Non-Warranty deed

Stupid!

Agree 100 percent with Dave. That is stupid.

Every deed is an approximation of what the buyer and seller agreed was the tract involved. That is as good as it gets.

Every metes and bounds tract in Texas would require the "non-warranty" deed because the same surveyor wouldn't write exactly the same description if he came back a month after his first survey/description.

Are you saying the surveyor supplies the deed with his survey documents?

Some places use non-warranty deeds for conveyances that may not be a sale, as in a family conveyance or to a spouse. I have seen them of record, but around here the quit-claim deed is a lot more common.

I'm assuming you mean that the description of the survey prepared by the surveyor does not conform 100 percent with the existing deed of record.

yes, they are not exact, however the original deed is sufficient to place the parcel on the ground. I think this creates a cloud of title where none existed.

Unless I'm creating a new tract of ground, I rarely write a new legal description. I just show the measured distances vs the platted distances. The distances can be off quite a bit also, espescially if the survey is an old one, and I still show measured and platted.

I did not write a legal description...who wrote the legal is a separate issue...Here mostly that is attorneys. The issue at hand is creating a separate deed each time there is a new survey and whether that clouds title.

They are confusing title with boundary issues. Title is WHAT PARCEL you own, and boundary is WHERE ARE THE LIMITS OF THAT PARCEL.

It would appear they are creating sliver parcels between the old and new descriptions, not a good thing.

I think it clouds title, maybe just a little cloud instead of cumulus or overcast but definitely does raise a question as to what is being transferred. If I was a savvy landowner thinking about the salability of my land in these days of slow property sales I would shy away from getting my land surveyed if it resulted in the possibility of a non-warranty deed being issued. At the least, it could possibly devalue the land in the buyers eyes somewhat.

I guess I'm missing why a new description is being prepared every time a property is surveyed? Some attorney does it?

Yes it clouds the title.

> I did not write a legal description...who wrote the legal is a separate issue...Here mostly that is attorneys. The issue at hand is creating a separate deed each time there is a new survey and whether that clouds title.

Good grief!! So what happens if the property is retraced (resurveyed) a second or third time, do they then transfer using the "original" description, and the first resurvey description and the second re-resurvey description, and the third re-re-resurvey description? Will the insanity ever end???:'(

I suppose if the "new" descriptions where written correctly it wouldn't pose a great problem to the title, such as "the following described parcel is the same whole parcel as described in instrument number xxxxxx, Book xx, page xxx....". But even more troubling is why this is happening.

This is the type of nonsense that happens after many decades in which the surveyors, attorneys, title "experts", etc, believe the mistaken (yet widely accepted) notion that the stated and/or measured bearings and distances are "gospel", and supersede the established boundaries on the ground. :pissed:

> They are confusing title with boundary issues. Title is WHAT PARCEL you own, and boundary is WHERE ARE THE LIMITS OF THAT PARCEL.
>

:good:

What if

What happens when there is an overlap? If When the warrantee deed overlaps someone else's land by feet (miles, whatever) then does this mean that the grantor warrants and defends that title?

It sounds like the seller will only warrant (or the Title Company will only insure) to the record description. The buyer (or someone influencing the buyer) wants to buy to a 'correct' description. I cannot envision a fact pattern that would make this a good idea. I do stop short of calling it stupid without the rest of the story. Title Law varies dramatically by State..
As for the new description, there is no 'I always' or 'I never'. If there is a defect in the record I do my best to help the owners correct it. Often that means a new description. If the underlying description and record are sufficient I do not introduce my preferences into the chain of Title. At times it means leaving horrid, twisted and linguistically nauseating descriptions alone. If that keep the Title clean its the better course. I just double up on the acid reducers and anti-nausea meds and move on...

While I am not against writing a 'new legal' that matches what is actually on the ground. It is not always wanted (by the owner). Typically they want their property surveyed and and differences between record and measured distances would be shown on my survey. If the difference between the two was substantial I would recommend a new description be prepared and if so always reference the original deed with a "more particularly described as follows..." so you don't lose the history.

If we're talking about a subdivision, our county requires a metes and bounds legal that matches the plat being submitted. This means in almost every case I am preparing a new description as part of the plat submittal.

That always drives me nuts. I started adding 'this description is intended to describe all of lot x so and so sub and no other property'. It was met with resistance at first. After explaining my reasoning nobody bats an eye...

"The issue at hand is creating a separate deed each time there is a new survey and whether that clouds title."

How could it not?

I stopped writing "new legals" when i began to understand what it is that a Land Surveyor is supposed to do.

Never heard of a non-warranty deed. I suppose where I'm from that would be a quit-claim deed. Attorney told me years ago, never sign a warranty deed. Sign a quit-claim deed and get title insurance if there is risk of the title being defective. Interestingly the title companies always try to get warranty deeds (wonder why - maybe the signer makes the warranty instead of the insurance company). That's how insurance companies make money, collect premiums with little or no risk.

I try to avoid rewriting descriptions. A survey shows the location of the boundary. The title says who owns (has title) to the parcel. So you have a record title document and then with filed surveys you have a map of the location of the boundary. I don't show any - record title lines- on my survey, I might reference the record B/D along with the established B/D from the survey. My surveys show the boundary as I find it, not several to choose from. A current transfer deed might use the title description to transfer title. They could add a reference to the filed survey to help with location of the boundary.

A further note. The fact that changing/rewriting a description clouds title doesn't seem to stop anyone from doing it. Working a a project now. Researched the deeds all the way back to patent. Not surveyors but everyone else including land owners and title companies have rewritten these descriptions to death. For me to really make sense out of it what I needed was the original descriptions, the ones from a estate settlement where they cooked up all the N/E/S/W in chains to perfect sections to divide up grandpa's estate. YUP one big ole simultaneous subdivision using very imperfect descriptions (math right on though). But guess what, no gaps or overlaps that everyone (even a few surveyors) insist are out there. And the descriptions have evolved, what originally was chains to the link are now feet to the hundredth of a foot and bearings to the second. The evolution and rewriting the descriptions just piled on the mess. Office surveying without the field measurements, improving the accuracy from a chain or a link to a hundredth of a foot. Then in Utah sometimes the established boundary makes it hard to get into the field to stake the record title BUT that doesn't seem to stop em either!