I’ve lived over twice as long as I figured I would. Just because you own land doesn’t mean you can keep it or use it the way you want to legally. My family has a history of getting it taken. The Tennessee Valley Authority took the first family farm, the Federal campground is named after my great grandmother, talk about insult to injury. My uncle had to move his invalid wife into town to get medical attention and ended up broken down after taking care of her for 30 years. He continued to pay taxes all those years. He never went back to the cabin because the road was to bad and he had her to take care of. Finally his death bed wish was to see his property, so we took him. A land developer had built a subdivision on it and the state gave them title after 10 years as it was considered abandon, we had to sue to try to get the taxes back and still didn’t have a ruling when he died. Several of the older members of the family have bought rural land and due to development and rising taxes had to sell because they couldn’t pay the taxes and their children couldn’t afford to make required improvements to legally live there after inheriting and transferring utilities which triggered an inspection on a hundred year old house. There are still places under $1,000 a year you can rent and within reason treat it like your own. You don’t even have to worry about requirements as I don’t own the property and at worst will have to take down whatever I did to improve the lot with the owner’s permission which almost never happens. I didn’t have anything when I came into this world and I won’t be taking anything when I leave. Owning property is just a false sense of security to me especially with all the recent developments, requirements and as I get older the cost of upkeep just keeps me from living a life free of worry. My children don’t see it that way as they are younger and look at it as an investment. I’ll just rent from them when the time comes.
