Rov_Scam
2d ago
I think the bigger deterrent is that there's simply no reason for anyone to participate in such a scheme. I neither live in Fenwick Island nor own property there, and as a consequence, I do not care about who sits in local government offices. I doubt you care either. Someone may theoretically be able to hatch a scheme where they subdivide their property a thousand ways and give votes to 999 people who otherwise wouldn't be able to vote, and structure the transactions so that these minority owners wouldn't have any rights to the property that would prejudice the controlling owner, but I don't know how I could be induced to participate. Rental income split that many ways isn't much of an inducement. If a property rents for $10,000/week on average, which is generous considering that in the off season there are likely going to be several weeks where it doesn't rent at all, and half of that income goes to the rental company and to pay taxes and maintenance costs, a 1/1000 owner is getting about $5/week. If it's not being rented, try coordinating use with 1,000 other people. In exchange for that $5/week and the right to vote in local elections, you're taking on liability.
Of course, you're not actually going to get that $5/week, because no rental company is going to agree to leasing a property with a thousand owners, and no insurance company is going to underwrite such a property. Even if it's vacant property, and the controlling owner agrees to pay the property taxes, what do you do if he doesn't pay? The taxing authority doesn't give a shit about your agreement, so you'd better be prepared to pay the taxes yourself and sue him for reimbursement. What do you do if someone injures themself on your uninsurable property and sues you?
Getting to your concerns, though, even if somebody did that and somehow found thousands of participants, why would someone structure a transaction for the sole purpose of giving votes to out-of-towners? It would certainly look like the controlling owner was giving these shares away under the presumption that the minority owners would vote for his preferred candidate, at which point one wonders if any other inducements were used to encourage participation, which makes it look less like a real estate deal and more like a sophisticated form of electoral fraud, in which case having the registrations invalidated would be the least of their concerns. One expects that even if the registrations are allowed to stand, such a scheme would only invite an investigation from the attorney general before the first vote is even cast. I am not willing to subject myself to such an investigation and possible prosecution for the privilege of being able to vote for Fenwick Island town council or whatever, and I doubt most other people would be willing to either.
Rov_Scam
2d ago
Partitions are generally governed by the common law of property. The act you cite is a relatively recent reform that has only been adopted in about half the states and only applies in specific situations. One unfortunately common issue, particularly among lower income populations, is when a property owner dies and no estate is opened, and the property they own simply continues to be occupied by whatever family members happen to occupy it. After a few generations, some long lost relative finds out they own an interest and files a partition suit, whereby the property is sold at a cash auction for less than market value, often to an investor, with the result often being that someone who has been living in the house a long time finds themselves dispossessed. The model act is intended to keep the property in the family by allowing an heir to purchase at market value in a normal transaction, which has the side effect of preserving the full value of the property.
From what I cal tell three states have applied this process to all partition actions, but Delaware never enacted the model legislation to begin with. And from what I can tell, it's unlikely that any additional states will, because there's some controversy over how effective the legislation is. One unintended side effect is that all of the additional safeguards have added expense to the process, which was already expensive to begin with.
Generally speaking, you need to be careful when relying on model uniform legislation. Some things, like the Uniform Commercial Code, have been adopted nearly universally and can be cited chapter and verse without too much concern of running afoul of some local variation. Others, like the Uniform Probate Code, have only been adopted by a minority of states, with reforms being incorporated piecemeal in others. And then there are cases like the Model Penal Code, which is considered successful model legislation since the spirit of the reforms have been adopted, but the actual legislation varies widely among jurisdictions, with no state that I'm aware of adopting the actual statutory language.
Rov_Scam
2d ago
And what's the motivation for the majority owner to do this? He'd be giving equal access to the property to 9999 other people while being prepared to do unilateral maintenance, and if they don't contribute he's going to pay a 5-figure sum to conduct a partition action where he might not even be the high bidder. So he can...give his friends votes for the Fenwick Island town council? If I'm one of the 9999 I'm there to get access to the property and I could probably care less about some local election.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
It wouldn't be practicable. The more people who own a piece of property, the harder it gets to make decisions about the property, and get the owners to contribute money for upkeep. A dispute would inevitably develop, and the result would be that one of the owners files a partition action and the whole property is sold.
Rov_Scam
3d ago
You can slice statistics any way you want, it just depends on what factors you actually care about. The black vs. white disparity is about the same as the male vs. female disparity, but I doubt you'd recommend the alternative scenario where we say that guns and men don't mix well.
None of the articles you linked to said that prosecution was still being deferred under the diversion program for the 2021 offenses. I checked the docket, and it looks like he was convicted and sentenced under them, so I'm not sure what the point of this post is. He got into a diversion program, failed, and was sentenced to jail.
