I was wondering if some-one could shed light on a situation concerning some land that was under the Property Law Act until earlier this year. The land in question adjoins my property on one of the special surveys and was effectively abandoned except for occasional use for grazing by a local farmer.
The farmer died last year as an undischarged bankrupt but had claimed the land as one of his assets although he had abandoned it before his bankruptcy.
I was advised by a local real estate agent that the land was to be sold with titles. This seemed odd as there had been no claim for title through adverse possession - and there has been an adverse possessor in control of the land for the last eighteen months.
I contacted Landata to see if there were titles for the land. The representative I spoke to said titles had in fact been created recently, but this was a legislative requirement whenever there was activity on PLA land. The nature of the activity was not recorded but the Landata representative agreed that it could have been from inquiries by the bankruptcy trustees.
The names on the titles were the interesting point: they were in the names of the original Crown grantee from 1841 and people who bought township allotments from him in the mid-1850s. Most of the town was abandoned by the end of the nineteenth century so there were no subsequent transactions or conversions to TLA.
The local real estate agent has copies of these new titles and states that the land can be sold 'with title.' To me, this seems bonkers. The creation of the titles was an administrative/legislative process, a re-recording of historical information into a modern format. It is simply a description of the land; it did not identify a transaction history, or a current owner, or confer ownership on any living person. I don't see how a Section 32 form could be completed or ownership transferred to another person if no vendor is identifiable.
If a claim for title by adverse possession had been made on the basis of the property description in the new titles, that would have made sense - however tenuous it may have been - but that was not the case.
My concern is that the real estate agent has been making inquiries about some of my land that is still under the PLA; I prefer it that way for historical reasons. Is there a loophole the real estate agent can exploit to gain title to PLA land, or are they barking up the wrong tree?
Noisy Witness
The farmer died last year as an undischarged bankrupt but had claimed the land as one of his assets although he had abandoned it before his bankruptcy.
I was advised by a local real estate agent that the land was to be sold with titles. This seemed odd as there had been no claim for title through adverse possession - and there has been an adverse possessor in control of the land for the last eighteen months.
I contacted Landata to see if there were titles for the land. The representative I spoke to said titles had in fact been created recently, but this was a legislative requirement whenever there was activity on PLA land. The nature of the activity was not recorded but the Landata representative agreed that it could have been from inquiries by the bankruptcy trustees.
The names on the titles were the interesting point: they were in the names of the original Crown grantee from 1841 and people who bought township allotments from him in the mid-1850s. Most of the town was abandoned by the end of the nineteenth century so there were no subsequent transactions or conversions to TLA.
The local real estate agent has copies of these new titles and states that the land can be sold 'with title.' To me, this seems bonkers. The creation of the titles was an administrative/legislative process, a re-recording of historical information into a modern format. It is simply a description of the land; it did not identify a transaction history, or a current owner, or confer ownership on any living person. I don't see how a Section 32 form could be completed or ownership transferred to another person if no vendor is identifiable.
If a claim for title by adverse possession had been made on the basis of the property description in the new titles, that would have made sense - however tenuous it may have been - but that was not the case.
My concern is that the real estate agent has been making inquiries about some of my land that is still under the PLA; I prefer it that way for historical reasons. Is there a loophole the real estate agent can exploit to gain title to PLA land, or are they barking up the wrong tree?
Noisy Witness
