Can One Truly Own Property?

[Ingomike]

Can one truly own property? Or is it really just permission? (Not even going down the tax rabbit hole.). If everyone else wants your property and joins to take it how are you going to keep it? If someone tries to take my house I have LEO, courts, etc. What if they will not help me? Am I limited by what I can personally defend?

Just how secure are ownership rights in even the US? Who secures ownership rights beyond what one can personally defend?

 

[indyartisan]

How can they take your house without LEO and the courts?

 

[Amishman44]

We've had that discussion, just since Christmas, with regards to dad's and mom's farms (x1 each), how to protect them, and how that will all play out upon their passing??? Working through it but there's a lot to learn on this!!!

 

[stocknup]

I am guessing this may be how the old saying " Possession is nine tenths of the law" came into play ........
Though not a legal term , but am sure carries some weight . Squatters for example .

 

[Leadeye]

You only lease property from the government, it's called property taxes. Don't make your lease payments and the government will repo your land and sell it to their friends. Make your payments and the law will allow you to own the land, even protect you from various non governmental entities who might want to take it.

 

[Magyars]

Taxation is theft!

 

[jagee]

No one can take the land from you. They can only remove you from the land.

If your car gets stolen, it's gone and you don't know where it is. No one can do that with land. If you hunker down and defend the Alamo, it's yours until someone forcibly removes you.

 

[Route 45]

You don't really own it if you sign rights away by joining an HOA, that's for sure.

 

[Ark]

I guess nobody ever really owns land. It all became "rented from the government landlord" when property taxes came into existence, and in the end everyone dies and someone else occupies the land.

 

[1nderbeard]

Has anyone ever really owned land? Prior to settlement if you couldn't defend it you never really owned it.
Honestly it's not that different now, except the difference is the people trying to take your land are the government (with tax and regulation) and people (with lawsuits).

 

[Leadeye]

During the covid crisis I had squatters claim some of my ground, but without a survey I could not have them removed. Covid delayed the survey so I had to put up with them until I could get that done. The day after the stakes were driven, they were gone.

 

[indykid]

Not going "down the tax rabbit hole" even though you think you have land, if the state decides they need it for better use, kiss it good-bye. I watched many homes get taken by Hamilton County in the name of making 146th Street a grand boulevard. I personally lost almost 75 feet of my back yard and was told to either take the cash offer, which my real estate friend told me was reasonable, or lose it to eminent domain. Don't remember the exact ruling but in Connecticut versus the land owner, the court ruled that the state has every right to remove you from your land "for the greater good".

Welcome to something our founder feared.

 

[MRockwell]

Not going "down the tax rabbit hole" even though you think you have land, if the state decides they need it for better use, kiss it good-bye. I watched many homes get taken by Hamilton County in the name of making 146th Street a grand boulevard. I personally lost almost 75 feet of my back yard and was told to either take the cash offer, which my real estate friend told me was reasonable, or lose it to eminent domain. Don't remember the exact ruling but in Connecticut versus the land owner, the court ruled that the state has every right to remove you from your land "for the greater good".

Welcome to something our founder feared.

And the county keeps doing it. As leadeye says, follow the money.

Just how secure are ownership rights in even the US?

They aren't. And it goes beyond taking property(land), it has reached a point where gov't can tell you what you can and can't do with your property(land).

 

[defaultdotxbe]

Prior to settlement if you couldn't defend it you never really owned it.

That's how it always has been and likely always will be. The only thing that changes is who you can count on to defend it.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

Sometimes it depends on how much money you have and how much you’re willing to fight to keep your property.

A friend of a friend owned a place down in Orange county. His neighbor (owned the place behind him, with road frontage) decided he wanted part of his property to access the other county road. The neighbor took the friend’s friend to court numerous times trying to get possession of the part he wanted. Luckily, the friend was an attorney so he got the “friends and family” discount on the legal bills or the neighbor would have eventually out spent him to get the property.

The neighbor finally ran out of angles to get the property and gave up. A couple years later I asked the friend if his friend’s neighbor ever gave him anymore trouble. Apparently, when whatever he was trying to do fell through, he sold out and moved.

@Leadeye, I’ve got a story similar to yours I’ll have to talk about sometime when it all gets settled.

 

[***Ironhead***]

Not going "down the tax rabbit hole" even though you think you have land, if the state decides they need it for better use, kiss it good-bye. I watched many homes get taken by Hamilton County in the name of making 146th Street a grand boulevard. I personally lost almost 75 feet of my back yard and was told to either take the cash offer, which my real estate friend told me was reasonable, or lose it to eminent domain. Don't remember the exact ruling but in Connecticut versus the land owner, the court ruled that the state has every right to remove you from your land "for the greater good".

Welcome to something our founder feared.

Yeah, I have seen/heard similar issues with interstate 69. Farms split, homeowners forced to take “ market prices” for ground they don’t want to sell.

 

[El Conquistador]

A few years ago I was looking to buy around 25 acres that connected to my land. 20 acres was on my side of the road and 5 acres on the other side. When I went to the court house the tax records showed the split parcels but when i looked at the current survey on record it looked like the property owner on the other side of the road took the 5 acres. It appeared this happened 3 or 4 years before I was looking.
I talked to the property owner and told him what I found and he said he never sold that 5 acres and was still paying taxes on it. I don’t know what he every found out, I ended up passing on the property because I didn’t want to deal with the problem.

 

[GodFearinGunTotin]

A few years ago I was looking to buy around 25 acres that connected to my land. 20 acres was on my side of the road and 5 acres on the other side. When I went to the court house the tax records showed the split parcels but when i looked at the current survey on record it looked like the property owner on the other side of the road took the 5 acres. It appeared this happened 3 or 4 years before I was looking.
I talked to the property owner and told him what I found and he said he never sold that 5 acres and was still paying taxes on it. I don’t know what he every found out, I ended up passing on the property because I didn’t want to deal with the problem.

Sounds like maybe a little adverse possession move there.

Know where your property lines are and stop any encroachment as soon as you find it. You’re not being a good neighbor by letting your neighbor use a piece of your property. You’re being a sucker.

 

[DolomiteDave]

Can one truly own property? Or is it really just permission? (Not even going down the tax rabbit hole.). If everyone else wants your property and joins to take it how are you going to keep it? If someone tries to take my house I have LEO, courts, etc. What if they will not help me? Am I limited by what I can personally defend?

Just how secure are ownership rights in even the US? Who secures ownership rights beyond what one can personally defend?

Ultimately if you look all throughout history, the answer really is any geographic area is only yours if force can be applied to your claim. That could be an individual, a tribe, a standing army, law enforcement etc.. enforcing the claim. It ultimately comes down to force/power. I recall when I was studying real estate law for my exam, and entire suburb near a lake was taken by the local government by eminent domain to develop the entire area. Kelo vs New London was the case. I could be remembering some details as its been a while, but in the end, the homes were taken by the local gov, and those people would have been arrested and possibly imprisoned if they resisted. In this world you really own nothing, you only own what what the world let you own.

 

[kickbacked]

My old house sat off a highway the state decided to widen. The road would have went through our home. They offered to move us to a different city and used properties in a different county than ours to estimate our homes value because they couldn’t find anything with our acreage in the area. Our property is in a wealthy area the similar properties used were not. We appealed to the state multiple times to the point they said if we didn’t take their offer they would put money into an account with our name and we would be evicted.

So no, it’s my opinion we never truly own our property