is wyoming right for us?

[Happy in Wyoming]

If you can deal with a few structures in view, consider the north Fork west of Cody. Figure about 6500 per acre for pieces under 50 acres. The prices gradually go down as the size increases. The tiny pieces have city lot prices, but so what? You're not looking fo a city lot.

There is very little snow west of Cody until you are well west of Wapiti. Locals consider the last two winters to have been snowier than usual. I don't believe that there were more than ten or fifteen days last winter when the road was snowy. There may be times when there's snow on the ground for a week or two, but mostly it's only for a day or two. It's been dry enough in this snowy winter that my dogs leave clouds of dust when they run. I'm not lying.

It is breezy here, but a breeze almost always brings warmer weather. Cody is often 20 degrees warmer than Greybull or Worland. It's a great climate.

Some Wyoming people will tell you how horrible it is, but if it's so bad why are they here?

[sunsprit]

Originally Posted by BennyPhoenix

Sunsprit,
"misrepresentation" may not be actionable in wyoming, but fraud is actionable in all 50 states with civil and criminal penalties. Even a bad lawyer could start an action for fraud and likely get a settlement.
At the least, People who are in such positions should spread the name of the realtors who do that in the community where they work. Those realtors wouldn't stay in business long.

Yes, you're right ... anybody can find a "bulldog" litigator and go after anyone; but the liklihood of anybody "winning" except the lawyers and the court system is highly remote. At one point ... hopefully before spending a lot of money ... you've got to cut your losses and move on.

The "fraud" visited upon us was twofold:

1) The knowledge by the realtor that the surface water rights we were buying were functionally defective by local "custom"; ie, upstream water users without any rights had made a habit of "stealing" the water from the source or the supply ditch for over a century to support their pastures or flood irrigated fields. They'd been doing it with the complicity of the state engineer ditch riders, the head of the groundwater division, the sheriff's dept, and the courts ... primarily because these entrenched families were involved in all of the enforcement areas and politically connected ... state reps, senators, sheriffs (or deputies). The "good ole boy network at work". It wasn't until I came along and "discovered" that my water allocation was being stolen to a point where I wasn't getting any water on my land ... and I filed a complaint when an upstream non-water right holder had breached my ditch with her tractor (in FOUR places!) one day when she "needed" the water that the courts finally had to get realistic about the theft(s). She got off with a $100 fine, and I got stuck with thousands of dollars worth of damage to my crops and ditch. Sue her? Sure. Recover any money from her? No f'ing way. She was only doing what her dad had taught her to do all her life when he was alive and running the ranch ... and prior owners of my ranch had let her grandfather, father, and her get away with it for over a century; way back when, there was enough water for all so that they could do this with impunity ... but with today's demand on the limited water supplies, I was getting nothing. Compounding that problem was that several upstream water users with junior water rights were taking far more than their allocation, or taking water when I'd put a "call" on the creek ... or a "friendly" ditch rider would assert that my "call" was "futile" because there wasn't enough water in the creek to deliver water to my property for beneficial use. Yes, it was "futile" ... but only because so much water had been removed upstream that the creek bed was dry and needed to be saturated again before water could flow downstream to my area.

Now, you'd think that this all would have been the "dirty little secret" known only to those in the know along the creek. But it was a relatively famous local arrangement, going back generations ... and the realtor had been personally involved with the water thefts with other properties along the source creek as far back as his grandfather and father both having been realtors working the area.

All of this wouldn't have been an issue except that the place was sold to me ... at a premium price for the irrigation water right per acre ... as irrigated farmland. Functionally, it wasn't irrigated on the areas with the flood irrigation from surface water rights due to the local water wars.

2) The realtor assured me that certain critical adjoining areas to my property were not going to be subdivided by the sellers. Based upon that representation, I chose the layout of my place (with the limited budget I had for acreage purchase and his guidance) to take best advantage of the topography and productivity of the sub-irrigated pature lands. My house/farmstead became a corner of the property, with the purchase priority upon the adjacent meadows for my livestock. You can "imagine" my shock when I found out 6 months later that the new platted road access into the balance of the ranch being sold (about 2 sections) was going to be adjacent to my house, and filed with an easement across the pastures I now owned. I was literally going to have my pasture access across roads going through my property instead of the new roads taking useable land away from the new 40 acre planned parcels. The realtor had to have known when he assisted my land purchase that the seller had platted and applied for those new road and utility easements for his planned subdivision of 18 each 40 acre parcels.

I went to the state realtor board. They looked at my complaint about all this as a non-issue. Simpy business as usual. According to them, I should have done more investigative work to protect my interests in the land I was buying. It was all my fault as far as they were concerned.

