Let’s say that you buy a home in cash and have 100% paid off. Could you still lose it somehow?

  • azimir@lemmy.ml
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    11 months ago

    One thing to keep in mind is that in the US, there’s very few people or companies that actually own the land that they’re on. Most of the time you have the rights to use the land for certain types of things, but not actually own it. The US government (federal on down) has various ways of seizing property for its own purposes.

    There’s only a handful of people who actually own the land they live on. Most of them were granted the land by prior governments (mostly Spain) before the US was a country. Their ownership was grandfathered in and has passed via inheritance through the families. Several of those family plots are in Texas and Florida. Everyone else is just allowed to stay as long as they play ball with the rules.

    • zzzz@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Do you have more info on those that actually own? Sounds interesting.

    • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
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      11 months ago

      To certain extents, I think the government has rights of expropriation of land in other countries too. Sometimes you can sue the government for it too. It’s a messy biz.

        • Strykker@programming.dev
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          11 months ago

          They aren’t saying the us government can take land in like France whenever. But like Canada has expropriation laws available where if needed Canadian land can be seized from the land owner, usually with compensation.

          This is often done for things like infrastructure, highways and such. Turns it from needing the owner to be willing to sell into “we are buying this land now, heres what we think the land was worth”

        • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
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          11 months ago

          I’m talking about the respective government of the country in question, not the US government…

    • Punkie@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      Eminent Domain, I think it’s called. I know around the DC area, a lot of people lost houses, businesses, and properties to make way for more highways in the last 50 years.