how do personal claims work?

[Ass_Kraken]

so a town claim trumps a personal claim? ok if i have a town claim instead can someone take that away?

Personal claim actually trumps a town claim, permission wise. Town claim can just remove personal claims that are under their infleunce.

[Slayblaze]

To put it another way: you can overlap someone's personal claim with a town claim for nothing more than the price of the Town Bell (obviously must have Compacts & Constitutions also). Once that claim is overlapped with your town claim you can then remove that player's claim entirely by "Invoke Eminent Domain" option in the Commonwealth & Government menu that appears when you become a citizen of the Town. Invoking eminent domain cost double the silver amount payed by the creator of the overlapped claim, and if that claim is decently sized it can cost quite a bit. I've taken over several and one of them required me to build 5 Cross of St.George's and 1 Boundry Stone just to be able to deposit enough silver into the Bell to remove the claim. So yeah... make sure you can afford it!