Here Be Dragons

2008-03-26

Well I joined twitter.com. I'm summergale. It looks like fun. You don't have to make a huge commitment. It's like the status updates in MySpace, a one sentence blurb about what you are doing/feeling right now so you can "check in" with your friends and see what they're doing.

I called my Dad to see what his lawyer said about the land he passed to me as caretaker for my side of the family. (The property was owned by three siblings who wanted it to pass down to each of their families. I represent my side. The property is not intended for sale but preservation) It turns out that he got the day wrong and the lawyer comes today.

He goes on to tell me that he read the rest of the Canadian land deed papers and he wants to change something when the lawyer comes.

I say, "Dad you can't change anything. You don't own it anymore."

He says, "But I want to make a 15 acre preserve around the homestead house and sell all the rest for division by the kids and for upkeep of the remaining property"

I say, "Dad you can't do that. You never owned all of it, just a one third interest in all of it."

He says, "I know but this would provide money for its upkeep."

I say, "Dad I would have to get two other families and 4 other people to agree to this and I know for a fact one person will be adamantly against it."

He says, "But it's a great idea for the upkeep. No one needs to go walking in all 300 acres. Fifteen is plenty. It's worth 100,000 dollars."

I say, "Dad, first of all it was passed onto us with the intent that it never be sold or its value diluted by more and more people on the deed as the generations go by and hasn't come to the point where we can't afford the upkeep. Second of all I doubt if it's worth that much money"

He says, "Well someone offered me 50, 000 for it a few years ago it should have increased by now."

I think to myself, "Double? In backwater Nova Scotia???"

I say out loud, "Well Dad, I don't know what it's worth but I know right now that nobody wants to reduce the old homestead's land with no immediate need to do it. We can always log it for money. We don't have to sell it."

Him .. persistent bugger .. says, "But no one uses that much land! It has bees in the woods!"

I think he's bordering on understanding that he has no control over the land anymore. He never really did. His sisters told him what to do when they were alive and I have the same problem with forming a consensus, heck I can't get my siblings to agree on anything other than they won't help me pay for it, nevermind getting cousins from two other families to agree to divide and sell it especially considering one of those cousins LOVES the place.

Oh well, the saga continues.

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