The fun factor goes on. According to the realtor/seller, we're on "open range". But the adjacent platting has covenants which assert "fence in" and limit the number of head of livestock per parcel. So, I'm surrounded by a subdivision that has "fence in" requirements. But the realtor is "leasing" grazing rights each year to that area, and the existing fences from the ranch are well with my property lines. So I have a realtor selling me my land and functionally leasing out grazing to others on it, since he won't "fence in" the parcels per his own covenants. You can't have it both ways by selling the parcels with the "value added" protection of the covenants. Of course, I can fence my property to keep their livestock out ... but it would be at my sole expense. Until a buyer comes along for each of those adjoining parcels and is willing to share that expense with me, I cannot afford to build fences for the realtor.

And, there's even more to the twists here ... one of the adjacent 40's was sold to an investor with the representation by the realtor that I would be very agreeable to him fencing his parcel several hundred feet further onto my land, to join up at an existing old fence. This little 3 acre extension of their 40 acre parcel would then include the live water of the creek inside my Southern property boundary, which they needed for watering their livestock as it was the only water near the property. I was less than amused when the new buyer/investor sent a crew out to fence me out of my property so as to secure the 40 acre + parcel for his livestock. I got a frantic call from the realtor, who gave me a choice for which he demanded an immediate answer: (1) allow my new neighbor to fence me out of prime land I owned with the creek going through it ... at my neighbor's sole expense (wasn't that generous?), or (2) not allow my neighbor to fence past his property line and be responsbile for him not having water for his livestock and still having the "open range" livestock of the realtor's lease coming onto my prime grazing land until such time as I fenced him out at my sole expense. The new neighbor is really po'ed at me because I denied him the use of my land for his grazing ... and doesn't see that his fencing me out of my land would have had far more affect than simply losing that small area ... I would have not been able to get my livestock through to another 60 acres I owned due to being fenced out. The neighbor should have called me before assuming that I'd be a "nice guy" and give up the use of my land ... especially in light of "adverse possession" laws in this state. In time, he could have had access to my entire ranch because I'd allowed him to encroach upon my property, according to the realtor. Everybody should be mad at the realtor ... but my neighbor is mad at me, not the realtor who lied to him about my property.

Again, "business as usual" for a Wyoming realtor. The State Board's attitude is that the neighbor should have suspected that such a fence would be questioned by me, and he should have contacted me before spending any money on a now useless piece of dryland. Oh, and I've mentioned the realtor to as many folks as I can about how scummy he is .... and he's still the realtor of choice for a number of major land-owning families in the area. Everybody looks at me as the "bad guy" in these dealings, not this realtor.

[BennyPhoenix]

What you experienced is clearly fraud not misrepresentation. Going to the realtor board is not the way to pursue it. Fraud is criminal. It would cost a couple thousand to get somewhere, I understand that many people would not have the money for that, but there are some attorneys that would take something like this on contingency. A threat of filing a criminal complaint could net some money to make up for your loss. Local law enforcement must accept any criminal complaints that you want to file, they do not have to pursue them but they must accept them. If they do not pursue your complaint at that point you have to raise the ante to the state and then federal if necessary.
In my experience just the threat of filing a criminal complaint has been effective.

In any case, thank you for sharing your story, I now know what to do before buying property in wyoming; hire an attorney to prepare paperwork to protect myself from such criminals.

[sunsprit]

Originally Posted by BennyPhoenix

What you experienced is clearly fraud not misrepresentation. Going to the realtor board is not the way to pursue it. Fraud is criminal. It would cost a couple thousand to get somewhere, I understand that many people would not have the money for that, but there are some attorneys that would take something like this on contingency. A threat of filing a criminal complaint could net some money to make up for your loss. Local law enforcement must accept any criminal complaints that you want to file, they do not have to pursue them but they must accept them. If they do not pursue your complaint at that point you have to raise the ante to the state and then federal if necessary.
In my experience just the threat of filing a criminal complaint has been effective.

In any case, thank you for sharing your story, I now know what to do before buying property in wyoming; hire an attorney to prepare paperwork to protect myself from such criminals.

Benny, be very careful when you suggest going down that path.

It is a FELONY to threaten to file a criminal complaint as a means of collecting civil damages.

Either you have civil damages and pursue your claims by appropriate civil courts, or you file a criminal complaint and waive your civil claims. If a prosecutor comes back to you and says that the other party will offer to settle ... and the prosecutor is satisfied that "justice" has been done at that point rather than using their resources to pursue a criminal action ... that's one thing which is legal. But it's not for you to threaten at the outset of your criminal complaint.

And yes, I'm fully aware that the realtor for my ranch property and the parceling up of the 6 section ranch here is a fraud. But I've done enough follow-up investigations to know that he's no different from most of the Wyoming realtors and the culture of poor performance and ethics they have in this state. I've run into similar problems with other realtors/brokers in this state ... including getting a run-around from them for title to real property for which I had paid in full with certified funds at the closing. And again, when I visited with the State Board, I got chastised by them for using "inappropriate" language (a few "hells" and "damns") rather than the investigator focusing on the gist of my complaints about the situation ... the guy was really po'ed at me for having the audacity to use such language. Made a big deal about "I'm not paid to take such language" even though it wasn't directed at him .... and he saw nothing wrong with paying for professional licensed services and not receiving the title to the property.

