Misuse of concept of allodial title
Posted on:3/30/2006
| Many anti-tax and anti-government groups are convinced that the references to allodial title in state constitutions and the Treaty of Paris give property owners absolute, inalienable title to their property. |
These people generally fall into several broad groups:
1. Tax protesters. This group denies the right of municipal and state governments to tax property on the basis that allodial title cannot be alienated by failure to pay those taxes. However, most private property is not held in true allodial title.
2. Mortgageors. Persons who have overextended themselves and face foreclosure often try to create an allodial title. As allodial title cannot be alienated by seizure by a creditor, they claim the foreclosure by the mortgagee is illegal. However, by its nature, allodial title cannot be mortgaged in the first place, and an attempt to create allodial title on land that is subject to encumbrance by debt is impossible. Actually a contract can be created by an owner of allodial property with a mortgagee resulting in the transfer of title under certain circumstances such as default on a loan, thus that land falls out of the allodial title domain as it is essentially jointly owned and governed by contract by both the mortgagee and mortgagor. Once the mortgagee releases the contract as satisfied in full, the ownership reverts entirely back to the owner. There was time when one was considered a fool to mortgage allodial land and thus give up allodial ownership as among other penalties the owner often lost the right of a freeholder to vote.
3. Anti-Zoning groups. Persons who own agricultural land that faces re-zoning due to encroaching urbanization often claim that zoning laws that control agricultural use of property are illegal as they constitute an encumbrance on allodial title. They claim that only the law of nuisance applies to persons holding allodial title. However, the U.S. Supreme Court court has upheld the constitutionality of zoning laws on a very broad basis, even though such laws all post-date the 1787 Constitution.
Schemes to obtain allodial title usually advise property owners to file a deed of allodial title with the local registry office, or to publish a notice of allodial title in a local newspaper. However, neither these or any other method is recognised by U.S. courts, and attempts to assert an allodial title in U.S. courts may be classified as a "frivolous claim".
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