Canada - Nova Scotia (Clear Title)

[Lively]

Hello, My husband and I put an offer on a cottage/land last year and it was supposed to close and finalize in September 08. The sellers kept asking for extensions and running into issues (migration we were told) ... finally we find out that there is no clear title.

Our lawyer said there was a couple of things we could do. They could give us the cottage as a gift and we would buy the other pieces of land (subdivided to 4 lots, lot with cottage was only one with no clear title could not be migrated) but then if we ever needed to sell we would be in the same boat. Option 2, do a quieting of titles that apparently takes a min of 2 years ... great if nothing comes up in the two years, not so much if someone comes forward in that time.

My husband looked up some stuff and apparently the current owners can do a possesory title or something like that so both of our lawyers set that up and that is what the owners are trying to do now (been trying since January).

I'm not sure what other options may be out there. What happens if the owners don't get the papers they need signed? (whatever they are doing for the title, they have to get a bunch of people to sign papers saying they have no claim to the property ...) The current owners have had the property for the last 17 years or so, I don't understand the issue. I would think whoever they bought it from be on file or something ...

We really want this piece of property, it is beautiful and the price is awsome (think I know why now ...)

So I guess my questions are:

What are our options? Is there anyway to buy a piece of property without clear title? If we buy it without clear title (the gift thing) what happens if someone shows up before the 20 years of possesory title is up? We would have possesory title it after 2-3 years since current owners would sign for the 17 or so they owned it.

Thank you so much for any help you may have to offer!!

You can buy and put all or part of payments in escrow so that you are returned funds if any issue arises--but you will have always have the potential problem unless you can get title insurance somehow...

[Lively]

Thanks for the idea ... we've looked into title insurance ... no go