Summary:
A corporation wanted to buy a vacant parcel adjacent to its headquarters. We were engaged to do historical research to attempt to determine the owner and locate possible heirs.

The Story:

We were engaged by an environmental attorney we had worked with on another case to research a disputed vacant parcel that her client, a company, hoped to purchase since it was adjacent to its headquarters. The parcel had been in disrepair but recently had been used by a nonprofit group that opposed the company’s purchase. A title search had been done but no current owner was located.

 

We began research into the original owner of the parcel, a 19th century business owner that owned many properties in that area and around the state. We found his will and built a chart of his heirs to the present day. We searched in his papers and the papers of some of his heirs but there were no mentions of this particular property at all and whether or not it was still part of the estate. We also searched newspaper sales listings from the dates after his purchase and found nothing that could point to whether or not this parcel had been sold or whether it still was likely to have belonged to the heirs of this businessman, even though they had heretofore been unaware of its existence.

 

Having exhausted all leads, the company made a deal with the heirs and filed a quiet title action to clear the title.