The federal government is not the main enforcer of this. Counties generally do the work of tracking this. It's the job of the register of deeds. Failing that, normally the state would step in.
You would require a failure of the federal, state, and county government for this to occur
It might be a failure of imagination but I can’t perceive a scenario where the federal government collapses and the county sheriff holds things together until a new government can be rebuilt.
Who's invading who if the federal government collapses? Has Arlington, VA been amassing guns and ammo this whole time, just waiting for the federal government to fall so they can invade Washington DC? I'm sure it's a failure of my imagination too, or a faith in humanity, but I don't see roving hordes forming and raiding the countryside like something out of mad max or a zombie movie the instant the federal government falls. At which point my county, and its sheriff is the closest government, holding down order.
The us has an extremely large number of munitions spread across individuals, state run national guard and reserve units, and the federal military.
In a situation where the federal government ceased to be - I don’t think it’s fair to make any assumptions on what successor states would look like. Nor what boundaries thise successor states would keep.
I don't see that either, but I also don't see a complete failure of the current power structure. State governments would step in and would put pressure on the counties to do more work and keep order. If the states collectively failed, I imagine some counties would be able to stand independent, but most won't
Well, those all use the dollar. I can't really see a situation where the federal government collapses but my local register of deeds keeps property lines up to date.
A collapsing dollar means no one’s interested in building anything so land value goes down and a collapsing dollar means all the industries that use gold are also collapsing reducing the value of that too.
The british sterling hasn't collapsed per se, but over the past 50 years, it certainly has lost a lot of its value, and mostly in the recent decade.
A collapsing dollar may not happen abruptly (which would happen in a war on US soil), but could happen slowly. In that case, holding US land (and plant&equipment etc) does still make sense, as these things will continue to function and provide goods.
