QUESTION
Is it legal for a builder to advertise forever wild town owned land that a house lots back up to then sell land and it becomes private property?
Asked on Jan 27th, 2013 on Real Estate - New York
More details to this question:
Last year my husband & I had a house built in a development through a building company. We chose a a small lot that we were told backed up to forever wild land that was owned & maintained by the town. A big reason we even chose this lot was because of the forever wild woods behind it. A few months ago we were sitting in our sunroom that over looks the woods and noticed yellow posted no tresspassing signs in the trees. We ran into the new owner of the "forever wild" property, who also lives in our development a few houses down the street, he informed us he owns the 20 acres behind all our houses on this street to the bottom of the hill in our back yard & he can even bow hunt back there. Had we known that our lot was going to back up to private property we would'nt have chosen to build our house here. Now we feel stuck like we can't even step foot out our backyard to the bottom of the hill without tresspassing & is unsafe for our kids play in the back yard with bowhunters near by.
1 ANSWER
To purchase property a contract of sale is entered into. This contract of sale usually contains language to the effect that "this contract embodies the full understanding of the parties and the seller is not bound by any representations made by any third parties or agents unless contained herein". These words may not be exact but similar and will shield the seller from these types of situations. Since this was amajor component for you choosing this lot, the contract needed to have a provision to provide this. Then when your title search was run on your property an additional search on these lands would reveal the fact that these lands were privately owned. Before the closing this issue come up and you could then decide to cancel the contract. It is my opinion that now it is too late to go against the seller unless you could prove that the seller purposuly conspired to decive you which would be very difficult.
Answered on Jan 27th, 2013 at 7:35 AM