The lovely, sloping and vacant lot behind my house... (Madison: lawyer, buying)

[33458]

To whom would I inquire with, to determine who owns it (private or developer) and if it might be available for purchase?

My surveys do not give me a lot identification for anything 'behind' my properties (two lots came with the house). Have poked around the Madison Appraisal site but did not find anything to assist me...yet.

Anybody?

[harry chickpea]

Go to the tax assessor's office and ask for your property to be pulled up, and then the properties of the adjoining landowners. There should be deeds recorded. However, in rural areas there may not be deeds. The key to your search is the tax maps.

Actually, if you had a survey done of your property, the surveyor should have already pulled those deeds to verify that there was no encroachment.

[33458]

Hi Harry! Thanks for stopping by!

Yes - we had a detailed survey (including easements) given to us at closing and they even staked the yard (thank you!), but it does not have the parcels adjoining listed by cryptic county coding...but if I sense a sequential theme, might be easy enough to figure out, right? Husband has the document -- I'll take another look at it to see if there is something we overlooked. What I saw yesterday is pretty much like what the appraiser had...an outline of the property. (I worked for an appraiser years ago, so have just a distant memory of how to search this stuff out.)

I wouldn't call it rural, but it is land that has clearly not been used since 'Oak Park' was built in the 80's?...even the new McMansions are much further up and not directly behind. Just woodland and grass...(really good neighbors.)
I'm liking the idea of purchasing more land just to have more a pleasant space between me and anything that might come later.

[33458]

Well, I finally tracked down something with Emapsplus which appears to be how the first survey (generic) was found...and the land behind us has no parcel ID, no lot designation, nothing...just an outline and some sort of measurement which may be telling me the total acreage(?) without any tax information...the site went hinky (I think as a non-subscribing visitor I was only given a taste - perhaps accidentally) so I'll have to try again tomorrow to make notations.
It is undeveloped, between Oak Park and Chapman Cove, just kinda there...no man's land. Could it be part of the Land Trust?

[harry chickpea]

Well, one way to find out who owns the property is to start making encroachments on it. Alabama has a twenty year adverse possesion statute, and if you can document the start of that process, you might end up owning it at no cost.

It could be part of a land trust, but my better guess is that it is either in private ownership or abandoned. It might be prudent for you to pursue this before someone else does. One thing to keep in mind is that land is not supposed to be sold in the state unless it has an access or easement to a county or state road. If the property is truly landlocked, and you have the potential of being the only access, you could be in a good situation to pick it up for a song.

[AnotherBravesFan]

Fabulous resource for someone like me (out of town and researching ownership, valuation, etc.) Works best if you have an address. You can put in yours, or your PPIN, and the map will put a red outline around your parcel. You can then click on the adjacent parcel to select it, and then click the choices on the bar above (e.g., assessment and property tax info). If the property is in Madison or Morgan county, the info is up to date for '07 tax year. Limestone still seems stuck in 2005, and it doesn't have records for many homes built in last 3-4 years. This is one of the reasons we have nixed Limestone county as a potential place to settle.

[harry chickpea]

Checked out the emapsplus.com site. Very interesting. Found the supposed owners of the surrounding properties, but as you mentioned, the info was old.

I don't think I would use that as a criteria for not buying in Limestone Co.. In a way, it is a plus, since it protects privacy just a little more.

[33458]

Back again, and BTW, where's all that snow the radar keeps telling us we're experiencing!?

I contacted Ms. Hamilton and she emailed back the next day () with the same instruction for pulling up the parcel ID and PPIN, which this time was successful - not sure why it didn't work previously as I believe I was making the same selections...ah, well - GOT the owner information, private individual, owns 6 acres plus another large parcel...so I will inquire by letter as to her intentions to see if she's interested in selling off a small portion - can't swing the whole thing and make the fixes to the house that need to come first. My guess is she won't though, because she might want to wait and see what happens with the $ Chapman community $ behind us (precisely why I want the land - to block me from it.)

Fingers crossed.

And about easements - we discovered during the closing that the second garage, which has been there since the mid-80's, was built on the easement as shown on our second survey...bummer. Very wide easement there, even includes the (original) driveway which makes me wonder about accuracy. But the lawyer said he would inquire as to whether or not this has been or will be 'grandfathered' in since it's been that way since shortly after the house was built almost 30 years ago...

Fingers crossed, again.

Thanks for your help!
Trish

[NicoleC]

Chapman Community? What? Where exactly?