I have a client that has an ambiguous deed description and want to help her 'fix it' before it becomes a problem.
A portion of the description (to keep it simple) reads:
Beginning at a point which is 1393.9 feet south and 3035.23 feet east of the northwest corner of section 1;
Thence south 0d 06' west a distance of 330 feet;
Thence north 89d 54' west a distance of 330 feet;
Thence north 0d 06' east a distance of 330 feet;
Thence south 89d 54' east a distance of 330 feet to the point of beginning.
It was originally deeded for a radio tower in 1958 but was never used for that purpose. A very nice house was built on this 2.5 acres in 2008 and my client purchased the property in 2011.
Does she have a problem?
If she does, what is the best way for her to resolve it? (in your area)
would you refer her to an attorney?
Is it the title companies responsibility to resolve the issue?
TIA
Radar
not seeing a problem here, but I've been out of coffee since about 1330....o.O
In my area, that description doesn't appear to be a problem. It doesn't become a problem until after a complete boundary survey has been performed and the evidence presented.
From that, a number of issues may need to be addressed and depending on their nature I will discuss a solution with the client. In legal situations, I will advise them to seek a proper attorney and I will be available to assist any way I can. But don't expect me to be an advocate for your personal agenda.
Correction deeds should be handled by the attorney of the title company and I will provide a proper legal description for the deed.
What is the problem?
Have you done field work?
Is the POB tie good?
Are the improvements on the land?
Nate
What does North mean?
What does East mean? Something has to hold befoe you can be six minutes off of those cardinal directions. For example, do you first go so many feet southerly along the west section line, then take off at a 90 to set east and the remainder of the bearings. Odds are high that the west section line isn't precisely anyone's idea of North. What happens if someone flips the order and changes the deed to tell you to go east and then south before starting your tract?
What does North mean?>EXACTLY!
There are no basis of bearings!
Somebody else surveyed the property in 2007 before the house was built. He held 3 monuments in an adjioning plat; used the plats section breakdown and set the 4 corners. It's difficult to tell what he used, to come up with the properties location, as he does not show distances from any section lines, only the plat. (He uses the plats BoB and shows the difference to the deeds bearings)
This is a closing section; we are in the SW Quarter of the NE Quarter..the description is from the NorthWEST corner of the section.....Sometimes all you can do is shake your head in disbelief.....
It's a nice house and yard, pretty much centered in the 2.5 acres. Where the house sits, it's generally flat, the driveway rolls up a little hill through an easement; this is her issue. The remainder of the NW-Q of the SW-Q of the NE Quarter of section 1 belonged to someone that had recently died and now his kids own the property. It sounds like they would like to cash in on the property, butt it isn't really good for much and in this economy, nobody is going to buy it. They were out on the property, while my clients husband was at work; telling her how they were going to clear all their land and build as many houses as they could. Basically trying to bully her into buying it from them.
Outside of the nice yard, the property is wooded and thick underbrush. I found all 4 corners set in 2007 and marked them for her and set some stakes along her easement. There are no other signs of occupation.
I'd just like to do a little more for her than wish them luck....
Radar
EH?
"There are no basis of bearings!
Somebody else surveyed the property in 2007 before the house was built. He held 3 monuments in an adjioning plat; used the plats section breakdown and set the 4 corners. It's difficult to tell what he used, to come up with the properties location, as he does not show distances from any section lines, only the plat. (He uses the plats BoB and shows the difference to the deeds bearings)"
So... the bold statements don't make sense to me. If he used a plats BoB then there is a Bob, correct? What am I missing?
EH?
> "There are no basis of bearings!
The deed description has no basis of bearings.
> Somebody else surveyed the property in 2007 before the house was built. He held 3 monuments in an adjioning plat; used the plats section breakdown and set the 4 corners. It's difficult to tell what he used, to come up with the properties location, as he does not show distances from any section lines, only the plat. (He uses the plats BoB and shows the difference to the deeds bearings)"
I suppose his interpretation of the deed is as good as any; he just could of told us what it was.....
What does North mean?>EXACTLY!
I guess it's been my experience that these types of cardinal calls to starting points are in conjunction with other project/survey in the area- I'd be looking at adjoiners, hwy plans, etc. predating 1958 to look for the the background here.
and the other thing is- What is the record for the NW corner of Sec. 1. closing corners do have a tendency to "become" section corners.....
What does North mean?>EXACTLY!
I agree with the concern of ambiguity. What is going on? Do the bearings appear to parallel the platted section-line bearings? I always have "trust" issues whenever I see even 330' (1/16th mile/5 chains) calls for distances. Those are proportional distances to a section-line distance. Do they mean the aliquot equivalent of 330'? Why wouldn't they at least say thence parallel to to the W line of the bla-bla line of the section?
Yes you could try to go true or astronomic bearings and/or presume the called bearing of the section line to be the basis of bearings, and then run a closed traverse by the published bearings and distances....but would it put you where the house is?
I agree try to get some clarity as to where you think the intended site lies, and work with whoever you need to to make some kind of corrective deed.
What does North mean?>EXACTLY!
It looks to me like; someone in 1958 said, "let's build a radio tower". The next question was, where? So they pulled out a USC&GS 7.5 minute quad map and said, "where is the highest spot"? Somebody put their finger on the map and said, "this looks pretty close". The next question was; how mucn land do you need? So they said, well, probably only a few hundred square feet, it's only a radio tower, after all. Well, we don't need to have it surveyed, that would be too expensive; let's make it big enough, that it won't matter. So they got out their scale and plotted where they wanted it to be, and made it big enough for it not to matter. Then someone said, "let's describe it like this.....", it was probably someone with a sinister smile on his face, smoking a fat cigar, saying under his breath, "we'll make the calls to 1 decimal place for the south and 2 to the east; this should really screw with some stupid surveyor in the future, heheheheheheh.....
