We were commissioned to survey a lot in a small town less than an hour away. The nice elderly lady, Miss Hattie, is an absentee owner that lives ~75 miles away. She gave us an address and a copy of her deed. The deed was rather vague. So much so that there is no way to put it on the ground with any confidence without determining the property lines of all the adjoiners, whose descriptions are just as inadequate. As I looked up the adjoiners I found a plat done in 2013 by a reputable surveyor that showed the adjoiner as "Hattie Jones". I figured we had it made at that point.... Famous last words. The address she gave matched the assessor's map as to her lot. However, I was having trouble getting everything fit together. None of the dimensions made sense and the cardinal directions used seemed off by 90 degrees. The confusion was compounded by there being two identical addresses except one is road and the other is drive. The deeds seemed to use the two street names interchangeably when they are not the same. At one time Miss Hattie owned property on both streets. And there were two very distinctly different people named "Hattie Jones". Their middle initials are different but those were rarely used in the old deeds. Is everything as clear as mud yet? Soon I got a call from Miss Hattie. Her daughter in law, who lives near the subject property, said she didn't think the assessors maps had the correct lot. Over the phone Miss Hattie gave very detailed directions as if she were riding in the truck with me. Her directions did not take me to the lot shown on the tax maps, but past it by more than a hundred feet. The old homeplace had been her grandmother's and she spent a lot of time there as a youth. Trouble is that the old house is gone and there are two mobile homes on that lot that are occupied by people she doesn't know. They obtained the property by quit claim deed in 2013. I think the person that conveyed the property did own a lot in the area... somewhere. Nobody seems to know who owns the vacant house and lot where the assessors list Miss Hattie as owner. Like Miss Hattie's property description, the adjoiner's was too vague to put on the ground prior to the 2013 plat. The chains of title for the properties are worse than anything I've ever seen in my 35 years in this profession. Her deed stated that the property was also known as the old "H Smith" home. I questioned her about that name and the adjoiners named in the descriptions (that had been recycled for generations) that may be the only clues as to where exactly her property is. She's in her 80's and said they all must have been way before her time because none of the names sounded familiar. She gets a property tax bill every year and pays it. The assessors have her as owning a lot with a vacant house which she says isn't hers. I can understand the confusion about where the lot is supposed to be. We advised her to seek legal counsel as we can't survey for her, a lot that someone else claims and OCCUPIES until the ownership is cleared up. On the bright side, there is already a record plat of the property she says is hers. The one done in 2013 for the occupants.. I really feel bad for Miss Hattie. If what she says is true, and I believe her, the occupants most likely have already acquired the property by adverse possession. I didn't bring that up. Her attorney can do that.
Wow.
Would you consider sending this one to the NSPS so they demonstrate really how ridiculous it can and does get so even the most astute of the profession can learn something from this mess. Multi-jurisdictional interdisciplinary pro-bono project here. Even get the GIS people involved. Let them see the depravity and reality of the importance of process and why we as geospatial groups are the solutions to these types of situations.
Wow.
Edit of Can't.?ÿ Stupid spell check....
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That was an exceptional job explaining an incredibly difficult situation. I feel bad for Miss Hattie too.?ÿ
About 15 years ago I was contacted by someone like your MIss Hattie.?ÿ In this case, she had been married something like eight times and widowed eight times (black widow--right?).?ÿ She had received several parcels of pasture land in an area of rather rough country and few county roads.?ÿ I drove nearly 80 miles to the courthouse in that county where she agreed to meet me as she lived about 60 miles away in the opposite direction.?ÿ We entered the courthouse and eventually discovered several adjoining parcels in three sections that had become her property to dispose of as she saw fit.?ÿ What she wanted me to do was cut off a tract of roughly 20 acres which would include a ramshackle old house, several outbuildings, a cattle corral and two windmills.?ÿ She loaded up with me and we headed out to the site, which she had described in precise detail to me.?ÿ We arrived at the nearest corner of her land, but as she looked all around, nothing looked familiar.?ÿ So, we crept along slowly down the narrow gravel road until we reached the far end of her property.?ÿ Nothing that she had described could be found anywhere on the land she, in fact, owned.?ÿ She had promised to have the tract surveyed, a deed drawn up and then recorded as a gift to a close friend.?ÿ We were on the correct road, without doubt.?ÿ I even carefully drove in onto the property thinking that perhaps there had been a lane leading off to some other road, but still found nothing as she had described and no connection to any other road.?ÿ Dirt, rocks and some largely overgrazed grass was all there was.?ÿ It was then that the full realization began to sink in that she might have a few loose bricks in her brick outhouse.?ÿ We returned to where we had met at the courthouse and I inquired a bit about her close family.?ÿ She gave me her son's office number.?ÿ I slipped off a fair distance and called him.?ÿ He was happy to know where she was and told me just to tell her to go home.?ÿ There had been improvements on that property that had been completely removed about 45 years ago.?ÿ I sent her a bill for my time and she claimed she had no idea who I was or why I was trying to take her money.?ÿ She was going to report me to the County Attorney.
