Tampa Real Estate Litigation Lawyer
Tamp real estate litigation lawyer Alicia Seward and her team at Seward Law Office represent property owners and other parties involved in real property conflicts such as contract disputes, boundary disputes, or latent defects. Disputes can arise during purchase and sale, rental or lease, at closing, or at any time during a lifetime of property ownership, including disputes involving neighbors or contractors. Seward Law Office can help you resolve the matter efficiently and effectively inside the courtroom or out-of-court, guiding you with practical, strategic advice while protecting your rights and promoting your best interests. Contact Seward Law Office for sound advice and professional representation in real estate litigation in Tampa.
Contract Disputes
When buying or selling a piece of real estate, the title search might turn up a cloud on the title, such as a lien, a property line inaccuracy, or a claim or other encumbrance on the property. A suit to quiet title is needed to resolve the issue and deliver clear title to the buyer; it can’t simply be resolved at closing through agreement or the payment of money, for instance. A quiet title suit is also needed to buy property with clear title in a tax deed sale.
Our office also litigates:
Partition actions – When family members, friends or business partners who own property together have a falling out, a partition action can force the sale of the property and divide the proceeds. Call our office if you are considering a partition, challenging a partition, or looking for other ways to resolve a dispute among owners of jointly-titled property.
Adverse possession – Under Florida law, a claimant can acquire title to a neglected property simply by publicly moving onto the land, improving it, and occupying it under color of title or paying property taxes on it for seven years. We can help if you are a landowner fighting an adverse possession claim.
Boundary Disputes
A homeowner’s fence can encroach on a neighbor’s property and exist that way for years until a property survey turns up the discrepancy during a transaction to sell one of the properties. Neighbors might even have agreed to the encroachment at one time but failed to memorialize their agreement in writing. In addition to a fence that encroaches, neighbor disputes can arise over duties to maintain, repair or replace a share fence, erection of a spite fence, or even adverse possession of the encroached-upon property. A neighbor’s tree that overhangs the property line can be a nuisance or cause property damage if a limb comes down on a roof. A landowner’s right to trim a neighbor’s tree, or the tree owner’s liability for damage to the neighbor’s property, depends on the health of the tree and other factors outlined in Florida law.
Seward Law Office can help with boundary disputes by walking you through practical steps such as getting a survey from a licensed surveyor or conducting a new title search to see if some easement or evidence of ownership is reflected in the title despite not turning up in previous searches. Obtaining an appraisal is another possible step, as one solution might be to offer money in exchange for recovering property in dispute. Tampa real estate litigation lawyer Alicia Seward will work with you to resolve a boundary dispute with your neighbor out of court to keep your relationship amicable wherever possible.
Latent Defects
As a prospective buyer, you hire professionals and conduct a reasonable inspection of the premises, but it turns out the property had defects that the inspection didn’t uncover. What do you do? Title insurance warrants against defects in the title, but not defects in the property itself. For that, you would need to have a clause in the sales contract addressing this contingency. Sellers have a duty to disclose both patent and latent defects, but a property can have defects the seller didn’t know of. Questions surrounding defects to property include, was the defect truly latent? Could the buyer have discovered it through reasonable inspection? Did the seller take steps to actively hide the defect from the buyer?
Your Source for Effective Dispute Resolution in Tampa Real Estate Litigation
If you encounter a dispute at any point related to the ownership of real property in Tampa, call on the real estate litigation attorney at Seward Law Office for strategic advice and effective advocacy to protect your rights and reach a resolution that meets your needs.