I've yet to find an attorney in Cheyenne who will do anything without a substantial retainer. And when I realized that the attorney I selected on my water/ditch breach issue wasn't going to accomplish anything, I asked him to stop the process, bill me for his time to date, and refund the excess in my account. It took him 3 months to get out my billing, and another 6 months before he refunded almost $6,000 to me from the retainer. The only reason I got my refund from him ... after all the myriad excuses of why he couldn't have a check for me, week in -- week out ... was that I threatened to take his behavior to the board. The guy had simply spent my retainer money and was short of cash flow to repay me from what should have been held in a professional escrow account.

Now, you'd think that I'd found a "bad apple" attorney ... no matter how highly he'd been recommended in Cheyenne, and that this was a one-time affair. I can tell you from personal experience that I've found two more who pulled the same stunt. Asked for a very sizable retainer to commence work, although they did get the job done in short order .... and then took months to give me a final billing and more months to refund my balance from the retainer. Worse yet, one action involved damages to a property in Colorado, and the other party's insurance paid my claim quickly to settle the matter and make it go away ... and my Cheyenne attorney took 4 months to forward my proceeds from the settlement insurance company cashier's check for my loss. The attorney, of course, had promptly cashed the check and deducted his fees (he was not on contingency) that were now in excess of my retainer from the settlement check.

I think you'll find the standards for professional services of many types in Wyoming to fall far short of reasonable expectations in other, more competitive, markets. Many concerns about buying or selling real estate here are not something that a lawyer will see as an issue in a sales contract. The "good old boy" network is very much alive and well here, with certain families enjoying a level of impunity from the laws that the rest of us must conform to .... and they're all very tied into the entire legal enforcement and judicial system in the state.

[vk40]

Originally Posted by Happy in Wyoming

Some Wyoming people will tell you how horrible it is, but if it's so bad why are they here?

It's complicated. Some of us do see some good things about WY. but just as many things that we DON'T like at the same time. And we can't just pick up and leave. In my case, my husband has a good job which we can't give up in times like these- we have three kids. The weather in WY is not something I enjoy much, although it is a bonus to have many sunny days, even when it's below zero.

[Happy in Wyoming]

Originally Posted by vk40

It's complicated. Some of us do see some good things about WY. but just as many things that we DON'T like at the same time. And we can't just pick up and leave. In my case, my husband has a good job which we can't give up in times like these- we have three kids. The weather in WY is not something I enjoy much, although it is a bonus to have many sunny days, even when it's below zero.

The weather in WY is frequently windy and wind brings dust. I've even found ot in a sealed window well. A couple of weeks ago it was -24 here. But in June it will be delightful. July will be hot, but dry. When it's really cold it's not windy. Wind almost always raises the temperature.

But no matter how cold or windy, I always have a view that's beyond description. When I first saw this place, I got out of the realtor's car, looked around, and said, "This is it". The house was a mess. I ran into a lying, thieving worker. But that's everywhere. I hope the next time I move will be when I'm dead.

The weather isn't always great; the people aren't always great; the laws aren't always great. But try to find a better place this side of heaven.

I've heard that if you survive one winter in Wyoming, you can't leave. I am now on my seventh.

[BennyPhoenix]

It is a FELONY to threaten to file a criminal complaint as a means of collecting civil damages.

Depends on how it is stated.

Thanks for the heads up on the state's realtors and attorneys. I'll now know how to better protect myself.
On the retainer issue, in all states that I am familiar with a retainer cannot be spent until earned and must be returned in 14 to 30 days depending on the state. The attorneys in wyoming sound like something special.

And I cannot state it too strongly, I do appreciate you sharing the difficulties you have had. I wasn't aware of that situation and you probably saved me a lot of trouble. Thanks!

[vk40]

Originally Posted by Happy in Wyoming

I've heard that if you survive one winter in Wyoming, you can't leave. I am now on my seventh.

Haha! Cody is very beautiful for sure, I can see why you like it there. I'm on my 36th winter in Lander, and I wouldn't mind trying winter somewhere new- maybe someday.

[Happy in Wyoming]

Originally Posted by vk40

Haha! Cody is very beautiful for sure, I can see why you like it there. I'm on my 36th winter in Lander, and I wouldn't mind trying winter somewhere new- maybe someday.

How about South Pass City? Or one its suburbs?

[Poky]

Well it's probably too late to tell you to look around Platte County, Wyoming, but just in case..."look around Platte County Wyoming!" All four seasons, winter is the longest. Wheatland has a hospital (check out www.wheaterville.com for some of the latest on what's going on with the hospital and nursing home there) and so does douglas, which isn't in Platte, but close by. Check out Sybille Canyon and Lusk. Look at www.sybillecanyon.com for an interesting look at life in that beautiful corner of the world...it's gorgeous. It used to be affordable but not anymore probably. Maybe closer to Wheatland it is. The canyon is fantastic!