to more than one person. And some people even try to sell property they don't own, occasionally succeeding (and this isn't just limited to bridges in London). Usually, once the buyers discover they've been duped, the "seller" is nowhere to be found, leaving them to figure out who owns the land they all thought they had purchased.

Possible Outcomes of Boundary and Title Disputes in College Station, Texas

One possible result of a boundary dispute is a court effectively re-drawing the boundaries to fit what the neighbors had perceived. This is most often done if the neighbors were aware for a long time of the "real" property lines, and didn't do anything about it. It also helps if the neighbor who is encroaching makes major improvements to the land, and enforcing the new property lines would place a major burden on him.

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 College Station, 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 College Station, Texas Attorney Do?

Real property disputes frequently involve very old legal principles that can even confound lawyers who aren't experts in real estate law. For that reason, you should almost always hire an expert College Station, Texas real estate attorney, who will assist you navigate these murky legal waters.

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Life in College Station

College Station is located in Brazos County, in the eastern central part of Texas. College Station is located near Houston, Dallas and San Antonio. Per the 2010 census, the population of the city is 93,857 people.

College station is recognized because it is home to Texas AM University. In fact, the city is a quaint college town! Along with the university, other popular sites include the D.A. "Andy" Anderson Arboretum and the George Bush Presidential Library.

Famous past residents include Sara Alpern, Robert A. Calvert, David M. Lee, Ross King, R.C. Slocum, Robert Gates, Tiffany Thornton, and Brek Shea.

College Station residents, being near some of Texas's largest cities, have easy access to the top-tier firms located in those cities. These surrounding cities have well-experienced, excellent attorneys that practice in many areas of law. Thus, any legal need of College Station residents and local businesses will not be unattended to.

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