Warranty Deed-who owns property?

LisaB4657-Thank you for the wishes of good luck. The Lawyer that is stalling on helping getting the information we are requesting IS the lawyer that did the closing. He was the title researcher/settlement agent/seller's lawyer all rolled into one. That Lawyer and the Seller together will squash us transplants from MN to AL. Oh, and he was just made District Judge. The neighbor that owns our current access in/out, and the neighbor that is now sueing us for the land that we are trying to use to put in a new access in/out are older gentlemen that have lived in this area all their lives and do not believe that Yankees belong in Alabama. Both of them have made it their personal mission to chase us out. And- it looks like they will win.

We are trying "unmarketable" title at this point. Wish us luck on that! We will be the loser in all this..but I don't see the older gentlemen ever leaving us alone.

MonicaMJ

Hello again, m:

If you lay down for him, he NEVER will. If it was ME, I'd fight like HELL. I HATE to get ripped off. But, that's just me.

excon

Which is it? Did you buy the property in 1950 or 2006?

Do you honestly expect expect him to have kept a title report he did in 1950? That was more than 60 years ago!

Through searching public records we found that when the Warranty Deed was compiled over 65 years ago someone making the deed put land on there that did not belong to the deed, took land away that did belong to the deed. We found that there is 4 acres on our deed that is also on the neighbors deed (through public records it is determined to be the neighbors). The driveway we thought was ours isn't, leaving us with no access in/out. We neglected to do a survey, for which we kick ourselves every day. At this point, how do we do the claim against previous owner? Thanks for all suggestions. -MonicaMJ

This matter is the subject of this thread.

You are going to have to find some money, period.
You can't 'file a claim' as you ask in your new post.
If you know you bought title insurance then you know the insurer, so contact them first.
Title insurance and a title SEARCH are two very different things. It sounds like the search was never done or was done improperly.
Second, hire a lawyer, or face the consequences for your mistakes as well as all the other people involved. Get an equity loan or a reverse mortgage since you sound 62+.

Even though I totally confused everyone with my questions/issues..Thank You very much for the help & answers.

No,I don't think the title search was done thoroughly either as I found all this conflicting information regarding the property on my own. Someone made a comment to my husband that we should leave things be the way they have been for years as we may not like what we find...gosh, was he ever right. I have turned it all over to the Owner's Title Insurance company to help us. --MonicaMJ

A warranty deed states that the seller warrants that the title to the deeded property is clear from encumbrances. If the seller did not tell the truth, then you sue the seller.

Oops. I didn't mean to "agree".

If the warranty deed was executed 65 years ago, I believe the statute of limitations would have long since passed.

The original Warranty Deed was invented that long ago using the wrong description of the 26 acres. In 1965 the children of the owner transferred it into their names using the same Warranty Deed description. Everything went along fine for many,many years, no one challenged the fencelines, layout, dimensions. In 2001 the children sold it using the same deed description. The buyer did not verify its contents. In 2006 he sold it to us using the same Warranty Deed description. We did not verify its contents either. Now, in 2010 the deed is being challenged (a civil suit has been filed stating we are trespassing when we tried to put a driveway in) and we have found many errors which are all found in public records. We know we are bobble heads for not verifying it when we bought the property. (we sure learned the hard way that a survey must always be done) We bought Owner's Title Insurance, I hope they can work this out so we can keep our property.--MonicaMJ