Buyer Of Foreclosed New Hampshire Home Seeks Death Declaration For Prior Owner Lost At Sea To Clear Cloud On Property Title

In Brentwood, New Hampshire, SeacoastOnline.com reports:

• The owners of the former Stratham homestead of Stephen Woods of Exeter, who has been missing since he is believed to have fallen off his boat in 2005, are seeking to have him officially declared dead. In October 2005, Woods and his son, Asher Woods, planned to sail aboard their 41-foot ketch from Rockland, Maine, to Rye, where it would be docked for the winter. While the pair left Rockland, they never made it to Rye. A search by the Coast Guard found the boat with only Asher Woods on board six days after they departed. According to authorities, Asher said his father fell overboard without a life jacket near Boothbay Harbor, Maine. The boat, the Naobi, was found 133 miles east of Provincetown, Mass.

• Four years later, the current owners of the former Woods home at 55 Bunker Hill Avenue are looking to declare Stephen Woods dead “in order to quiet the title of his home,” court documents state. A legal notice ran in The Exeter News-Letter on Tuesday, Oct. 6, and will run once a week for four successive weeks. [...] The notice is a part of the process in legally declaring his death.

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• Since Stephen Woods was lost at sea, no jurisdiction has been able to give a death certificate, said attorney John McGee. Although he is presumed dead as a result of being lost at sea, no formal proceedings have established his death as a legal fact.

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• The Woods home went to foreclosure after Stephen Woods’ death, according to court records. His wife mortgaged the home to Option One Mortgage Corp., but defaulted on the mortgage and the home was foreclosed on. A foreclosure deed was given to the current owners.

For the story, see Home owners seek to have man lost at sea declared dead. quiet title