Q: our HOA bought an acre of land from a rancher in 1995 and never asked him to move his fence, can we legally ask to move
it, we are located in Colorado? He has free range cattle and we have a new owner out of 5 that wants to make him move his fence. The land is virtually unusable by the HOA and is eventually going to be recommissioned to open space. The original landowners in the HOA really had no intent on using the land, the previous owner didn't make any moves to remove the fence and continued to have his cattle occupy a part of the area in question. The fence has been in place for over 53 years. This land was part of the section that occupies over 30 acres (recreational lake included) with 5 houses on it, all bought from said rancher.
A: You first task should be to locate a copy of the purchase and sale agreement from 1995 to determine the terms the parties agreed to in that document. It seems strange that the HOA would have purchased land with no intent to move the fence so that it could more easily access and use that land, but perhaps there were other reasons for the sale unrelated to actually using the land. Was there a subsequent lease-back of the acre to the rancher to continue using? There may have been a reason why the fence has remained ever since 1995, and you should probably review the agreement(s) between the HOA and the rancher before pursuing something official (or you could call him up and talk to him about it).
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