November 16th 2023.
Corine Woodson, an 84-year-old woman in Auburn, AL, has been living in her 40.7-acre property for the past 60 years, but her family is now forcing her to leave her home. The Daily Mail reports that the land has been in her husband's family for over a hundred years and is now worth almost twenty million dollars. The family is selling the property, dividing it up by percentages rather than parcels. This scheme, known as "tenants in common," means everyone must sell if one person decides to.
The family has been fighting over the property for decades. In 2018, AL.com wrote that the youngest son of the patriarch, Ben W. Woodson, tricked other family members into signing over 4.1 acres of their ownership to him in the 1960s. Yashiba Glenn Blanchard, attorney for Dorothy Burgess, another great-grandchild of Ben W., said that the siblings were "under a 'mistake of fact' when they signed the deed."
Cleveland Brothers Inc. has since purchased 49% of the property, buying 4.1 acres from two of Woodson's in-laws for an average of $150,000 in 2005. The court-ordered appraisal is now complete, and Bill Cleveland of Cleveland Brothers Inc. has agreed to let Woodson stay in her Hamilton Road home for the next year before the purchase is finalized.
Woodson's daughter, Melissa Woodson, said that it is too late for her mother to purchase the property. "We were, I guess, naïve or not up to par on the law based on that timeframe, but it's happening right before our eyes," she said.
Woodson's house is located in a town that is growing and developing rapidly, with luxury developers building around the area. While she may be forced to leave her home after 60 years, Woodson has the support of her family and the agreement of the buyers that she can stay for one more year.
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