Are you currently serving as personal representative of a West Palm Beach estate or as a trustee to a West Palm Beach revocable trust? Is there real property involved in the corpus of the trust or estate? Experienced Palm Beach probate litigators know that unwatched property might have squatters or others claiming rights to the property. Do you know how to quiet title in West Palm Beach?
Adverse Possession
- Adverse possession is what happens when someone trespasses for a long period of time and they eventually acquire a right to the land.
- Do you know how this happens?
- In Florida the right to bring a cause of action is limited through a statute of limitations.
- For example you only may have three months to file a will contest in West Palm Beach.
- Similarly trespass is subject to a statute, albeit a longer one.
- When someone trespasses on your land for over seven years the statute tolls and you can longer sue them to get them off the land.
- At this point it is said that they have adversely possessed the land.
- Experienced West Palm Beach probate litigators have surely seen a client or two that inherit land the owner may have never seen or visited – this land is ripe for adverse possessors to step in!
- What do you do when you find a long-term trespasser on the land and the time period has not expired?
- You will have to file a notice of ejection and a cause of action in West Palm Beach court for possession of the land.
- What happens when they claim they actually have a right to the land though?
- Then you may need to quiet title.
- An action to quiet title is used in West Palm Beach in a similar way to a declaratory judgment.
- You are essentially asking the Court to tell you who owns the land and settle it then and now.
Fla. Dept. of Transportation (DOT) v. Mid-Peninsula Realty Investment Group
- This was an appeal from an action to quiet title.
- The Appellees had acquired title through something called a wild deed which occurs when a party deeds the land after they do not have any rights left in it.
- The DOT had acquired the land by condemning it (also known as eminent domain)but the Appellees claimed an interest through the wild deed.
- Thus the Court had to deal with an issue of quiet title.
- If you are concerned that multiple people are claiming stakes in land that you have an interest in through a trust or will a quiet title action may be the right choice for you.
Want to learn more about quieting title in West Palm Beach?
Check out the entire case out of the Second District Court of Appeal, by clicking here.