Edit: The sentencing guidelines, assuming all the enhancements I think might apply actually do apply, call for 17â34 months, at least some of which would be jail time. The docket shows that when he was granted HYTA status he was given credit for 532 days he served in jail while waiting trial and sentenced to an additional 3 years of probation. When you take the sentencing guidelines for a first-time offender into consideration the sentence doesn't look unreasonable, and even if I underestimated the sentence it still isn't unreasonable when you take into consideration the possibility of a plea to lesser charges. It's not clear to me that going to trial would have resulted in a more substantial punishment, and he probably would have been released for time served in any event. The only advantage he got was the opportunity to escape without a record if he completed his probation, and if he were able to do that then nobody would have any problem with the outcome.
Since he could barely make it 3 months without committing another crime, the judge revoked his HYTA status, meaning the prior convictions go on his record, and they didn't have to arraign him for months because they were holding him on the probation violation. He was remanded to custody following his second arraignment, and eventually plead guilty to the 2021 charges.
Rov_Scam
6d ago
If American workers are only 20% of the population (and the 80% are people actually looking for work, not children, retirees, housewives, etc.), then I don't think normal political considerations will matter much.
Rov_Scam
6d ago
I'm not sure that this is entirely true. Very low-skilled people are unemployable period, and lowering the pay rate doesn't do anything. For example, there's a guy I know who isn't the brightest, retired now but comes off as someone who was definitely in special education back in the 60s and 70s. He worked as a janitor at a local elementary school. In Pennsylvania the minimum wage is the Federal $7.25. Someone in his position would be making $22.62 this yer and $24.35 next year. Of course, that's because he's been there for 35 years, but even a new hire makes $16.60 on the current contract and $18.60 on the next. Grocery, retail, and fast food wages aren't much lower, even for 16-year-olds with no experience. The only exceptions I'm aware of are for people with disabilities, but that's more because they can only make so much before they lose their benefits. I don't think there is a significant population that's employable but for minimum wage laws.
To be clear, my endorsement of primogeniture was sarcastic, but anyway...
Any time you're contemplating a situation like this, you have to consider whether something is worth paying a large amount of money in hopes of getting a larger amount, or paying a small amount of money to be rid of the thing entirely, and this looks like one of the latter cases. I am not your lawyer, nor am I licensed in USVI, but I've done partitions before, and they are not a quick, easy process. What you describe is even more expensive because the division goes back 50 years and we don't even know what kind of title your grandfather had when he died. I know you seem pretty sure of who owns what, but 40 years is a long time, and you've already alluded to the possibility of an unrecorded transaction, which means that if I'm handling this the first thing I'm doing is a title search to make sure that I don't leave anyone out of the suit or misstate the interests, which could make things more expensive or even get the case dismissed. And that's before you can even file.
You're probably looking at a retainer somewhere in the 5kâ10k range just to get a suit started, though since it's an heirs property you're probably looking at the higher end of that range. This is all out of pocket before you've recovered any money from the property. If someone, say the half-brother living in the house, decides to contest the partition, it could cost several times more than that. If your lawyer wants to take a deposition, that's a few grand right there. If the opponent's lawyer wants to depose your mother, they'll just send a notice telling her to appear at the Hampton Inn in Charlotte Amelie on October 9. Sure, you can get it rescheduled to be taken remotely, but you will still get billed for the rescheduling, and billed again for a copy of the transcript. The key thing here is that the distribution of the proceeds isn't a straight "1/6 ownership gets 1/6 the money", but an equitable distribution. What's equitable? The court will appoint a master to decide. He will charge for this service.
Realistically, if nothing else, somebody has been paying property tax on this house, and that person is entitled to credit for the amount they paid. If the half-brother has done necessary repairs, he's entitled to credit for them. You can argue over what repairs are necessary. You can argue over whether he has sufficient proof. You can argue over a lot of things. You will be charged for this service. And unless you can convince the brother to move out prior to listing the house, the market value is practically zero, since nobody is going to pay fair market value for a property that requires an ejectment action to get possession. There was some talk yesterday about how difficult evictions have become in some places, but trust me, they're a breeze compared to ejectments. Obstinate tenants can hold up evictions, sure, but the process is designed to be streamlined, and a diligent landlord can get the guy out within a couple months. The ejectment process is not streamlined and operates on the same schedule as any other lawsuit, meaning you need to hire a lawyer, conduct discovery, have pretrial conferences, etc. It's no 15 day notice then off to the magistrate.
At this point you may be thinking "That's not going to happen. My family gets along, and the half-brother has no case and no money to fight it, and he'll leave well in advance of the judgment if the house is sold." To which I say "Great! You don't need to file a partition!" If you were to come to my office with your situation I'd tell you that for a small fraction of the cost of a partition I could draw up a sale agreement and if you could get everyone to sign it we'd list the property. The buyer can worry about the title. And if you can't get everyone to agree on that, then you can be assured that a partition is going to be a long, expensive endeavor for everyone involved. Based on the value of the property and the number of shares, a contested partition action is likely to cost your mother more money than she could expect to make from the sale. If I were in her shoes and those were the options I'd offer to convey my interest via quitclaim deed to anyone willing to pay for drafting and recording fees, and disclaim any interest from your grandmother's inheritance. It's much easier that way.
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