I’m writing about an out of court settlement made by Roosevelt County on December 10, 1982 in which the county agreed to return to the Chandler heirs a 6 ¼% interest in mineral rights on a 360 acre parcel homesteaded by my ancestor Flora Potvin Chandler and her husband Charles Chandler. On December 7, 1983 after receiving all signed documents from the Chandler heirs, the Roosevelt County Board of Commissioners refused to honor their earlier agreement.
I am looking for any information that may assist me and other Chandler heirs in recovering our 6 ¼ % interest in the mineral rights on this property.
If it is 30 year old court judgement that is not being honored, an attorney would likely need to be involved to clear things up. We’re there any reasons stated for bit honoring the judgment?
Thanks for the response Andrew. Well it’s a long story but an attorney was involved at one time and in a nut shell the Board of Commissioners of the county agreed to this because of the way the land was taken and when the attorney finally got all the signatures required the board said they would not honor the agreement and if we wanted to continue with a court case it would cost a lot of money. The board did honor the same agreement with a number of other people that apparently got the signatures of the people involved in a short amount of time.
My mother had talked about this a few times but there was no money so she never did anything and when she passed away we found the papers in her personal things.
We are not sure what to do next but it seems very unfair. A court had ruled that the land was taken unlawfully and that’s when the board agreed to the arrangement.
When you say "taken," do you mean through eminent domain powers? In that case you would almost certainly need an attorney to advise you of your rights - a landman probably would not be much help.
Thanks, we will talk to a lawyer about. They took it under what they called a tax deed but a court ruled in the favor of the land owners and that's when the county said they would pay the 6 1/4% and then changed their mind so the only recourse would be a higher court. We will keep looking into it.
Michael, tax deeds will have implications in the 14th amendment as well, just a different part of that amendment from a takings issue. An attorney would need to be involved to vindicate your due process rights as property owners, likely over the issue of notice before the seizure.
This is not legal advice.
Michael A. Homann said:
Thanks, we will talk to a lawyer about. They took it under what they called a tax deed but a court ruled in the favor of the land owners and that's when the county said they would pay the 6 1/4% and then changed their mind so the only recourse would be a higher court. We will keep looking into it.