Comment by coredog64
2 days ago
Is it true that it was sold for $10? There’s a common phrase in Texas deed transfers similar to the below which just means “The sale price is none of your business”
Common Texas boilerplate: That for and in consideration of ten dollars ($10.00), cash in hand paid, and other good and valuable considerations, the receipt and sufficiency of which are hereby acknowledged, the Grantor has bargained and sold, and does hereby bargain, sell, convey, and confirm unto the Grantee the following described real estate.
There's lots of places that give 99 year leases for obscenely small amounts like $10. The neighborhood church near where I grew up owned way more land than it currently used. They "leased" the land to farmer/ranchers to grow hay in part of it and graze animals in other parts. It was leased with similarly friendly terms if not the 99 year lease.
These things are more common that people might expect. Not everyone is a lawyer-esque asshole, but that does open situations up to disagreements where people respond with "should have talked to a lawyer"
Not a lawyer but my understanding is that a valid contract must involve an exchange of value from both parties
Yes, but that value can be pretty trivial. It's not uncommon in the UK to have a 'ground rent' of one peppercorn a year (for weird reasons of property ownership rules of flats).
Having a rancher grow hay and graze their animals on your property is valuable: it means you don't have to take care of the land, which might otherwise become host to invasive species, or overgrown.
A neighbor used to let us graze horses on his property for the same reason: "that way I don't have to bother mowing it."
Even more bizarre, the $10 cash never changes hands.
Sounds like that sale should be null and voided at that point
Someone apparently thought that about a Texas option contract but the Texas Supreme Court disagreed and said the contract was still valid, endorsing the fiction.
2 replies →
Would that mean the original owner gets it back? Would they have to pay property tax backlog retroactively? Might be huge..
1 reply →
Generally only if there was some effort to collect it.