[amenmesse]

Originally Posted by farmer_giles_of_ham

Just finished reading the link provided by Rottweiler on land patents. Seems that these establish highest claim and are immune from any attack, except for mistake or fraud.

But...that just covers the land parcel itself. Everything on the land is fair game. Including equitable relief, like letting someone else use the property to pay for a debt.

So the upshot as I see it is that for mortgages and the like, the possession could be taken away in equity, until the debt is paid OR expires under the Statute of Limitations.

Which means that in the 7th year, or maybe sooner, the whole thing could be clear.

Then there are property taxes. Same applies as far as any outstanding debt- but the question remains: how to avoid incurring any new debt...

So patent or no, the tax issue is going to be resolved by obtaining an exclusion, somehow (or an exemption).

A true exclusion will have the property out of the system w/o a #, just like the excluded folks- private freeholders etc.

Or, perhaps in the system but w/o any new taxes levied- practically similar to exempt.

But excluded is better: this means also excluded from regulations, like zoning.

If the property t'ain't in the computer- it's not real.

Just like the folks who aren't persons.

"A Man w/o a Person, is a Man w/o Prejudice""

I came across this while reading Corpus Juris. In Pennsylvania around the late 1800's Pa put a tax on mortgages called a property tax. The purpose was to put an onus on having a mortgage and make it more sensible to pay the buying price all at once. After the mortgage was paid off there was a remedy available in equity to have the land removed from the taxing rolls. One of the reasons for the onus was a legal relationship where the debtor is placed into debtors prison for failure to pay or the property is taken and worked until the debt is paid off. Blackstones Commentaries as well as Hammurabis Code makes mention of this relationship. It is theft to borrow money and then not pay it back.