Never heard another word from her and wrote it off as a life experience that I would hopefully never repeat.
Years ago I took a job in a rural area on NJ.?ÿ The property owner was insisting that somw burried cinderblocks along the street established parcels decades ago and some newer monuments, unique markers but typical in the area were wrong by over 50'.
I told him that I would take the job on for time and materials, that it would not be cheap and wanted a $1,000 retainer before beginning my research at the court house.?ÿ He showed up the first thing the next morning with the retainer money and signedthe contract.
I figured that I would only spend a few hours at the courthouse to grab the copies of the deeds I needed but, boy, was I wrong! I spent the better part of the day there, then went back to the office reviewing the documents and file plans that I had gathered and I have to say, I was mortified by the mess and confusion the deeds and plats created.
The client only had an acre of land with much larger parcels surrounding him?ÿ none of the deeds came even close to closing and were written by somebody who obviously had no clue as to their importance.
I emailed the client (I wanted a paper trail) and told him that I envisioned this to be a job that would cost him between two to three thousand and that, based on the documents and the mess they created, it could be far more expensive.?ÿ He responded that I should keep going because he wanted to prove his neighbors wrong (off go the alarm bells!).
I put together a mosaic in cogo as best as I could and off to the field we go, only to be shadowed by the client.?ÿ I found a ton of unique locally used markers, located them and located all of the burried cinder blocks.?ÿ I worked two long days in the office crunching numbers and drafting a Survey plan that were incredibly more detailed that they had to be so that I could walk him though it in minute detail.?ÿ When I was happy with the plan, I put together an invoice for nearly $6000 and set up a meeting with him for the following morning.
He came in the next morning, wrote the check and then sat with me in the conference room so I could explain my findings in detail.?ÿ My findings proved that he was wrong and he found that hard to take but walked away.
Short story long, as soon as he got home he cancelled the check before it could evenbe deposited that afternoon.?ÿ A week later, I started getting complaint notices from the BBB and even was contacted by the County Prosecutor who was investigating his fraud complaint against me.?ÿ Those issues were easily cleared up but I had to engage an Attorney to get the bill paid.
It's interesting the lessons we learn along the way.?ÿ Over the years, I have consistantly turned downnumerous boundry dispute jobs, just because ofthis experience.?ÿ
Education is expensive.?ÿ Sometimes very expensive.?ÿ Our line of work is not for the namby-pamby crowd.
Stacy, I don't know if you're familiar with Vinings but there is some pretty high dollar property there (Home office of The Weather Channel). 30 or so years ago a friend was hired to survey a lot just off Paces Ferry Road.?ÿ The deed for the property was in a different Land Lot from the property "owned" by the client.?ÿ Some were close by and some were hundreds of feet from where the family was occupying.
To make a long story short, that area had been given to former slaves at the end of the War Between the States.?ÿ The vast majority of those were illiterate and only knew what they had been told about there property.?ÿ Properties changed hands over the generations using the "original" descriptions and no one really challenged property line locations because, at the time, the land was of little or no value.?ÿ To make matters even better the Cobb County Courthouse burned in the 1880s and lots of the original deeds were lost.?ÿ This friend finally just threw up his hands and told them that some expensive legal work would have to be done to "maybe" resolve the issue.
Development has continued so at least some of it had to have been resolved.
Andy
any updates?
This sounds exactly like an experience I had in Williamstown, NJ back in the mid 90's.?ÿ It is also the reason I try to distance myself from property disputes.