When the couple divorced, Natalia became the sole owner of the house. Natalia and her then-husband bought the Marshalltown house in 2001. “My mother would have come back to Iowa in the summer and she would have out she doesn’t have a house.” “We would never have found out the house was sold,” Maria said, shaking her head.

Another is the way people are notified – or, as in Natalia’s case, are not notified – that there’s a dispute involving ownership of their property. But some worry that problems in the law can result in the exploitation of homeowners, particularly in communities like Marshalltown where many residents are immigrants or don’t speak fluent English.Įxperts tell the Midwest Newsroom that shortcomings in the way Iowa’s quiet title law is written include vague language that defines how someone can argue that the property belongs to them. People may file quiet title actions to resolve boundary disputes or to resolve who owns property after someone dies. In most instances, it’s used to settle questions over who owns a piece of property. It turned out someone else took control of Natalia’s house through an unfamiliar property law that’s on the books in Iowa as well as throughout the Midwest. “And if she wouldn’t have seen it on Zillow, who knows?” said Larry Colton, Maria’s boyfriend. Yet, there it was, listed for sale on a real estate website. Natalia had not decided to sell the house. Maria asked in Spanish when their mom decided to sell the house. She immediately called her sister Socorro “Coco” Ontiveros in California, who was with their mom, Natalia Esteban. Maria was ready for a new house with her boyfriend and the three children with special needs she fosters.Īs Maria swiped through real estate, she spotted her mom’s house for sale. It’s where she lived for more than 20 years and where her own children grew up. She looked for a new home in Marshalltown, a city of about 28,000 in Iowa between Des Moines and Cedar Rapids. Maria Kendall, a cafe manager, was taking a break at work one day in 2020 when she decided to do some house hunting on the real estate website Zillow.

Quiet title