I've heard of these battles, some won, some lost. Now it's my turn and I can't remember any of the battle tactics.
I did an ALTA. The measured distances differ from the record by just a tad, typical. The client states, "The title company has added an exception to the title policy since the measured boundaries in the survey do not match the boundaries in the public record. Our legal believes the title company will remove this exception if your surveyor updates the survey by adding language after the legal description “Being the same as” and then insert the new (measured) description." The place is a rectangle, all corners found, urban commercial setting. Three sides measure within a tenth of a foot. One side, however, is 125 feet per deed, not 125.00 feet, and the measured distance is 125.24 feet.
I don't like the idea of stating a recorded legal description and then writing right afterwards that this record description is "being the same as" and adding a new description; I believe that this practice is a source of where legal descriptions change and microscopic gaps and overlaps appear in the public record where they don't really need to. I used the record legal description and found the corners on the ground.
Any tips? Thanks bunches.
I like expressing the field measured and the deed call on the same line. I use abbreviations for them in parentheses. ie: 125.14 (a.m) (as measured) and 125 (rec.)
I might leave of the a.m. and just do the measured distance, and put the "record" behind the record call only. I think it clarifies what's what to put down both. I think writing "being the same as" is just too wordy and perhaps not even as clear as simply "record" (or deed).
I agree with Tom. Show the record distances and/or bearings in parenthesis.
Don't re-write the description, it's the description of record and will only confuse things in the future.
Whoever is asking for this obviously doesn't know anything about measurements or statistics.
Try to explain to them that if ten people all measure a desk with a tape to a 32nd of an inch, you will almost never get the same exact answer. It's an effort of precision, but not perfection. There will always be variances, hopefully very small so as not to be significant.
Don't confuse the record by re-creating the description. Recklessly doing so could potentially slander title.
Another thing they will sometimes try to do, is have you write a metes and bounds of a recorded Lot. Don't fall for that one either. Same game.
Sometimes there may be reason to re-write, like if the parcel is actually a hodge- podge of a large number of previously described tracts all having different beginning points and based on different bearing systems, etc.
A re-write then is justified because it simplifies things. But it's certainly the rule and not the exception.
“Three sides measure within a tenth of a foot.”
Are you showing these as discrepancies also? Personally I wouldn’t. As for the line which you measured 0.76’ short I’d show the deed dimension on the line and then in parenthesis the measured distance. That should alleviate the necessity for a additional description.
I’m with you on the “second” description. I would never ever do that. It just adds to the confusion in the future.
Have a great weekend! B-)
They just need the assurance the the property described in the deed is the same as the one shown on the plan in spite of the minor differences in the measurements.
I can't see the problem in stating that a deed dimension of 125' can't be the same as a measured distance of 125.14' or 125.24, whatever....
Yes, the description may change but the property remains the same parcel..
my 0.04' worth
The idea of "being the same as" comes up rarely, but, can be very appropriate. I'm not supporting what the title company is asking you to do as it goes against common sense. There is a time and place, though, where the alternate description makes sense.
One example: Picture a standard small town with lots and blocks and streets and alleys. A major highway slices through that town near one edge, leaving about seven acres total between the highway and the edge of town/aliquot line/etc. One person owns all of the partial lots and blocks in that little wedge of totally undeveloped land. The town council vacates all of the streets and alleys as a formality, though they were never developed, thus awarding all of those areas to the one adjacent landowner. The landowner now has a four-sided wedge of property, in a floodplain. Why not prepare a simple four-sided metes and bounds description to replace three pages of description? Use the "being the same as" statement the first time, then use the metes and bounds description in perpetuity.
correction. In my above post, make "of" being the same as "off"....:-D
> Any tips? Thanks bunches.
Lot's of prior discussion and some good opinions in these posts.
New Description, No Changes in B&D
https://surveyorconnect.com/index.php?mode=thread&id=164940
Re-writing Property Descritptions
https://surveyorconnect.com/index.php?mode=thread&id=164809
Bought the farm
https://surveyorconnect.com/index.php?mode=thread&id=138488
ALTA question ... new descriptions TTT
https://surveyorconnect.com/index.php?mode=thread&id=65494
ALTA question.....
https://surveyorconnect.com/index.php?mode=thread&id=65253
3rd Party ALTA Requirements - Re-Writing Legal Descriptions
https://surveyorconnect.com/index.php?mode=thread&id=35252
The being the same as description has its place but I don't believe the situation you describe is it.
