I still have not found the exact case relating to this scam. However I believe that it occurred in either Denver or Aspen (most likely Denver).

In this large city various wealthy families had bought up land and they held them in the names of bodies corporate.

This scam also saw the various companies who held the land taking up parcels in a non contingous manner. That is the parcels held by various people are always seperated by other land. I believe there is a reason for this practice which appears in original land alienation in all parts of the world. However I will discuss that at a later date.

What happened was that the old established families let the original registrations of the old bodies corporate lapse. An out-of-towner arrived and started to re-register all the names of the old bodies corporate and then tried to take title to the city land.< BR>
Ownership of large areas of inner city land tends to lapse over time as body corporates tend to disappear mainly because they are responsible for the maintenance, rates and taxes. As you can imagine on a large CBD building the body corporates simply tend to die out often over some twenty years. Large areas of valuable city property is therefore very likely to go begging just waiting for some pirate to come and attempt to claim it. The interesting part is that the law is most likely to favour anyone who does attempt to claim it as the law favours the use of wasting property. The law has many provisions relating to adverse possession which supports the taking of wasting property.

This lapsing of the bodies corporate to large areas of inner city land (imagine how valuable this land is) occurs all the time and there have been reports in some cities of town clerks paying city rates and taxes and claiming the property in some cities.

Another way of claiming this abandoned city property is to get your ownership recognized by a court of law which then vests the land in you.

I myself had the extraordinary experience of overhearing this conversation in a Family Court of Australia registry and I detail it here for you:-

A couple were having an agreement signed in the registry and are going over the proposed agreement. The wife says:

"The property we own is No 33 Saunder St not Nos 33 and 34.'

The husband says:

"It doesn't matter what the property is called."

The lady lawyer calls out from near the Registry counter:

"The identity of the property doesn't matter - it just doesn't matter."

The question which must be considered in the light of the tendency for bodies corporate to disappear over time is whether the husband is attempting to claim the property next door during the divorce proceedings.

This can happen as a court order vesting property may be considered by the Land Titles Office to be the last word on the matter and simply provide a title on the strength of the Court Order.

If the Land Titles Office sees that you have a court order vesting ownership of nos 33 and 34 Saunders St in you then they are not going to argue about it as the Office may assume that the ownership of the land has already been proven in court.

Another feature of this court-ordered form of property ownership is however that seperate strings of title can develop to the same piece of property. For example it may well be that some person does hold title to No 34 Saunder Street unknown to the trickster who is using his divorce to obtain the property.

It is also possible that the other title to the same property is mortgaged to the hilt. This will cause real problems when the trickster sells off title to No 34 as quickly as he can do so because the original mortgagee will probably find that their mortgage disappears or a purchaser will find that their title is affected by unknown mortgages.

It should be pointed out again that court-orders can provide a serious land scamming device unless their are clear rules about how title is proved in court and unless there are clear protocols for how the Land Titles Office records writs and orders AND ON WHICH TITLE THE OFFICE WORKERS RECORD ANY WRITS OR COURT ORDERED OWNERSHIP.