Cemetery for sale…………..cheap
If there is ever a shortage of chaos, simply call in a land surveyor.
There was a fellow in my county who was born to be eccentric. That sort of describes his entire extended family. Some have used that trait to become wealthy and others to be much less so. In his case, he was a favored son and thus provided financial resources at an early age that allowed him to invest, re-invest, sell, buy, swap and generally play with real estate. Everything from empty city lots to large agricultural tracts. He was my client on probably 20 different occasions. Several years ago he began to fail physically, partially as a result of the polio he contracted as a young lad. His less than brilliant son was put in charge of handling financial matters for the ailing father. Big mistake. The son is only interested in spending more money than he has. My former client passed away last year.
That leads up to the story of one special survey I handled for this fellow sometime in the 1990’s. Among his scattered holdings was a simple aliquot tract being the southeast quarter of the northeast quarter of the northeast quarter of the section. Lying directly to the north of that tract is a cemetery that opened in the 1870’s. The cemetery tract is not described as an aliquot part but by metes and bounds. The perimeter is easy to identify with county roads along two sides and dense cedar tree rows along the other two sides. The best guess is that the words and the intent of the 1870’s description were two different things. The tree rows/fences are approximately 35 feet into the (now) two adjoining tracts. In the 1870’s those (now) adjoining tracts did not exist and were simply portions of the larger aliquot part from which the cemetery was to be severed.
Enter the land surveyor. The client’s aliquot description, when located per the rules, included roughly 35 feet of cemetery land, including a number of graves. The client was selling this land to an out-of-towner who was wanting to build a very nice home and create a sort of rural estate for his waning years. The client was told of the dilemma. No problem. “Create a description that conforms to the cemetery fence/tree row for the part I am selling and I will deed the other strip you describe to the cemetery association to clear up the problem.”, he said.
Great idea. But, it turns out he never got around to deeding the strip to the cemetery association and apparently never mentioned it to them. The County has been assessing property taxes on “his” strip ever since. Enter less than brilliant son. He decides to not pay property taxes on this tract and a few others. Currently, there is the official newspaper announcement of over 100 tracts around the County that are scheduled to be sold in a few months to attempt to recover the missing tax money. This little strip is on that list.
So……….if you are interested in buying a burial plot of immense dimensions, let me know.
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