The way I would have done it is use the record description verbatim and show the as measured dimensions additionally in parentheses on the plan graphic. I presume both close mathematically. An additional note addressing the issue may be appropriate.
Whatever you do, stick to your guns. It just irritates me to no end that someone not expert in land surveying and boundaries attempts to "dictate" to us how things need to be done. I guess I don't know the attitude, or exactly what was said, but it sounds like they don't understand the difference in the plat and a legal description attached to a deed.
I could understand a difference in opinion as to what the new transferring deed should look like. There is a lot of "legal" issues introduced when you have a retransfer of a property and the description of the property being transferred doesn't look exactly like the description of the property the grantor got when s/he bought it. Has the property moved? If the description was adequate to gain ownership of the property, why can't it be granted away with the same description? Etc.
Anyway, it makes you wonder how many other surveyors they have made the same demand to, and the fact that the more they get away with being able to force surveyors to change their product, the more they will feel that they are masters of the lowly surveyor and need to teach him how to do his job.
Their first step should be to call you up and ask you "why is this distance different than what's on the deed?" They should try to become educated in what your plat means and what your intent is in showing it a certain way, and explaining to you what their concerns are. They should be asking you to help them resolve their concern if your reason for why it's different doesn't satisfy them.
Okay, I've probably said enough. If I am preaching, I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir and not to the sinner who needs saving. 😛
Significant figures, I believe your 125 feet is the same as 125.25'
I resolve this by stating "The property shown hereon is that property described in XYZ Title Company Commitment No. ####."
If all the lots are 125.25 then saying "the same as" is OK
If not, and the other lots are different, then NO they are not the same.
0.02
> I resolve this by stating "The property shown hereon is that property described in XYZ Title Company Commitment No. ####."
Same here.
> I've heard of these battles, some won, some lost. Now it's my turn and I can't remember any of the battle tactics.
>
> I did an ALTA. The measured distances differ from the record by just a tad, typical. The client states, "The title company has added an exception to the title policy since the measured boundaries in the survey do not match the boundaries in the public record. Our legal believes the title company will remove this exception if your surveyor updates the survey by adding language after the legal description “Being the same as” and then insert the new (measured) description."
It doesn't sound as though you are in direct contact with the title company. That might clear the situation up quite a bit. The average title-company attorney knows a lot more about surveys than the average client's attorney, who more than likely does not specialize in real-estate law.
And the wording of the exception might also clarify matters. An exception for differences between record and measured distances would be unusual. Is that what it actually says?
Why not something like this, covering all bases?
ALL that certain plot, piece or parcel of land, situate, lying and being in the Town of xxx, County of ddd and State of Uphoria, being and intended to be the premises described in the deed from (grantors) to (grantee) recorded with the ddd County Clerk as Document No. 123456-7, being more particularly bounded and described in accordance with the survey prepared by zzz, LS, dated 31 Feb. 2009, as follows:
BEGINNING etc...
As for not changing the record description to match the results of your field survey, isn't that what the client should be paying you for?
The example I posted above is from a site where the neighborhood deeds worked and was fairly well monumented, but the record desctription for this site was very poorly prepared; it was jsut wrong. The new legal, complete with calls for adjoining owners and the appropriate deed references, corrected that to bring it into reality.
Ken
Don't change the description to match the survey measurements, but ensure that it is clear on the drawing that the survey is of the parcel described in the deed.
Have a conversation with the title officer proposing to place an exception due to minor discrepancies between measurements. Find out first what the actual wording of the exception is, then the reason behind it.
If it's because they feel that the surveyed parcel is different than the one described in the deed, explain to them the reasons it is not: differences in precision capabilities of older vs newer surveys; no such thing as perfect measurements, ever; deed guides one to the boundaries but cannot contain perfect dimensions (goes back to no perfect measurements); original monuments (if you have them) define true boundaries; ALTA standards tell you to survey record description, therefore you did not re-define the parcel but just report it with more precise measurements than those with which it was created; same boundaries as when parcel was created, therefore same parcel.
Tell the title officer that you can add a note to your drawing to assure them that it is reflective of the parcel described in the deed, but that the logic of changing the description to match the measurements of your survey would dictate that the description would have to change, and the parcel potentially redefined each and every time it is surveyed, and that makes no legal or title sense. Seems like altering a perfectly valid description of an existing parcel would carry more problems of insurability than would reporting differences between modern, precise measurements at minor variance to record, less precise measurements.
