Eminent domain use Is the government taking legally? Basically every road in the us or anything is built with eminent domain. If we're doing this a million times a year on 100k plots that's $100b. I see nowhere in the government budget where it is spending such an absurd amount to satisfy the takings clause. Is the government following the fifth amendment or is it just illegally taking everything?
The various governments invovled do use eminent domain. An authoritative website about roads, the American Road and Transportation Builders Association says - Between 2000 and 2016, the U.S. built an average of 30,427 lane miles of roadway per year, adding 63.4 square miles per year to the amount of land covered by roads. If all of it needed to be purchased and it was all in Los Angeles (2.7 million per acre) it does, coincidentally come out to 111 billion. Since it will not all be purchased by one entity - every state and the feds make roads and most of the land will be 1/10 of the cost of LA real estate, you will not find anything like that number in a Federal budget.
Who Owns The Bunker? Your relative obviously owns the cellar up to their land property boundary. The people who own the other land would have originally been the owners of that portion of the bunker, assuming that it was not permissive (if it was permissive, an easement by estoppel probably would have arisen). So, then the question is, whether the people in the chain of title to the relative acquired ownership of that portion of the bunker by adverse possession. Normally, adverse possession is acquired when someone occupies land under a claim of right that is open, notorious and hostile. While the use of the bunker would be "hostile" in this case (because the other property owners didn't have access to the bunker), it is not at all clear that it was "open and notorious". Indeed, apparently, the other land owners weren't aware that it existed. So, there would probably not be "squatter's rights" in this situation. Also, adverse possession can't run against the sovereign, so to the extent that the bunker goes under public land (e.g. a public street), that also can't be adversely possessed and that portion of the bunker remains the property of the sovereign land owner. @PaulJohnson in a comment to another post notes that: It sounds like your relative has one of the secret bunkers built for the "Auxiliary Units" who were to wage guerilla war from behind the lines after a successful German invasion. bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-37947840/… If this were the case, and the government authorized its construction, there would probably be an implied easement that would allow the bunker to be the property of the person owning the entry to it, rather than the other property owners. But, as you note, proving that case would be difficult. It might be possible to scour declassified civil defense records from the WWII era to determine if this was the case, but you might need to employ an archivists or historian to get to the bottom of this question. What if they sell it? Suppose that they do sell it. What happens? Since title is certificated in Britain, there would be no title insurance company to compensate the buyer if someone later claimed to own the property. Your relative would have a warranty of title inherent in the deed to the portion of the property that is legally described in the deed (unless the property were sold by a quitclaim deed specifically disavowing any promise that what was sold was owned by the seller), but that warranty would probably not include the portions of the bunker outside the boundaries of their lot because that is not included in the legal description of the property on the property certificate or the deed. So, if it was sold, the buyer might not have any claim against the seller if the buyer did not get good title to the entire bunker, and would have no one to sue at all, if your relatives died before litigation over ownership of the bunker arose. The buyer might sue your relatives for common law fraud if the bunker were described in the marketing materials for the sale, but if they were told that some of the bunker went outside the lot and that its legal status was unknown, or if the property was sold by a quitclaim deed, that suit would probably not be successful. Other Options Depending upon whether the owner is on good terms with his neighbors, the owner could probably buy the subsurface rights or some sort of easement to that property from the neighbors under whose land it runs, and might even be able to purchase such rights from the local council where it runs under a street. Negotiating the price would be tricky. On one hand, it doesn't hurt the other owners at all. On the other hand, they have the power to deprive your relatives of all use of the property. Often deals like this are done for nominal consideration between people on good terms with each other, but for extortionate prices when people are not on good terms with each other.
user662852 has a good point -- whoever own the property has the right to make the rules. Is the property, land+construction in fact your's or does it belong to the HOA who just grant you access as a lease holder? Different states has different rules, but in my state it is illegal to maroon a property and there must be a access to public streets even when this necessitate passing over somebody else land. However that is irrelevant if the HOA owns the land your house is build on. I think you will have to look at your HOA agreement and see what it says.
Yes. You go into the court of relevant jurisdiction, and file a lawsuit to &quot;quiet the question&quot;. Usually there is a counterparty who has something to say on the subject; sometimes not. If there is an apparent counterparty, they must be served notice of all aspects of the case. Let's say I manage a pipeline property management company; we are wholly owned by a pipeline company and we buy the land and lease it to said pipeline company. I need a parcel of land to complete a pipeline connection, and as part of my offer I gently remind the landowner, Beth, that we do have the legal right to take the property by eminent domain, with the hopes this will inspire them to a sensible price. Beth says &quot;Bunk! Your LLC doesn't run any pipelines! You don't have eminent domain rights! 500% market price, or go away.&quot; Well. So, for the sake of moving the negotiation along, I go to court and ask the judge to quiet the question of whether we have eminent domain rights. Mind you, I don't go any further than that; I don't want to actually take it by eminent domain if I can talk Beth out of a consensual sale. The judge will, of course, suspect this applies to an imminent case, and will ask... so I might as well disclose the Beth situation. As such, I will have to serve Beth and keep Beth fully in the loop, so that Beth has full right to make the other side of the argument. Since it could affect others as well, the judge will probably also require publication in whichever newspaper handles legal notices. (Many newspapers are propped up financially by being official legal-notice organs for their county. They have six pages of editorial content, and 18 pages of legal notices and other ads.) Most likely, the judge will cowardly refuse to rule on whether a pipeline's land holding company has eminent domain, and simply rule that the pipeline company itself does, and could simply buy the land itself then transfer it to my company as a trivial, taxless transaction. So the judge would grant eminent domain conditional on that transaction being done. Beth then offers 133% of market which we haggle to 120% of market + legal fees. Good enough! Or, Beth refuses, in which case we file an eminent domain action in the same court and before the same judge; being already aware of the facts of the situation, there is nothing left to litigate, and the gavel drops quickly and predictably. This is how &quot;quieting a question&quot; works. It is somewhat less confrontational with the counterparty, since you are going to court, sort-of together, to resolve a hypothetical question; once we know whether we are on solid legal footing, we then are able to continue negotiating. Courts love this, because they really want people to negotiate and make consensual settlements. And if a party insists on filing a suit to on the quieted matter, they can pay their filing fees and lawyer fees to get a lecture: &quot;we already resolved this.&quot; (Or alternately, to present new facts which mean the past ruling is no longer on-point; e.g., Beth discovers we don't want the land for a pipeline at all, but for an access road.) You can also do this with the IRS. This is called a Private Letter Ruling, and it will set you back a $750 filing fee (and legal costs, of course). You'll still get audited, but then you wave the Ruling in front of them and done. Doing this preemptively in a criminal matter would be adventuresome. Your biggest problem would be the press: it would be impossible to do this discreetly, as the case would be fascinating; and it would put every cop and prosecutor on notice that you have a mind to do the potentially illegal thing.
