Free Land!

The case for why land ownership doesn't really exist

“The Earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the Earth.” -Chief Seattle

Although we technically own our little quarter acre off-grid property, we were not able to get title insurance on it. The same is true for most people in our neighborhood. Title insurance provides coverage for any future claims on your property. To get title insurance, a title insurance company examines the history of proof of ownership of your property to show that no one else can lay claim to it. For example, if after purchase you discover that the previous owner didn’t pay property taxes, the title company will cover that for you. However, the subdivision we live in only has proof of ownership going back to about 1960. Prior to that, all paperwork is lost. I think I heard somewhere that there was a fire in the county courthouse. This land used to be owned and subdivided by a sketchy company that was sued for holding a sweepstakes giving away free land that ended up being, well, at the time a desolate wastel…