> I have a client that has an ambiguous deed description and want to help her 'fix it' before it becomes a problem.
>
> A portion of the description (to keep it simple) reads:
>
> Beginning at a point which is 1393.9 feet south and 3035.23 feet east of the northwest corner of section 1;
> Thence south 0d 06' west a distance of 330 feet;
> Thence north 89d 54' west a distance of 330 feet;
> Thence north 0d 06' east a distance of 330 feet;
> Thence south 89d 54' east a distance of 330 feet to the point of beginning.
>
> It was originally deeded for a radio tower in 1958 but was never used for that purpose. A very nice house was built on this 2.5 acres in 2008 and my client purchased the property in 2011.
>
> Does she have a problem?
>
> If she does, what is the best way for her to resolve it? (in your area)
>
> would you refer her to an attorney?
> Is it the title companies responsibility to resolve the issue?
>
>
> TIA
>
> Radar
Based on just what you posted she doesn't have a problem. I see deeds like this ALOT. One particular area of a certain local town was almost exclusively described in this manner. When entire areas ares area layed out like this things seem to 'fit' better. When only certain parcels are described like this and other adjoiners start establishing the 'east' and 'south'..is when problems start.
If that is what she purchased what good would a need description do?
Granted this deed may not represent what is on the ground. If, after a proper boundary survey, you can determine a cleaner legal that allows for future surveyors to follow in your footsteps then by all means prepare a new description. However, you're probably going to have difficulty fixing a 1958 deed, especially if it's not really broken.
What does North mean?>EXACTLY!
You found 4 corner monuments that are consistent with some interpretation of the description, and are not being challenged by the adjoiner. That's better than a lot of properties.
Describe it better and move on.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it?
Let sleeping dogs lie?
I guess I'm not following this mentality, when it comes to ambiguous deed descriptions.
You, yourself said:
> When entire areas ares area layed out like this things seem to 'fit' better. When only certain parcels are described like this and other adjoiners start establishing the 'east' and 'south'..is when problems start.
Sure, we run into vague descriptions all the time. Why ignore them? Why sweep them under the rug? Wouldn't it be better to fix them NOW, when we have the chance?
I don't know what it's like in your area, but out here; you can record anything you want, as long as the margins are the right size; the font is readable and at a minimum size. This leaves lots of room for people that don't know what they're doing to screw things up and they've been doing it for a long time.
I say it's time to fix it.....
let a sleeping wildcat lay UNTIL it gets challenged by some court with jurisdiction.
your "fix" may bring YOU more problems than it is worth and your good intentions may just cause both of you more grief than the "help" is worth. good thoughts, but you are not the judge, nor the jury.
it has been my understanding for many, many years that attorney written (or engineer written) calls from that era are just a guide. the call from the NW corner is intended to be along the Section line (no one knew it's exact bearing) and then the east call is along or parallel with the appropriate government section "line bearing" to get to the POB I did not do any math, but bet the original thought was to make it a 2.5 acre fractional section deed????
> it has been my understanding (assumption) for many, many years that attorney written (or engineer written) calls from that era are just a guide. the call from the NW corner is intended (assumed) to be along the Section line (no one knew it's exact bearing) and then the east call is along or parallel with the appropriate government section "line bearing" to get to the POB I did not do any math, but bet (assume) the original thought was to make it a 2.5 acre fractional section deed????
You know what they say about the word assume......
The original thought (I'm assuming;-) ) was to make it big enough to put a 25' x 25' radio tower on it and it wouldn't matter where it was and they wouldn't have to have it surveyed.
It never was used for that purpose and now it has potential problems.
I say fix the record and it will never have a chance to be a problem.....
those are your thoughts and an attempt to put words in my comment. understanding does not mean assumption. be it today or tomorrow.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it?
> Let sleeping dogs lie?
>
> I guess I'm not following this mentality, when it comes to ambiguous deed descriptions.
> You, yourself said:
>
> > When entire areas ares area layed out like this things seem to 'fit' better. When only certain parcels are described like this and other adjoiners start establishing the 'east' and 'south'..is when problems start.
>
>
> Sure, we run into vague descriptions all the time. Why ignore them? Why sweep them under the rug? Wouldn't it be better to fix them NOW, when we have the chance?
>
> I don't know what it's like in your area, but out here; you can record anything you want, as long as the margins are the right size; the font is readable and at a minimum size. This leaves lots of room for people that don't know what they're doing to screw things up and they've been doing it for a long time.
>
>
> I say it's time to fix it.....
I am not certain how you would 'fix it'? Your client purchased that property based on that deed. WOuld the property be reconveyed from the original grantor? If not, you're not really fixing anything your just creating a more accurate locatable property description based on field work.
On almost all surveys the end result is not exactly what is written in the deed in terms of distances and angles. Maybe you could record your survey and add a new description based on your field work, provide this description to your client and instruct them to use your new legal when they sell the property. In any case I would defintely make reference to the original deed in your new description.
Being the same tract as previously described
Title companies seem to be comfortable with surveyors using the above phrase to provide a new description for tracts that are somewhat fuzzy to start with. They allow the surveyor to take the risk if the new description is not correct.
What does North mean?>EXACTLY!
Thumbs up Bill.