Quote:
Originally Posted by tis
OK. Thanks for that! I feel a little better. Still, I don't believe that towns should in any way be able to make a decision to combine lots. It is very sad that our land is only ours for as long as the government allows it to be ours.
|
I know a West Alton resident who owned two adjacent lots, each with a house on it. Each of them is a conforming lot and they were held in the same name. A number of years ago, Alton combined both the lots into one for property tax purposes and began to send the owner one tax bill instead of two. The owner did not realize what had happened until he began to do some estate planning and discovered that he would not be allowed to pass on one house and lot to one child and the other house and lot to another child because the Town had combined them into one lot with two homes on it. He obtained legal counsel and was able to get the Town to re-divide the property back into the original two lots.