The overwhelming majority flats in England are leasehold, not freehold; older buildings typically have 80 or 100-year leases, newer buildings usually have 999-year leases. Therefore you are dealing with the freeholder as a landlord for the matters that a HOA would deal with in the US. Depending on your landlord you may want to reconsider your statement that HOAs &quot;are pure hell&quot;. It is possible for the leaseholders to collectively buy the freehold although it is time-consuming and expensive and happens very rarely. If they do they set up a body similar to a HOA.
It occurred to me after that the fence would have been at the edge of the Canadian landowners property and the land between the fence and the border was a road allowance on crown land. This is one possibility, others are: The border post is in the wrong place The fence is in the wrong place Both are in the wrong place The US rancher owns land in Canada as well as the US Obviously the Montana Rancher is using Canadian land, but where is his fence supposed to be? Well, its not so obvious but anyway: Who says he has to have one? I am not aware of a law that requires a person to fence their property. Should it be right on the border? Assuming that is the edge of his land (which it might not be, see above) and assuming he wants to put a fence up (which he might not want to do) and assuming that he wants to put it on the edge of his property (because he could put it inside if he wants to) then yes. Or is there a strip of land there which is national land reserved for border patrol purposes? You don't know, I don't know - if you are really keen land ownership is public information; check with the governments of Alberta and Montana.
You are conflating the crime against the state of possession stolen goods with the common law tort against the owner for conversion. To your questions: How would this proceed? It seems like it would be very difficult to prove (short of getting public surveillance footage) that I even bought the item. If you read the second paragraph of the page you linked it says: In many jurisdictions, if an individual has accepted possession of goods or property and knew they were stolen, then the individual is typically charged ... If the individual did not know the goods were stolen, then the goods are returned to the owner and the individual is not prosecuted. Proof of the crime involves a "beyond reasonable doubt" standard of evidence of both the fact that you have the goods and that you knew they were stolen. If you become aware that they were stolen (e.g. the police tell you) and try to keep them then you have just committed the crime. Proof of the tort requires a "balance of probabilities" standard of evidence that you have the goods and that they belong to someone else; your knowledge that they were stolen is immaterial. In the first instance, the police would probably knock on your door, tell you why they were there and ask if the version of the story they have from the thief is essentially true. What happens next depends on your response: "Yes, I knew it was stolen; you better arrest me and I will plead guilty." This will play out as you expect. "Yes, I didn't know it was stolen, I will go and get it for you." You return the goods, give a statement and may have to act as a witness in the prosecution of the thief. You are down $1,000 but are now older and wiser. "No, I have no idea what you are talking about." Well, you have now committed the crime of hindering a police investigation and have also committed the crime of possessing stolen goods - you can no longer claim that you didn't know the goods were stolen; the police have told you they are. What happens next depends on if the police believe you or the thief. Surely they couldn't/wouldn't get a warrant to search my house? Want to bet? They certainly have enough to get a search warrant if they want one (probably). Whether they seek one probably depends on the value of the goods, how busy they are and how much you pissed them off. Could I be prosecuted if I didn't know it was stolen? Not if you return it as soon as practicable after being made aware that they were. The scam This seems like a lot of work for a very small return - spend your time worrying about things that are more likely to happen. Good Title All of this is tied up with the concept of good title. Basically, you cannot gain good title to property from someone who does not have good title themselves; if you buy goods from a thief you do not own them. For example, if A has good title to the goods, B steals them and sells them to C who sells them to D then A still owns them and can demand their return from D, D could demand the return of their money from C and C could do likewise with B but as far as A is concerned it doesn't matter that C &amp; B have lost money; that is simply too bad for them.
The fire department is entirely within its rights, which are the same as any other property owner. The fact that property is owned by a governmental body does not mean that members of the public can't be excluded that property. Some governmental property is public, but lots of it is private, and this would usually include most parts of fire department property. As long as you have not been denied any access to a public road by this fence, there is nothing improper about it. Anyone can walk through their parking lot, park their car there, meet friends, whatever, This is almost surely inaccurate. The fire department does not have to allow members of the public to have any access to their property and probably would demand that most of the uses you describe stop if they interfered in any way with the performance of its duties.