Would you feel unsafe in this situation?

[Corraleno]

3 hours ago, Stacia said:

If the family resents the land being sold to your in-laws in the first place, and they have indicated they want first dibs for a buy-back, how will they feel when they see you (a younger couple), moving onto the property? Would they possibly see it as usurping their place in line for the property? (Not saying that's how it is but how it could be perceived.)

It would make me uneasy. The hard feelings over the land ownership could lead to real problems, imo.

I agree — I would worry that the neighbor's family might decide to make life difficult for the OP's family in order to "encourage" them to sell back the property. There is already a history of theft there.

[math teacher]

Sorry I went missing here for a couple days-my laptop was down.

DH and I discussed the situation a little last night. He isn't home-he stays at his parent's house while working-another reason we need to relocate.

I didn't know until last night that dh didn't know the details of neighbor's prison time. So, now that we are on the same page, maybe we can get somewhere.

[Moonhawk]

Someone who after years of being inside comes to the conclusion that the "solution" is to murder an informant is not safe. What's the next problem they will have to figure out a solution to? What if the next problem is they need more acreage? What if the next problem is your dog is too loud? What if the next problem is they don't like living another family living close to them? I don't think his solution is going to be to move. 

eta: you have good reasons to want to move closer to parents. I think I would just try to find a way to be closer without moving to that specific property.

Edited March 16, 2019 by Moonhawk

[Emba]

I am all for giving people who may have made past mistakes the benefit of the doubt, but if the past mistake is cold-blooded murder (and I would do what research I could to confirm that, not just go on gossip) I'm not sure that a person can "recover" from possibly being a sociopath, you know?  It would make me extremely nervous.  I'd be seeing about other housing options closer to in-laws/husband's job, but not living on in-laws' property.

True story - We had a neighbor family about 1/2 mile away down our rural dirt road.  kids rode the school bus with mine, their DD got along great with mine.  I invited the family to dinner at our house.  When I did that, I met the grown son who also lived with them (though he did not come to our house, he was just there when I extended the invitation).  He seemed very nice.  No alarms went off.  Then a friend whose husband is law enforcement alerted me to the fact that the grown son was on the sex offender registry for rape.  Of a young girl not much older than DD.  Putting that together with some things that seemed a little off in the family when they visited and from things my DD mentioned, I never, ever let DD go over to that house, even when the son had married and moved away.  Just not a risk I felt like taking.  I never discouraged the friendship, and wouldn't have minded if their DD came over to our house, but I didn't encourage the friendship, either.  I have no proof the guy wasn't rehabilitated or that his crime resulted from being raised in a family that had problems, but like I said, not a risk I was willing to take.