Land Grab!

Getting free land in Florida could be easy, if you know the law. It’s the knowing that’s the tough part, but Sandi Towers-Romero tries to make the legal labyrinth a walk in the park for lay readers, students and real estate professionals in her book, The Essentials of Florida Real Estate Law.

Towers-Romero, currently an adjunct professor teaching law classes at Edison College, pulls from years of experience as a lawyer and real estate professional, but makes the material user-friendly and beneficial to a wide audience. For example, she says, few know that "adverse possession" allows people to get free land by improving someone else’s.

"People are always shocked by that," says the 55-year-old Miami native. "Adverse possession is when real property is acquired without compensation. It is accomplished by holding property in a manner that conflicts with the true owner’s rights."

It came about as a way to generate property taxes, she says. For many years Florida land was undervalued, and some landowners simply quit paying taxes on it. Laws were implemented to allow for this "abandoned" property to be taken over in certain circumstances.

In Florida it takes only seven years for the adverse possessor to get the right to claim good title to the land, she says. "That law is still on the books, so watch out if your neighbor starts putting up a fence on that vacant lot Uncle Ed left you," she warns with a smile.

Her book, published in July by Carolina Academic Press, highlights numerous aspects of Florida real estate law. Here are some of her tips:


Roof-proof
Towers-Romero notes that Florida has one of the most protective of all Homestead Laws in the United States.

"By homesteading your property," she says, "not only do you save on taxes, but also you protect your real property from most judgments. Best of all, there is no value limit on the home [that is] homesteaded."

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