Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in North Carolina

It does not matter how long you paid taxes. NC does not have a law that allows the person who pays taxes to get "squatter's rights" to the property. To obtain property by adverse possession, one of the key elements is that your possession of the property occur without the permission of the other owners. Just paying taxes does not equal an express lack of permission.

To get title, you can do one of two things - (1) you could bring a partition action but ALL heirs must be served with a copy of the complaint. You hope that the heirs will not answer and you will get the property. (2) You still have to locate ALL the heirs - if one cannot be found, you need to ask the court to appoint a guardian to oversee their shares. You will have to get the property appraised and buy out the share of all the other heirs, minus their portion of the taxes, insurance and maintenance for the past 3 years plus the rental income they would have been owed for the same period.

There are many services out their that locate missing heirs. Its not going to be cheap, but I do not know what the property is worth, how many heirs there are or what the value of each share will be.

I'm sorry, but there is no other answer. You will have to locate the missing heirs, by either doing your own sleuthing or by hiring a missing heir service/private detective.