Sometimes when looking at deeds you can get led astray.?ÿ
Title people came to the office in a big panic, seems one of our old right of way maps has an issue because there was a mistake when the state took title to some lands for a highway project, so they said.
The highway cuts through the SW4 of Section 9 leaving 49 acres westerly of the highway.?ÿ
OK, looking at the plat the deeds are referenced and they show the highway row being purchased from Smith the owner of the SW4 leaving him 49 acres west of the ROW, then the plat shows 39 acres out of the 49 Acres westerly of the highway being sold to Jones from DOT leaving 10 more acres of right of way in an irregular parcel sticking out to the west at an intersection. ?ÿ
Simple enough.?ÿ
Except the title people say there isn't any record of DOT getting the 49 acres from Smith why do we show there is. They sent people to research in the vault for it and there isn't any.?ÿ
To complicate everything years after Jones getting the 49 acres from DOT, Smith's family file a quit claim deed granting them the property.?ÿ
Now I'm getting a little worried that we have a mistake.
At this time on the ground there is still the Jones property (house and outbuildings) and a sub-station on the original 49 Acres along with the 10 Acres to the DOT.
Sooo,,,,,I drag out the file which is now 900+ pages in a scan and begin to try and put it together, finally I find the granting deed in the still hard copies we kept.?ÿ
It simply states from Smith to DOT all that part of the SW4 lying west and south of the right of way of the highway being described as follows: then the description of the highway right of way follows that Smith granted years before.?ÿ
said tract containing 49 acres.
WHEW!!!
I send the deed to the title people and they return a message that says "Mr. Moe, we have this deed, did you plot it, it isn't the area we are interested in"
Scratching my head I plot the 49 Acres and resend it to the title people, they send back their plot showing the right of way which of course is the metes description that DOT used to get the original ROW of way from Smith. The 49 acres is simply the remaining lands west of the right of way inserting a copy of the metes description for the ROW already granted to position the easterly line, they probably didn't want to survey the sectional lines.?ÿ
They keep plotting the long metes description thinking it's what is being granted, but how can Smith grant lands he no longer owns, lands he granted years before, he can't of course.
Plus if the westerly right of way is plotted in the 1/4 the remaining lands are 49 acres.
Big flag there!!
Maybe deed plotters aren't the best tool when used incorrectly. Of course I never actually plotted that metes description, I already had the right of way and the preamble gave me enough to find the parcel, the rest of the description is fluff. I ignored the metes description, put the section lines in and there the parcel is. ?ÿ
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Copied from another current thread:?ÿ Knowing what you don't know is absolutely critical.?ÿ Sometimes determining just who it is that might know what it is you don't know can be challenging simply because so many of the presumed experts know less than you do on that specific concern.
The highway people should care more about these lines than the property owners adjacent to them.?ÿ There is a hundred thousand times the potential liability on the highway side.
I spent more time looking at this than it should have taken. Just the volume of information in my old files is daunting sometimes and possibly I don't remember everything like I used to.?ÿ
It looks like the new title person spent too much time plotting bearing and distances and too little thinking through the deed references. It was right there in front of them but with the deed saying Smith to DOT and the long metes ROW description that's what caught their eye.?ÿ