Do You Really Own Your Land?

One of the pillars of the American Dream is home ownership. Most people believe that they own the land upon which their home was built. Although this can be true in certain cases, for most people the land under which their home sits is not owned by them. Today’s real estate titles and deeds grant the holder the right to live in the house and on the land as long as they meet certain requirements such as paying their taxes and mortgages. If these requirements are not met, the law allows for the seizure of the land and the dwelling by means of a foreclosure. There does exist however one level of land ownership that cannot be seized for any reason by anyone. This is the land patent, issued by the United States Government. A land patent is defined as “an official document by which title to a portion of public land is conveyed from the government” (Dictionary.com LLC). At some point in history the United States owned every square inch of land in the county. At various times the government would convert public land to private land through the issuance of land patents. Land patents were issued for various reasons from payment for serving in the military during the Revolutionary War to the Civil War and to raise money for the United States Treasury by selling the rights to public land to private citizens. Land patents were also given to citizens who fulfilled the requirements of the Homestead Act of 1862, which gave land to citizens who lived on their plot of land for a period of five years and made improvements to the land, such as building a house (Homestead Act of 1862). The issuing of land patents can only be done through an act of Congress. The first land patent the United States Government issued was on March 4th 1788 and was issued to John Martin for six hundred forty acres of land in what is now Belmont County, Ohio (US Bureau of Land Management). The first land patents were given to veterans of the Revolutionary War as payment for their service in the United States Army. After these patents came the patents offered for sale to private citizens at a cost of $1 per acre. Each land patent holder was given an official United States government document outlining the location of the land, listing the congressional act allowing for the transfer of the land from the government to the citizen, and the words “To have and to hold the same, together with all the rights, privileges, immunities, and appurtenances of whatsoever nature, thereunto belonging, unto the said” citizen “and to his heirs and assigns forever” (Allyn). Each land patent is signed by the President of the United States at the time of issuance. The wording of every land patent ensures that the holder of the patent and their heirs and assigns are entitled to the land forever, regardless of taxes owed or unpaid mortgages. The patent gives full rights to the land and everything above and below ground occurring naturally to the patentee. This includes the mineral rights to the land on the patent. Ownership of the land can only be passed through probate to an heir or an assign. Because the majority of land patents were issued in the 19th and early 20th centuries, tracing their current ownership can be difficult. Real estate bought and sold today rarely includes researching the ownership of the land patent. There have been recent attempts made by people facing foreclosure on their homes to fight the foreclosure by attempting to prove rightful ownership of the land patent. Most of these attempts are unsuccessful due to the difficulty in tracing ownership of the patent over a very large period of time and the modern way in which land and building are bought and sold. Most home owners have only bought the house itself and the right to live in the house. They don’t own everything naturally occurring above and below the land as a land patent hold would own. In some cases people have even been prosecuted for fraud while trying to claim patent ownership. When a person files for land patent ownership, it begins a lengthy litigation process that is linked to particular piece of land for the duration of the legal process. Some of these people know they will be unsuccessful in the legal fight but know that by entering into this process they can buy themselves more time on the land or in the home. This legal process can lower the value of the land significantly because the land and buildings upon the land cannot be quickly sold. The fraud charges stem from the decreasing of the value of the land. The United States Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management’s General Land Office maintains a website that documents every land patent ever issued by the government. The majority of these patents are available for viewing online. The website’s database is searchable by the name of the person on the patent or by state, county, date of issue and many other options. This database is an excellent starting point for researching land patent ownership. Once a patent owned by an ancestor or for a particular piece of land is located the process of researching current ownership gets more difficult. To prove rightful ownership of an ancestor’s land patent, one would have to prove relationship to the person on the patent. Then proof would be needed for the assignment of the patent through the wills of the patentee and the wills of their heirs to the person trying to claim ownership. If this can be proven then the land patent ownership can be claimed. Although most people today do not hold the patent to the land upon which their home was built, they still own their homes and have the legal right to live in the home. Someone else however may still own the land under the house. This shouldn’t be a concern for homeowners though because it is extremely difficult to prove current land patent ownership. People shouldn’t lose any sleep over the fact that someone else owns their land and legally could remove them from their home. Works Cited Allyn, Freeman. United States of America Land Patent. United States of America: Patent 8112. June 1856. Historical Document. Dictionary.com LLC. Land Patent : Define Land Patent at Dictionary.com. Feb. 2012 . Web. Homestead Act of 1862. "Act of May 20, 1862 (Homestead Act)." Public Law 37-64, 05/20/1862. Records Group 11; General Records of the United States Government; National Archives. Historical Document. US Bureau of Land Management. General Land Office Records: Public Lands History. Feb. 2012 . Web. Wright, Paul L. and Thomas E. Muth. "Land Patents: Are They an Escape from Foreclosure." Drake Law Review (1988): 561-582. Print.