I am not the original poster. This is a repost subreddit.

The original poster is u/stop_construction. Originally posted in r/legaladvice one year ago.

Just found out that a warehouse is being built on land that I own. I was never told about it and didn't sell my land to anyone.

https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/idvlo4/just_found_out_that_a_warehouse_is_being_built_on/

I own property in North Carolina. It's a piece land of on the outskirts of a town/small city that's slowly expanding. It used to be farmland, and there was an old house of little value. I live out of state and have not visited the place in 8 years. No one has been living in the house for the last 18 months. After all this time I just went to have a look at my property. I was in for a quite a shock as I arrived where my house used to be: the house has been torn down, and there is a construction crew working all over my lot. They said they're building a warehouse and offices. There's a huge hole in the ground. As I was there there were 2 excavators digging further into my land. A small hill that there was was flattened.

I couldn't believe it because I've not been told about my land being used for construction, ever. I haven't sold my land or the house. I've never been called by anyone seeking to buy it. As I was driving there I noticed that the city has expanded and there are now buildings much closer to my land than ever before, but I had no idea that my own land was being used for development. This is so crazy. I can't believe I'm even typing this. I've paid the property tax on this lot every year. It's my name on the title. I'm livid, my land was taken from me without anyone telling me about it.

I want to make the construction crew stop working on my property immediately. Then I want someone explain me how this could happen, and of course get appropriate compensation from whoever is responsible. Where do I start? How do I make them stop? I tried talking to the workers but they wouldn't listen.

Edit: I get it, I'm getting a lawyer.

Edit 2: and now the GIS website says it's no longer under my name. This is so f...ed up. I have no words. I've paid the taxes every year. How does this even happen? How do they send me taxes for property they don't think I own?

Relevant Comments:

• When OOP is asked if they were up to date on property taxes: Yes, absolutely. And I never received anything to say I was late on the payments or anything like that.
• When OOP is asked if they paid taxes directly or if the uncle did: Yes I paid directly. They have my address and know where to find me. Which is why I don't understand how something like a change on the title could happen without me being at least warned. I think someone f...ed up in colossal proportions.

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[UPDATE] Just found out that a warehouse is being built on land that I own. I was never told about it and didn't sell my land to anyone.

https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/ii7dx1/update_just_found_out_that_a_warehouse_is_being/

So many people were asking for an update, here it is. I retained a lawyer and they started investigating. As some of you had said there was problem with the taxes followed by a series of screw-ups by various people and services. My lawyer advises me not to go into further detail, so I won't. The whole situation looks like "a clusterf... of massive proportions" in their opinion, and they haven't gotten to the bottom of it in any way. Looks like getting compensated is going to be a long and frustrating process. Now I'm heading back to Michigan and letting my lawyer do their job here. Anyway thanks for everyone's advice, I was a bit shocked and not seeing things clearly so it helped.

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[FINAL UPDATE] Just found out that a warehouse is being built on land that I own.

https://www.reddit.com/r/legaladvice/comments/pcp2yf/update_just_found_out_that_a_warehouse_is_being/

Hi r/legaladvice, people asked so here I am providing an update about what happened to me about a year ago, when a warehouse was under construction on land that I owned without me being aware. That's when I realized that the land was no longer under my name but I had not sold it. It took about a whole year to my lawyer to understand what happened and find a solution that would best serve my interests.

What happened can be described as a succession of screw-ups and negligence by various county services and people who had an interest in not looking too closely into the matter. It was a matter of incompetence and negligence rather than illegal actions it seems, still very frustrating for me.

I can't go into too much detail as it could be enough to identify in which county I am. The first problem was that the taxes I paid for that piece of land were applied to another parcel that a family member owns. As a result the property tax on my parcel appeared delinquent. I was never made aware of this because the (apparently) only delinquent notice that was sent was addressed to my elderly uncle who used to live on the premises and had passed away a few months before. This is infuriating because the taxes were sent to me in Michigan, so they knew were to find me, but the delinquent notice was sent to a different address due to "miscommunication" between two services. The fact that my uncle and I have similar names (like I'm Michael John Doe and he was John Doe) likely added to the confusion. As a consequence of the "unpaid" taxes my land was foreclosed and sold. The processes were expedited and minimal effort was put into trying to reach me. There were other things that happened which were not really illegal, more like neglectful, but I won't describe them here on the advice of my lawyer. Apparently at some point some procedure wasn't completely respected and I could have had an argument to sue and win. My attorney told me to prepare for an uphill battle though, and one that would have been long and costly.

In the meantime my attorney communicated with the company that was having the buildings constructed, they decided to pause the construction to evaluate the situation. Then they restarted, then stopped again, probably they were advised that we had grounds to sue and the proceedings could last forever. There didn't appear to be any mistake or illegality from their side, but likely they didn't want to waste any time on that, so after negotiating with my attorney they made an offer that I accepted in exchange for me not to claim my land back. I might have gotten more from suing everyone, but I wasn't ready for years of legal battle. I'm bitter that land that belonged to my family for over a century was taken from me like that, however in the end I was compensated fairly and rather easily so I can't really complain.

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I am not the original poster. This is a repost subreddit.

The original poster is u/stop_construction. Originally posted in r/legaladvice one year ago.