Who's land?

[Anonymous]

Here in Montgomery, AL, a former C of G line was abandoned. It ran from the railyard downtown, south-east through Montgomery then on to Eufaula and then into Georga. The rails were there for years before they were pulled up. Still, nothing was done with the rail right of way. Through the years I noticed that many home owners along the route adding the property into their fences. Stores and other small businesses have been built on the property as well. Does each of the dozens of home owners and businesses have to buy this land individually or is it up for grabs? Can someone give me an idea?

[mudchicken]

7 of 3:

Depends on the color of title of the line at time of official abandonment by the ICC/STB.

If fee simple, the railroad still owns it and is free to sell it.

If a R/W deed with a reversionary clause , goes to the reversionary interest in the clause.
If a land grant, probably goes to the adjoiners.

If an easement, most likely extinguished.

or is there a vacation, ordinance, charter, license or one of a dozen other things in play?

And then, we have squatters trying to assert their prescriptive right (and certain people egging them on and others stupidly thinking that abandonment equates to instant reversion...and more biz for the eggers-on practicing outside their area of expertise.)

..and then you look at the assessors map and discover your county officials are totally wittless. Railroad owning the land reported all along how they got title to the land. After abandonment, the onus is on the adjoiners and the county to do their homework (which rarely happens, unfortunately)

[banghead][banghead][banghead]

[gabe]

Mudchicken obviously is not a big fan of adverse possession. But, to answer your question, a very large portion of abandon rail property ends up being adversely possessed in exactly the manner you are describing. If someone who is the legal owner of the land (in one of the options accurately described by Mudchicken) suddenly realizes that they want this land or that it has value to them and the time period for adverse possession has not run, they have every right to tear down the fence and kick them out.

However, there is a better than average chance that the property that you are mentioning will legally belong to the ones including the property in their fence line fifteen years from now.

Gabe

[jchnhtfd]

I'm with MC on this one! And have at least an equal aversion to adverse possession... in which the grabber, and his cronies, advance themselves at sometimes considerable cost to everyone else. But, short of having someone patrol the parcels in question and take prompt legal action, it is, as Gabe says, very hard to prevent.

[Anonymous]

OK, so we are talking about squatters in some cases. Well thnx for the input guys. [8D]

[mudchicken]

....and then there is also the cases where the boneheads in the county tax assessor's office fraudulently call a sherriff's sale on parcels that they think has not paid it's taxes and whose ownership they cannot determine, so they sell it in a tax sale/sherriff's auction.

(I am working on two such cases right now where this has happened to railroad land on a line that is not abandoned....It is clear that the county never asked the railroad if it was theirs or looked at an ICC Val Map either![:(!][:(!][:(!] ....hopefully the county disciplines the morons who pulled this off, reimburses the grantee of the tax sale, pays damages and straightens its act out....This happens with frightening regularity and in these two cases, it is fortunate that no improvements were made.............)

[jchnhtfd]

MC -- at least you work for a railroad which has a reasonably coherent and not all that complex corporate history. Around my way almost all the lines (and rights of way!) were built by (and purchased by -- very few easements) predecessors to the New York, New Haven, and Hartford. You'd be amazed (well, maybe you wouldn't) how many Towns think that the NY,NH&H being long gone, somehow lost title in the process -- being quite unable to follow through from the original line to the New Haven to Conrail or Guilford (or maybe Springfield or B&M or...) or P&W or Housatonic or... never mind the real estate sales folks and their cronies.

It ain't rocket science, but it does take good history and an ability to trace title... oh well.

[mudchicken]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jchnhtfd

MC -- at least you work for a railroad which has a reasonably coherent and not all that complex corporate history. Around my way almost all the lines (and rights of way!) were built by (and purchased by -- very few easements) predecessors to the New York, New Haven, and Hartford. You'd be amazed (well, maybe you wouldn't) how many Towns think that the NY,NH&H being long gone, somehow lost title in the process -- being quite unable to follow through from the original line to the New Haven to Conrail or Guilford (or maybe Springfield or B&M or...) or P&W or Housatonic or... never mind the real estate sales folks and their cronies.

It ain't rocket science, but it does take good history and an ability to trace title... oh well.

I have not received a railroad paycheck in a good while (since the demise of ATSF). I am now a consultant (one of those mercenary guys 50 miles from home with a briefcase[:D]) who still works for railroads on an almost daily basis including St. Lawrence & Atlantic, New England Central & Connecticut Southern on different things. Close enough to home?.....and the bit about towns & counties being ignorant (!), so are large numbers of civil engineers, surveyors, real estate title folks, attorneys and the general public.

(and you hit the nail on the head, the clowns who can't research and expect it to pop up instantly on their computer without any effort, a la "instant gratification", are doomed to screw everything up)[:(][:(][:(].....and they put down some really wild-assed guesses on paper and expect it to hold true as fact!!![V][V][V] (job security?)

[kevarc]

About 10 years or so ago I did some work for a company on a couple of properties that wee next to RR tracks. The one was easy, it was shown on the local platt map as still owned by the old predecessor line on the one map. We didn't have any problems.

Theother was a royal PITA. It was the old SP line between Lafayette and Opelousas LA. This was abandoned in the 80's and the track pulled up. It was a mish mash of who owned what. Some of the deeds reverted back to the original owners upon abandonment. Yep, many of the properties were still owned by the decendents of the orignal property owners. Some was not and in a few cases the property is still being fought over. Many have taken ownership through taking care of the property for x number of years, you can do that in Louisiana. But I would say that close to 80% is still there and unused. If it is in a town, it is used as a footpath, but in most areas I would not recommend being there at night.