Tracking someone down

[Calman]

I quit tracking a long time ago when I dam near got run over by a train.

Cal

 

[Jogeephus]

I'd like to thank everyone who offered their help in this matter. Ya'll were great and gave me some good information. Thank you all. I'd like to especially thank Jkwilson for his expertise in genealogy since he provided me with the name and phone number of the person I was looking for even though the fella is now a yankee. ;-) I called this person today and learned he is the only living grandchild of the person I was hunting so the puzzle is now solved after seven years of painstaking research. Oh, and this person is now about 1/2 million dollars richer than they were yesterday in no small part to the selfless efforts of JkWilson. :tiphat:

Now its in the hands of the attorneys and they can work out the deed work and I can go on about my business.

Wouldn't it be nice to wake up and get a phone call telling you that you owned a farm you didn't know about? I can only imagine what's going through this guys mind at the moment.

 

[john250]

Dang, and curses on JK.
I told you I am the heir. Wasn't that enough?
Oh well, I guess I'll buy a ticket for Saturday.

 

[1982vett]

I'd like to thank everyone who offered their help in this matter. Ya'll were great and gave me some good information. Thank you all. I'd like to especially thank Jkwilson for his expertise in genealogy since he provided me with the name and phone number of the person I was looking for even though the fella is now a yankee. ;-) I called this person today and learned he is the only living grandchild of the person I was hunting so the puzzle is now solved after seven years of painstaking research. Oh, and this person is now about 1/2 million dollars richer than they were yesterday in no small part to the selfless efforts of JkWilson. :tiphat:

Now its in the hands of the attorneys and they can work out the deed work and I can go on about my business.

Wouldn't it be nice to wake up and get a phone call telling you that you owned a farm you didn't know about? I can only imagine what's going through this guys mind at the moment.

Hope the feller knows how to handle it and puts it to good use. Maybe a reason you weren't able to find him for 7 years.....a little more maturity? Unexpected good fortune is always welcome...

 

[Jogeephus]

Hope the feller knows how to handle it and puts it to good use. Maybe a reason you weren't able to find him for 7 years.....a little more maturity?

It wasn't anything like that. He is actually around 70 years old and worked in sales for a large company. The reason it was in such a mess is that some families here don't split land. They just keep it in the family and it is a verbal thing as to who gets what. This is well and good for maybe one generation but when you add another generation or two to the mix it gets rather complicated and its nearly impossible to get a clear title much less find all the heirs. This is what I was trying to do and it was a nightmare but I felt it should be done before we went from 1/64th ownerships to 1/128ths ownerships. When they finally got an attorney they hired probably the worst one possible and he missed this deed and buried the ownership under the guise of an Estate - which by the way he had an interest in up until about 10 years ago. He and I butted heads today but he's now eating crow after I faxed him the deed.

John250, if I could convince them of this you know I would. Afterall, how many years have you been my brother? :lol2: Heck, you and I put down the corner markers on the property so long ago they've probably rotted by now. :nod: :lol2:

 

[jedstivers]

How have the taxes been being paid? Around here tax rolls are watched very close.

 

[Jogeephus]

How have the taxes been being paid? Around here tax rolls are watched very close.

That's a common misconception here too. Tax rolls and deeds are two different things. Theoretically they should be the same but they are not. There are a lot of mistakes hidden in the records and on the tax maps. For instance, my county taxes roughly 8000 more acres that we even have. So its obvious there is a lot of problems out there but uncovering them is often difficult and many times landowners would rather continue paying taxes on more acres than to accept the fact that their deed is wrong. When the land was originally surveyed, any mistakes and errors were normally pushed over to the county lines, district lines or the rivers. This is where I've found the most discrepencies.

But to answer your question, this land was being taxed as part of another property that consisted of several thousand acres that straddled a river and was located in two counties. In 1878 this ownership belonged to one person and everyone involved is related to this one person and they just did like I described earlier. Problem was, in 1933 the grandmother of the missing person bought 100 acres of this property outright but it was never removed from the orginal ownership. This person then died and the children moved away.

This just goes to show the importance of doing your homework on land. Just last week I found another piece of land that is taxed at 10 acres but there is actually 15 and its actually been surveyed. A few years ago I found 78 acres that no one owned. We own it now. ;-) Had I not been able to find this heir we would have absorbed this property too since we had color of title by paying taxes on it all these years. There were a couple of people that wanted to do this and I'm sure no one would have ever questioned it but I felt we needed to make every attempt at finding any heirs before we claimed it. I do hope that this person is considerate enough to reimburse my client for the taxes but we'll see.

 

[jkwilson]

I remember reading many years ago about a guy finding some "residual" land on what had at one time been the outskirts of Chicago. Apparently the original tract had been sold in three different transfers, half, then 10 acres, then finally the remaining 10 acres. Problem was the original tract was along a river and was actually almost 41 acres, so the first deed conveyed about 20.5 acres, and the second and third conveyed 20 acres total, leaving around a half acre in the original deed. It wasn't the outskirts of Chicago anymore when it was found, and while the occupiers of the property probably could have prevailed in court, they preferred to just pay a lot of money to fully quiet the title.

Bottom line is to hire the good surveyors and real estate attorneys, not the cheapest.

And if you need a forester in the S. Georgia area, we all know one who knows what's right.