Be smart when dealing with lawyers and cover everything. Lawyers are crooks when dealing with land and money. Long story short: I watched as a very crooked lawyer steal over six hundred acres and a bank account from the rightful heirs. Most lawyers are not honest when it comes to large sums of money.
Left is mine, Right is the Neighbor that owns to the middle of our road. and behind me are the two properties that are land locked. Not sure how anyone would assume our dirt road is a County Public Road that dead ends at my corner. Gravel County Road ends just the other side of that big tree. LOL the roads primary purpose is to park our grain trucks on and load them. It is a Private road past my South Barn behind that big tree. The two 10 acres tracts behind me while taking the picture are land locked with no deeded or legal access, the only way in is via our private road. The new owners of those two pieces are very displeased with myself and the neighbor because we declined to give access easements and utility easements to where they want to build their new dream homes. The realtor believed that our road was a public road, I mean the Road Commissioner told here the road went on down around the corner LOL. which it does but only 700 feet past the corner. The 2500 feet on down to the end of the County Road is a dirt road that is bottomless during mud season. A bit of due diligence would have served the buyers well in this case. We don't mind them accessing their properties via our field road but sure are not going to deed the field road as access with a Easement or sign off on electric and water easements. I don't want poles in my pasture and field anymore than the neighbor on the right wants that obstacle course to disc, plant and harvest around. Oh and neither of us really want City folks as full time residents So they paid 3x more than what anything else is selling for around here, for land they have no legal access to. They should be grateful that me and the other neighbor are not dicks and let them use our road, we could just put a gate with a chain and lock across the road and deny access back there all together. If they actually take us to court to try and get easements ordered, they will need to be investing in helicopters and flying lessons if they want to access their land.
Get a lawyer or a title company. I have lived in states that had title companies and I have lived in a state that used only lawyers... if you live in a state where either one works then it is your choice.
it depends on the state you live in some states require a title attorney to verify the deed. out in the west we mostly use title companies and buy title insurance. Which in some ways is better than an attorney. so the answer is.... it depends on where you live if you need an attorney to research the chain of title There are different levels of guarantee as well. The two legal things that should concern you are 1) must have legal access 2) easements across your property (this gives other people legal access across your property) and of course then look for water, utilites etc
Here in Missouri, I went through the local Abstract office. They took care of the Title search, recording the Deed with the County, etc. DW
Usually a landowner can not deny access to another landowner, but you can't be forced to sell or sign off on utility easements either...at least in Alabama!
Here, you can't be forced to give access to anyone stupid enough to buy a landlocked piece of property, (which of the adjoining owners would have to be the one to give it up ?) but utility easements can be forced on you by eminent domain if you don't take their offer. About 30 years ago, I sat on a jury trial where an old fool, and his old fool of a lawyer, were suing the State of TN over the State taking a 1/10 of an acre of his property to widen the mouth of a major state route where it intersected with another major state route.....basically made a right turn lane that didn't exist before. The old man was MAD.....kept on about how the state had widened the state route in front of his old store building (which hadn't been a store in many years, being used for a residence). "People can't get the gas pumps now !! he complained several times. FINALLY the show a photo of the 'gas pumps'.....a little curbed island with grass growing in the 'island'.....hadn't been pumps there in decade or more. Store, island and all were built IN the State ROW, (Legally, they could have torn down about 1/2 the store) they had merely widened the shoulder a couple feet on the roadside of the island. Didn't hurt the guy a lick what they did. For the 1/10 acre they did take down at the end of the property for the turn lane, the guy wanted $100,000 in court.....for a 1/10 of an acre for land that was selling for maybe 3,000/ac at that time. So we sit thru 3 property appraiser testifying, the average was $800 (way over what it was worth IMHO) between the 3. Then the old fool shows the photos behind the store of the creek. The before photo shows this overgrown jungle, you can't even SEE the creek. The after photo shows thousands of dollars of grade work the state did for free, and the property sowed in nice grass sloping down to the creek you can now see. SO we go back in the jury room.....I'm thinking "open and shut, give him nothing for having brought this stupid crap in here and the expense of the trial" One other man on the jury, local banker I knew, rolling his eyes thinking the same thing. BUT there were 10 women on the jury......and to the female members of this forum, I apologize in advance.......BUT IF YOU EVER REALLY NEED A JURY TO RULE IN YOUR FAVOR, TRY FOR ALL WOMEN ON THE PANEL....older women in particular. They operate on emotion, not logic. They started in immediately about "Oh, this poor man....how much do you think we should 'give' him".....I was shocked....it was so obvious to me what a farce the whole thing was, and here these ladies were ready to write this old fool a big check. I looked over at the banker, he was grinning.....and I announced: "Ladies we are going to be here until hell freezes over before I vote for one cent over $800.....and personally, I think he ought to get one penny, and the rest go to pay for the expense of this joke. What do you think those 3 appraisers got paid to drive up here from Knoxville today ? Add to that the judge, reports, our jury pay &lunch, etc....the guy should be paying US" We went out and awarded him $800. His old fool of a lawyer slams his fist on the table like it's the biggest miscarriage of justice he has ever seen.....and we all went home for the day.
Won't fly here for several reasons. But the biggest being the Circuit Judge has ruled on so many of these that he just dismisses them now. Buying a land locked property is just foolish no matter where you are and usually results in conflict and lots of flat tires.
@TnAndy its not just women on juries that want to give defendant more money than they deserve. The lawyer should never have taken that case. Eminent Domain has two parts. 1) need and necessity must be proven by the state/city/feds, and 2) just compensation.... part 2 is where all the arguing takes place.... which is stupid.. the real place to argue is in item No1 but most people dont argue at item one they argue at item 2 when need and necessity is already lost.
