A few years ago, the lady who owned The Homestead before us made a "lot line adjustment" to give a small .14 acre piece of the property to her daughter and son-in-law who lived next door. Because it was the third time the original property was split, that piece became "Parcel 4" to the county tax authorities. Anyway, this family transaction was done with a handshake and the deed that they recorded was scrawled on the back of an envelope—almost literally. What it clearly did not indicate was joint tenancy as between the daughter and son-in-law. In Utah, evidently, tenancy in common is assumed if joint tenancy is not explicitly noted. (Note to DIY Unlicensed Attorneys: This matters. As we shall see.)
With the lot line adjustment, The Homestead became a .36 acre rectangle with one owner, and the daughter's property behind it became a .36 acre rectangle with three owners. Bear with me here, we are getting into the minutia of stupid property transactions. Without realizing it, the daughter and son-in-law had created three different real property ownerships on "their" land. On the .22 acre piece in front was the house that they were living in. It was owned by Chase Manhattan Bank. On parcel 4 they had unwittingly created two 50% ownerships—one was the daughter's and one was the son-in-law's. As my reader knows, under tenancy in common, this 50% ownership doesn't mean that you own half the property, it means that you own half of the rights to the whole property.
Trust me, it gets better: At some point after this wheeling and dealing, the son-in-law got cancer and died. There was one son, but no will and no probate. Hang in there, this is starting to get interesting: After a suitable period of mourning, the daughter married a different guy, and he moved onto her real property estate. The four of them lived over there—daughter, new husband, step-son, and new baby—for a couple years after we had purchased The Homestead. They didn't seem to care much about the place, and it became trashy and run down. They left dirty diapers in the yard, kept a couple of yappy dogs, and brought in a bunch of un-penned chickens.
Abruptly, last summer, the daughter and new husband and the rest of the family moved out of the house. They had stopped paying Chase Manhattan six months or a year before, and the bank had finally evicted them. A property management company came in to clean up the mess, and a dull-witted realtor put a sign on the street. The property had been foreclosed and Chase Manahattan was offering it for sale, the whole .36 acres. After a suitable period of mourning, we made an offer on the property—contingent on the bank's ability to prove they owned the whole piece. The bank's realtor insisted that they did, but after some research at the county recorder's office, I concluded that he was wrong (like I said, he was a great guy). So, when I saw the daughter and new husband at the county fair, I made them an offer for parcel 4. They verbally accepted and told me to give them a call about signing a contract. When I called a few days later, they told me that they had just declared bankruptcy and were not allowed to conduct business without the permission of the United States Bankruptcy Court.
In the meantime, another party made an offer on the bank's house. It was, evidently, a better offer than ours and, moreover, came with no contingencies. When the bank showed up at the closing, however, they had only the house and .22 acres to sell because parcel 4 had never belonged to them. Parcel 4 was now in the control of a bankruptcy court and a dead guy—with 50% ownership each. So, we made them each an offer. Actually, we offered to buy the property from the court, but the trustee told us that he only had the daughter's 50% to sell. If we wanted the rest, we would have to wait until he could get a state court (not the federal bankruptcy court) to probate the dead husband's estate. In the event, the trustee determined that probate was unnecessary and that the federal bankruptcy judge had the authority to sell the dead husband's 50% share.
When the court order and the real estate purchase contract showed up at our title company, the escrow officer we use, Steve, balked. The title company attorneys decided that only the state court could probate the 50% share, and that the federal court had no authority in the matter. So, there we sat. I called and had a friendly chat with Steve each week as he waited for his corporate legal department to make a final ruling. On Wednesday they did: In favor of the transaction. The federal bankruptcy court's order will stand. We met Steve on Thursday morning to sign the paperwork. The title should record tomorrow. Parcel 4 now belongs to Rural Ways.
