Craig Francis | Sorting out the family lands this year end

Good day readers,

I hope that you all had a happy, holy and peaceful Christmas and have got off to a wonderful new year. I hope that you had a great time of fun, food and family over the season. This week, I will give you some start-of-year suggestions concerning your property.

It’s the Christmas season and many of you have gone back to your childhood homes or your parents/grandparents homes in the ‘country’ for the great family get-together and feasts that are customary at this time of the year. It is now that you realise just how much property that your family owns and just have sitting idly by and overgrown by vegetation (bushes). You also realise that the boundaries of these same properties are known by some uncle or some persons who have got so old that the very act of visiting these boundary corners has become almost impossible for them because of health challenges. It is with this in mind that I want to make the following suggestions to you this week.

The first thing I want to suggest is that, as a family, you should look into the possibility of getting the property that was bequeathed to you and the rest of the family surveyed. Take the opportunity now with all the family present to discuss getting the services of a land surveyor to survey your property. This will ensure that the boundaries – which are known by persons who may soon take this information to their grave and then leave the rest of persons to enter into major boundary disputes – are demarked and have a permanency about them.

This would have the boundaries marked and a plan prepared which would be an important step in the integrity and preservation of your family’s property boundaries. This will ensure that you can now move forward with obtaining a title for the property for your family and ensure that the family legacy and property is preserved. The surveying will also allow you to fence your property correctly and diminish the possibility of squatters ‘capturing’ some of your property.

It would also be good to discuss finally getting a land surveyor to subdivide the property into the allotted amount for each person and bequeathed by your parents/grandparents. Discuss it and then contact a land surveyor so you and he/she can discuss the details of doing what you need done, and preparing a costing so the family can determine how to move forward.

So, take the time to sort out that family land that you have wanted to deal with for the longest while. Contact your land surveyor and talk about getting it done … finally.

A happy new year to all our readers, a prosperous new year to you all. May you have plenty in 2020.

Keep sending your questions and comments and let’s continue to explore A Matter of Land. Until next time, traverse well.

- Craig Francis is a commissioned land surveyor and managing director of Precision Surveying Services Ltd. He can be contacted for questions or queries at amatterofland@gmail.com