Bought the farm

I semi-understand your frustration.

The only thing that I will caution you about is to beware of the Deed of Trust not matching the actual transferring deed. The bank may take it as a form of fraud. Don't get me wrong, I understand exactly what you are doing, and commend you for it. I just don't want you to get into trouble over it. Could you maybe add a small little easement or something to the plat to make it recordable?

Strange recording law. We can get around that in VA by preparing a "Certificate of Owners" with a few details of the plat and the notarized signatures of the owners and then it's recorded.

I hope it all works out.

Carl

Mr. Bushelman,

Interesting story. Were you contracted to prepare the plat and legal that was provided to the bank? Bank president may sense a conflict of interest. I'm just saying.

JA, PLS SoCal

Kentucky does not have a vehicle to record a retracement plat, though it is true that it can be recorded in the Miscellaneous Books. That ensures that it will never be found again though. Our state association is working on a plat law but I suspect it will be a long time in coming. I used to say "most of" but I will now say over 95% of all boundary surveys done here are not recorded. They are filed in the recipient's pile of important papers and lost to future generations. There is some great surveying work being done here, clearing up old boundary problems but no record of it so the next surveyor in line 20 years from now will be starting from scratch. My new-old deed is a great example. If one of my adjoiners were to have their property surveyed it is a certainty that there would be overlaps or gaps with my new legal description unless they stumbled across pins that aren't called for in any record.

Jerry

Actually, I was the 4th buyer to have an accepted offer (their financing fell through) and one of the previous buyers had the survey done by somebody else. I'm tickled that they picked a good surveyor because Lord knows there are enough of the lowballers that would have wrecked it. My only complaint was that he used hot pink caps on the pins, not saying he is a girly-man, just that he is more secure in his manhood than I am. Really, he did a great job and there were some fairly complex issues with the road being moved by the state. There is a narrow strip along the road that the neighbor across the street still owns and that is clearly marked and shown. Of course my you couldn't tell anything about that from my deed but by God it matches the old description.

Quit claim the property to yourself.

Bought the farm - Tom

I understand your frustration with the bank prez and the concerns about future surveys conflicting with your boundary, I have a suggestion.

Why not install metal posts, say 4 feet above grade at the corners. Paint them bright red. Place a sign on them marked "Boundary Corner" with your contact information on the sign. I know it's a lot of extra expense and work, but in the long run it just may pay off. A bi-yearly walk around for maintenance of the posts/signs would probably also need to be done.

> The only thing that I will caution you about is to beware of the Deed of Trust not matching the actual transferring deed. The bank may take it as a form of fraud.

I believe Kentucky is a "Lien Theory" state rather than a "Title Theory" state, as to Deeds of Trust

"being the same tract as that described previously as:........."

Congratulations on joining the ranks of the landed gentry.........whatever that's supposed to mean.

It is great to have space that you can treat as "MY space". Do with it as you please. 'Tis better to ask for forgiveness later than to wade through three years and 800 pages of bureaucratic BS to do something that needs done. Romp, cavort, stroll, and enjoy.

:good:

You nailed it Cow. I am going to romp, cavort, and stroll entirely on my own terms, naked if I want. There are some blocks on the place and I may buy an old Camaro to put up on the blocks. There are no homeowners associations, no restrictive covenants, no city taxes and if anybody thinks my dog is going on a leash they have another think coming. I am zoned Agriculture One.
If I had surveyed it, I would have used 1" by 3' bars with huge aluminum caps at the corners Paul. I did not so I will pour concrete around the 1/2" pins and install some very permanent tall posts at each corner as well. I've preached this sermon to other landowners for many years and now it is my chance to make the marks for posterity.

Burlington, KY

Had to hunt that up on Mapquest. Dang. That barely qualifies as being in Kentucky. You are far closer to the home area of my Ohio ancestors than my Kentucky ancestors. Passed near there back in 1977 as I was traveling from Lexington to Cincinnati. Beautiful country as I recall.

I use a very similar phrase of "and being all of the same" or "and being a portion of the same" in most every property description and the end the preamble with "and being more particularly described as:"

:good:

Title folks get nervous when a brand-spanking new description is provided for property that may have been transferred by the old description for well over 100 years. The new description is your INTERPRETATION.

I used to be offended when property was transferred without using my up-to-date description. Not any more.

