I have been ask to "clearly delineate and label less and except areas on the survey".
I need a reality check here. Doesn't "less and except" denote the areas I am not supposed to survey? If I am being ask to show the "less and except" areas I have to survey these parcels to show there location.
Have you been ask to show "less and except" areas on your plat? What was your response?
Is the "less and except" part of the description or Commitment?
Will you inadvertently be surveying those areas anyway?
I.E. You are doing an ALTA on a 5 acre tract where the description calls out the SW 1 acre as an exception. You may not need to "topo" the 1 acre but you still need to survey around it for the boundary and/or servitudes or the like. That 1 acre would be labeled as "not a part" but would still need to be shown.
Just guessing and throwing ideas out..........:-|
Generally speaking, "Less & Except" parcels lie within the parent tract and have been sold off to others, so those tracts should be part of your survey.
When your deed of record conveys MUCH more land that you are surveying and the "Less and Except" tracts create a "What's Left Over" survey, then again these parcels need to be shown.
An ALTA survey is a survey of the deed of record, the total parent tract if that is the way it is written up.
So, YES, you will indeed need to survey the deed as written and somebody is going to get a bigger bill than they are expecting. You may can get away with showing just a few of the "Less and except" lines and appropriate labels, but you will still need to be able to prove the location of those lines.
"Less and Except" is not a clear phrase... you should ask the requester what they intend for it to mean.
You can't give them what they want unless you understand... You not understanding does not mean you are dumb, it means that they are not communicating clearly.
There is no way I would survey the "less and except" portion beyond what I needed to do to satisfactorily determine where the subject tract's boundaries were.
In some cases, you would be wasting time doing it. For example, you have a deed for 100 acres, less and except 99 acres, with the remaining acre being in the corner. You find the called for monuments of the 99 acres at the common corners with the remainder. You find that those called for monuments are in the correct position. What on earth would be gained by surveying the other 99 acres?
Maybe what you need to do here is provide a small sketch in the corner of the survey that shows the entire description with the subject portion shaded in.
Yep, paragrapg 6,B,v of the ALTA standards covers that pretty well.
> Yep, paragrapg 6,B,v of the ALTA standards covers that pretty well.
Good call.
That is why I love this place. It is nice to have your peers point you straight when I am in doubt.
Well said, Peter! Very well said, in deed!
The Would Be Required To Provide Me With Written Access
notarized to boot, to all "less and except" parcels;
A complete title search on each parcel;
And a separate list of all survey requirements for same.
Paul in PA
Since I don't remember ever seeing the phrase "less and except" in a description except on message boards, I guess I'm safe. Around here, the phrases "excepting therefrom the following:" or "excepting therefrom that portion thereof described as follows:" are common. In many, but not all, cases, the parent parcel and the exceptions would have to be shown and dimensioned but not detailed as part of an ALTA if it is necessary to show how the lines of the subject parcel were determined, but that would be true even without the extra instruction to show them.