This came up in a recent discussion. As we could do no better than speculate, I thought I’d throw this out to knowledgeable dopers:
Suppose John and Mary Smith (married couple) jointly own a piece of land. The marriage sours and they separate, but do not divorce. John decides he’d like to make some money and offers the land for sale. Fred Jones agrees to purchase it.
At the closing, John Smith appears with a woman whom he introduces to Fred as his wife Mary. The deed is signed, money is paid and Fred walks away believing himself to be the happy owner of the land.
But it later develops that the woman at the closing wasn’t Mary Smith, the legal co-owner of the land. It was actually John’s new SO Martha, who agreed to masquerade as Mary.
It seems clear that both John and Martha have committed fraud. But the question concerns the ownership of the land: Is Fred, who acted in good faith, the legal owner? Or can Mary step forward and assert her rights as co-owner?
That is what title insurance is for. It is required by the mortgage company for home sales for this very reason. I am sure that it is required for some land sales as well.
There is no answer to your question other than the fact that title insurance will have to pay for the legal proceedings to work it out. The outcome can’t be known until both cases are represented and the verdict made.
In the hypothetical case under discussion, the new deed was registered and he paid taxes on the land, and possibly even built something there. IOW, it was some time before Mary was aware of the sale and stepped forward.
I don’t think it matters how long he has possession of the land. If the land was sold over a forged signature, the original owner still has a claim to the land. There may be a statute of limitations, but that could vary from place to place. The event to start the clock ticking on the statute could also vary: does it start when the property was fraudulently transferred, or when Mary found out the property had been sold?
But we don’t knnow that here. The OP didn’t specify that Martha (the fake Mary) actually forged Mary’s signature on the deed.
There are types of ownership which only require the signature of one of the parties to be legally valid. If that’s the case here, then Fred does have a valid title to the land, and is out of this.
Mary would have to bring suit against John, claiming not fraud but misappropriation of joint marital assets. And since they’re still legally married, she’d have to prove that John appropriated the money from the land sale to his own use, and did not use it toward the marital finances. Suppose John used it to pay off various debts they had accumulated during their marriage – if he can prove that he did so, he’s legally clear, too.
The fact that he did this without consulting Mary may be unpleasant, but courts are reluctant to interfere in the financial decision making of married couples. Not so long ago, it was quite common for the husband to make all such financial decisions. My parents helped out a friend who was suddenly widowed, and had absolutely no information about the family finances. She hadn’t even written a check in over 40 years, and wasn’t even quite sure which bank their accounts were at.
I may (and probably am) mistaken, but I read the OP that the husband/half of the owner of the land induced a lady who was not his wife (the legal owner of a half interest in the land) to write a signature that was not her legal signature. That is forgery.
do different states in the US have different rules concerning land ownership? There are certainly many different sets around the world, within the bounds of your hypothetical are you abl to stipulate a location in the world where this is taking place?
At least in my experience, this isn’t as simple as it sounds. My ID was checked about 6 times in the process of refinancing my own home. The title company has a major interest in seeing everything go smoothly and legally. Unless you are dealing with Fred’s Flybynight Title, ain’t gonna happen without fake ID’s. Even then you will sometimes be dealing with notaries who will take a thumbprint along with your signature in case such questions arise later.
This discussion came up in part because I noticed at an actual closing that the notary was rather casual about positively identifying the people whose signatures she was witnessing. It seemed that it wouldn’t have been difficult for a “stand-in” to be allowed to sign. And once that happens, Fred has a registered deed saying he is the owner of the property.
That’s usually taken to mean that you can’t sell what isn’t yours. The complication here is that the property did belong to John - but not exclusively.
This actually (almost) happened in New Jersey once. A husband and his (so-called) wife put the property up for sale, got an offer, did all the right stuff, etc. etc. The day of the closing, their attorney got a call: You’re closing the “Smith” property today? Well, I’m Mrs. Smith and I haven’t signed anything."
When the couple came to the closing, the attorney said “Mr Smith? I just got a very interesting phone call from your wife.” The couple got up and walked out.
Later both the wife and the buyer sued Mr. Smith and the “so-called” wife for fraud.
Whether the possession by the new owners meets the requirements for adverse possession presents a law school exam-like question. But as long as Fred acts like an owner continuously for the prescribed period, Mary’s claim might well eventually expire.
I can speak to this from “Mary’s” POV as something like this happened in my family.
When my grandfather died his widow and almost all of the remaining children decided that some land would go exclusively to the eldest son. The one child that did not participate in this decision was my mother – she was out of the country and out of touch with the rest of the family.
So they forged her signature.
Then the eldest son was killed, leaving everything to his widow.
The family did not like this and, get this, they used the fact that they themselves had forged my mother’s signature to invalidate it.
It went to court. Whoever had the land got to keep it, but the cash value of it was distributed throughout the family including to my mother.