Better to use "Recorded as" or "Previously described as" than omitt the old description altogether.

Burlington, KY

It is a great small town right next to the big city amenities. My office is on the family farm my dad moved onto in 1952 as a wee lad. In the winter I can see Ohio and Indiana across the great divide of the Spay Lay Wee Thipi(sp?) (Ohio River). Last night I was at a client's house and she had collected arrowheads and had hundreds of them wired in a neat pattern on her wall.

This area was the sacred hunting grounds of the Indians from long before we were here. Lots of neat history, though survey records do not go back through the Indian times. There have been some changes since you drove through here in 1977 Cow. The County Clerk's office just opened up Deed Book 1000.

I don't think I have ever run across a deed that had a new description that was followed or preceded by the old description in the same document. It is my opinion that when the description is followed by "being the same property as described in Deed Book.. Page.. covers that part.

I am still offended and feel the need to put together a contining ed class for the title folks on the fine art of surveying.

Those weren't my pink caps were they? LOL. The company buys mine so I'll take whatever color they decide they are willing to pay for. I try to drive mine down pretty far so they are harder to find anyways.

I'd probably side with the bank. You hold title per the original description. To clear up the location a survey showing the record and measured is required. If your state is a non survey filing state then the problem is getting the measured into the record. Could the survey be attached to the conveyance deed as an exhibit?

If you truly want to change the description then you should do agreements with all the affected adjoiners so that all the boundaries are updated and placed into the record by the landowners.

Fortunately, the banker is right on this one. There is no provision in the law for a subsequent purchaser or an owner of the land to unilaterally change their legal description. We surveyors freak out over the concept of having a description which contains old, worn out numbers reciting old worn out evidence, but the reality is, the language in the deed is the language expressed by the original parties to the transaction which first identified the property. No one has authority to change the words of their contractual agreement except the original parties or those in close proximity.

We need to step back and look at the issues objectively. The advantage to maintaining the original description is to properly form a continuous chain of title for the property. This makes it easy to prove ownership of the property. That's a good thing and is a necessary thing to promote security in your ownership which is the fundamental reason for the title record system: keeping track of title to property.

We must understand that the purpose of the description isn't to provide the surveyor with the evidence necessary to locate the boundaries; it's purpose is to provide a description sufficient to identify the subject property being conveyed. It would appear that the description is sufficient for the intended purpose, so why would we attempt to "fix" it?

As surveyors concerned with the location of the boundaries of the property, we desire a method for recovering the old evidence using the old measurements to get us into the search area, then rehabilitating that evidence with new monuments and more precise dimensions. We're concerned with the stability of the boundary location and aren't so concerned with title matters.

These two divergent and often seemingly conflicting goals cause constant loggerheads between the title and survey industries. Why? Because neither fully understands the perspectives of the other. Surveyors shouldn't be attempting to interject survey evidence into the title record and, likewise, the title companies shouldn't be interjecting their requirements upon the survey record.

Surveyors need to develop a filing system for surveys apart from the title record so they may, as a profession, more efficiently care for the public land cadastre. It is imperative for surveys records to perpetuate land boundary locations by continuously updating the evidence of corner monuments and their positions through improved measurement techniques. This type of evidence has no affect on the ownership of the property, so has no place in the title record.

Those states without separate survey records have embedded themselves in seemingly horrendous review and scrutiny by the title records "police." Just look at California's solution as an example. People pay thousands to get a retracement survey conducted, reviewed, approved and filed over some "material discrepancy" found when the distances don't match the previous record.

Those states with no survey record system at all have suffered from precisely the problem which frustrated Tom in this post. There's a road block when attempting to place boundary location evidence in the form of a survey into the title record (and, for good reason). Tom's only recourse would be to approach every adjoining landowner, walk the boundaries and obtain owners' affidavits of their agreement to the new evidence, then file them along with the survey plat in some miscellaneous index where they'll "never again see the light of day."

Nothing prevents the surveying profession in each state from formulating a record system for surveys. Unfortunately, most states have no County Surveyor office that can act as a public repository, but no law prevents filing surveys in the local library, state archive, engineering office, or any other office which will take on the responsibility. It will take a concerted effort to devise a good system which surveyors care for. There are lots of workable solutions out there.

JBS