Deed descriptions
In California, are deed descriptions strictly the preview of licensed land surveyors?
- 9 Replies
In theory and by law, yes.
In practice I still see attorneys write them as enforcement is lax and education sometimes fails to enlighten.
I suppose that landowners could legally write their own legal agreements including land descriptions but it is a risky venture
They have to be signed and stamped by a licensed surveyor.
Unless the attorney has a loose stamp laying around he may write it, but it can’t be recorded legally.
I’m a notary and have notarized real estate documents for a friend who inherited CA land, and for people who needed to complete a deal while on a ski trip to Vermont. I never saw any document with a surveyor’s seal in the package.
So what is this thread about? Is it about a description which must appear on a CA plat, and which cannot be recorded unless it bears the signature and seal of a CA land surveyor?
Or is the premise of this thread that a description that appears in a deed must have been written by a land surveyor?
If it is about a description in a deed, what is the enforcement mechanism? Must the surveyor sign and seal the dead? (What if, between the time of the survey and the time of the transaction, the notary retires?) Is the attorney on his/her honor to faithfully copy the description from the survey plat to the deed? Does the recording clerk pull the survey plat and check that the description on the plat matches the plat on the deed?
Ashton
Great questions and thoughts.
I posed the question because I’m selling some property in CA and the deed for the property is a bit of a mess plus one course would need to be calculated if I was to write the deed in a more concise form. I’m licensed in several other states but not CA. so doing the calculation is simple but I didn’t want to get sideways with the CA board of registration.
I would say 99.999% of legal descriptions recorded with Deeds and other recordable documents have no stamp and signature by a Land Surveyor because the title company just copies the previous one. If I prepare a legal description then I am required to stamp and sign it. It appears this was not the practice until recent decades (maybe the 1990s). We have lots of old descriptions in our files with no stamp and signature. They signed the surveys but not the descriptions.
I’m of the opinion that the stamp and signature is extraneous on descriptions, only the property owner has authority to execute it. The survey map is different, that is a presentation of my evidence, my conclusions of fact, my judgment and my opinion so of course I should stamp and sign it. But descriptions? Meh
Funny this should come up. Yesterday I located some property off a deed. No filed survey. The deed is circa 1970’s.
Not one pin found on the whole tract. Originated off a BLM(the old one) monument. First property corner is 30 feet away. No pin nada. It was never surveyed.
A bit late, but I believe you meant purview, not preview.
pur·view/??p?r??vyo??o/nounFORMAL- the scope of the influence or concerns of something.“such a case might be within the purview of the legislation”
- range of experience or thought.
Ashton my friend you made my day! I saw that the word was wrong right after I posted it but couldn’t figure out how to edit it. My faith is restored that surveyors are not only intelligent but articulate too.
and gracious, at least in your case
🙂
-All thoughts my own, except my typos and when I am wrong.
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