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"no landlocked property in Texas"


CleverNickname

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My father in law bought the adjacent 43 acres to my ranch (the old "la casita" thread on the other forum). My FIL had some money burning a hole in his pocket, and the nice lady neighbor was looking to sell (we bought our original ranch from her and get along great). She get the money she needed and we got to control the use, rather then ending up with the next door property being some junkyard or whatever. She sold off to my FIL 43 acres, but really we just want about 18ac of it (the pretty wooded part on both sides of the creek so we don't need water gates and such). But it was one of those deals where my FIL had to buy the whole 43 acres right then, and figure out the rest later. It has a nice 25 acre field that is good for a couple cuttings of hay each year. But a denuded field is not great for use for us. We just want to putter around and drink beer, not be worries about fertilizing a field and working out deals to have someone with a tractor cut hay. 

Other neighbor could use it for his hobby cattle raising - he can finish off non-weaned calves and check up on them daily. That's fine with us, and he'd be a good steward for the land as well. He suggested a land swap, FILs 25 acres for a similar amount from his proverbial back forty. Seems a fair deal and a win-win; our 25 acres is more useful to him for honest agricultural production, and his ~25 is nicely wooded and would fit in well with the hunting property we have (we do wildlife ag exemption).

The issue is that freshly broken off a piece of neighbor's property would be "landlocked" (it would not have frontage or a deeded easement to the country road). Technically FILs new 43 acres, once you cut off that 25 acre field, would become landlocked as well. Not actually a problem, since I intend to buy the remaining 18 acres (and I guess that 25ac as well) and unify the whole tract. But that's probably can't happen the same day the land swap closing would happen. 

Would this kind of deal run into the TX common law principle against landlocked property? To be clear: we have no interest in any implied easement or whatever, I just don't want this vaguely recalled legal precept to screw up what would otherwise be a pretty straightforward deal. 

(I'll try to whip up a MS paint diagram tomorrow)

Edited by CleverNickname
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There isn't a proscription against "landlocked property" in Texas.  But if a piece of property has no access to a public roadway except across another's land, and the property owners cannot agree on an easement, one might be created in court.  Also, there are issues as to whether any access easement passes to a purchaser of the property or "runs with the land."

 

So, nothing is going to completely queer the deal, but title insurance may be a iittle tricky if an easement isn't carved out by agreement and put in the deed or recorded.

 

https://assets.recenter.tamu.edu/documents/articles/947.pdf

Edited by TwiceHorn
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11 hours ago, Atxracer said:

Good God you just gave me a flashback to property law.  It’s still painful.  Please stop. 

Enfeoffment of seisin, motherfucker!  Goddamn Michael Sturley and reform of equitable servitudes.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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2 hours ago, Eastwood said:

Why not an easement if you are merging the properties in the future? When the serviant and dominant estates of an easement are merged, the easement terminates.

Yeah, this too, if applicable.  I didn't precisely follow the geography of it all.

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13 hours ago, 4th and 5 said:

How about a lease of the land by each party, the consideration being a lease of the land to the other party? Does that make sense? I’ve  had a few pops 

you have the best avatar on this site.

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Contact your local land trust.  You might be able to get a very nice tax deduction for the area you don't want and is unusable to you.  It would also designate the area for conservation so no one could come around and do a bunch of bullshit to the ground.  If you don't have a big tax burden then you could potentially put the land in a LLC, then sell shares in the the LLC to people with large tax burdens.  Then you have effectively sold the deduction for cash.

I'm not sure how the new tax bill has changed this scenario, but this could be a way to get your money out of the excess ground, and preserve it so you don't have a junkyard neighbor.

Edited by Jhawk
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vde4ns.jpg

in writing this up its apparent the solution is to run an easement along the east fence of Neighbor A from the north county road. I guess? So long as the parcel that is new to my FIL touches his remaining acreage, I dont think an easement by necessity would have cause to be created. 

Edited by CleverNickname
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On 7/27/2018 at 5:48 PM, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

Why not turn the hayfield into more pretty wooded acreage to putter around on when y'all feel like holding each other's dicks?

With the swap they are getting woods now instead of 10-30 years from now. 

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On 7/27/2018 at 1:45 PM, CleverNickname said:

vde4ns.jpg

in writing this up its apparent the solution is to run an easement along the east fence of Neighbor A from the north county road. I guess? So long as the parcel that is new to my FIL touches his remaining acreage, I dont think an easement by necessity would have cause to be created. 

If you do the swap, I'd think you'd definitely want to write up a written easement for the landlocked properties.  Better that you write up the terms than a court after a bunch of litigation. 

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Why not trade the hayfield with the exception of a large enough sliver for a road along neighbor A's property?  That way there is no land locking and no easements.  Your FIL would be better off owning property to the road than with an easement.  If the wooded back of neighbor B's property is adjacent to the property your FIL is keeping, then it wouldn't be land locked due to common ownership.

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