Legal Question in Real Estate Law in Minnesota
State Trail ROW
The railroad put in tracks across my property in the 1890s. No deed or easement was recorded.The property was sold several times over the years with no mention of railroad ROW. When the land was sold in the 1950's the title was transferred with the same legal description plus, ''less railroad ROW''. The ROW was never defined until 1991 when the State of MN took 200' of ROW. Now the issue is that I have no problem with the trail crossing my land but they don't need 200' of ROW. About 15-20' is all that has ever been used as a railroad and as a state trail. Do I have a legal basis for getting the ROW back to 20'or so, being that all they had was ''less ROW'' in a deed but took 200' when the railroad transferred title?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: State Trail ROW
Questions like yours are maddening because a proper answer would require the review of over 100 years of real estate records.
So this isn't much of an aswer, just a comment or two shot from the hip.
Rights of way are typically much wider than what is actually used. The justification is usually that maybe they will need to bring in heavy equipment to fix something, maybe they will eventualy need a drainage ditch, or a depot or a rest area or a phone line or Gosh knows what - so they make it lots wider than they need.
I would anticipate that efforts to narrow it would be met with resistance. If you are still interested, I think if I were you I would contact a state senator or representative and ask them to look into it for you. If they want your vote, they'll do something. It's an election year.
Good luck.
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