This is not a survey issue, except tangentially. This is a title issue.
Why I did not know about this problem is amazing to me. I'm one of the property owners.
Here is what I discovered today. About 1890 four different landowners went together and platted four different subdivisions all on the same plat as they all meet at a common corner. Each sub is quite different from the others. The one with the issue has a grand total of four blocks that are all identical. Each of those blocks consists of 24 lots, being 25 feet by 140 feet, with a 20-foot alley between the two halves. The blocks, on the plat, are laid out with the one on the northwest being Block 1, the one to the northeast is Block 2. The block to the southwest is Block 3. The block to the southeast is Block 4. Normal arrangement with standard streets separating them from one another.
Here's the catch. As best we can sort it out, someone goofed when the first deeds were created and filed and it has continued ever since. Every property in what the plat shows as being Block 3 has a deed saying it is in Block 4 and every property in what the plat shows as being Block 4 has a deed saying it is in Block 3. One simple example is a group of six lots owned by a local church since 1921 with a deed indicating this is in Block 4, when the plat would say they were in Block 3.
Apparently there was a conscious decision made over 120 years ago to continue pretending the block numbers had been reversed and to ignore that situation. No one has ever added a note on the plat so indicating.
huh.......
Darn Surveyor always causing problems.
In your laid-back county, it probably won't be a big deal.
Maybe all new deeds could read: lot xx in the SW block of Joe Schmo's Addition, originally platted as Block 3 and subsequently transferred as Block 4.
In some of the jurisdictions discussed on the forum, the only solution would be to physically move the church and houses because that would be cheaper and faster than the paperwork and you might never get all the approvals.
We had a kinda, sorta, almost, similar situation here in Metro Atlanta. Georgia (or at least most of it) is divided into Land Lots (kinda similar to Sections in PLSS). After the War Between the States some former slaves were granted property (not the best for farming) just outside Atlanta. Generations passed with the property being passed on within the families. We can't see the original deeds because the Cobb County courthouse burned in 1883(?). Fast forward many years. As Atlanta spread out this property became MUCH more valuable and offers were made to purchase the family property. Call in the surveyors. OOOOOPS!!! Where the families lived and where the deeds described the property sometimes bore no resemblance. They may have lived in one place for well over 100 years but their deed was for property in another Land Lot. I know the problem has been resolved but for many years no local surveyor would work in that area unless they were completely out of work.
Andy
> No one has ever added a note on the plat so indicating.
You probably should. I'm assuming the block numbers have been transposed in 100% of the conveyances. Take your Sharpie down to Registrar of Deeds and do what needs to be done..;-)
Ran into this the other day:
Now this isn't the "original" plat, the goat-skin burned up in the first courthouse. And although the courthouse burned down some years ago, this 'leroy' copy has been deemed the actual instrument by court decree.
In Block 22 which one of these lots is 3, and which one is 4? Two different conveyances read the plat two different ways. Quit claim deeds were required to "tidy" up the title work.
My first instinct was that lots 2, 4 & 6 were on the right and 1, 3 & 5 were on the left. According to all those involved (local abstractors) I was wrong. Lot 3 is officially the lot sandwiched between 2 and 6. OK. I'll do it that way....
looking at Block 23, I would have guessed boustrophedonically, thereby making 3 the lot between 2 and 6. But just a guess.
> looking at Block 23, I would have guessed boustrophedonically, thereby making 3 the lot between 2 and 6. But just a guess.
The entire plat is about the size of a 4x8 sheet of plywood...and there are places where the lot numbering has been done ALL different ways.
It's just a good example of how bad my guessing can be.;-)
It may be like the 18± acres I was surveying a few weeks ago and the previous surveyor (2yrs ago) must have had the Tobin map upside down because he placed the Headright line on the east end of the property instead of the west end and showed the Headright names the same way.
INTENT will rule in the end.
😉
> Apparently there was a conscious decision made over 120 years ago to continue pretending the block numbers had been reversed and to ignore that situation. No one has ever added a note on the plat so indicating.
A tacit acceptance of an ancient scrivener's error, remotely subject to adjudication but I doubt any parties are interested in bringing it to the bar.
I've never heard of "adding a note" to a subdivision map after recordation. The map is frozen in its recorded state upon signing and acceptance by the Recorder, with all its warts and pimples. Any changes or post recordation added "say what?" notes are not permitted. Whose hand could do such a thing legally? That's why they're stored in custodial vaults.
All is not lost; there's many post plat recordation error correction mechanisms, including Certificates of Correction, Amended Maps, chain of title reformed Deeds which illuminate the error, Quitclaim exchanges, LLA's, etc., some of which are prima facie effective and others are less so. I doubt anyone cares after 120 years.
> Whose hand could do such a thing legally? That's why they're stored in custodial vaults.
Go tell that to the Registrar in Lincoln County, Oklahoma. Almost every one of the plats look like a surveyor's field book.
I won't mention any names...but Billy, you know who we're talking about!
I came across one recently, it's a crappy condo plat from the 60s... it shows the layout of the buildings (several buildings) on the land, then one detail of the building (all the buildings are the same, with 12 condo units in each building (six units on each side of the building)) ... the detail shows the size and unit number of each condo. Problem #1, there is no north arrow on the detail and because of the way the detail is rotated 90 degrees from the orientation of the buildings, you'd just have to guess as to where the unit numbers were intended to fall.
But here is where it gets really good. No matter how you rotate the detail, the unit numbers on one of the buildings do not match what is on the ground. Looks like this has gone unnoticed for about 50 years. The numbers are "mirrored", if you will.
This came about after the title agent showed someone involved in the sale the condo on a GIS map, and he said, "nope, my unit's directly across on the other side of the building". It was close to my house and I drove by to take a look, and sure enough, there is no way to make the unit numbers on the plat match what is on the ground.
Worked for a client years ago that sold the wrong section, someone typed the wrong section number in the deed. The family had been a large sheep ranch with about 30,000 acres in the mountains near Park City, Utah. Sheep weren't doing good enough so every time they needed a million they sold a section of land. Well it turned out that they owned both the intended section and the typo section. After the buyer discovered the mistake he decided he liked the typo section better than the intended section. So there was no obvious error. So the sheep rancher just gave in and let the section go (he did have the million dollars).
Hijack
There seems to be a lot of burned down courthouses in this thread. I'm curious. Do others work in counties with similar situations? Do you know the history? Did the whole town burn (like San Fran, Chicago) or just the courthouse?
Hijack
I'm not sure of the number, but there are very few "original" county courthouses in Oklahoma. The only one that comes to mind is Blaine, County. I'm sure there are others.
The Logan County courthouse Registrar of Deeds office still has a melted, scorched and inoperable clock on the wall to remind everyone...
Sadly we built a lot of wooden frame courthouses initially around statehood. Their longevity was predictable with coal and wood heat. Some had vaults that protected some of the documents, some have a lot of 'replacement' documents.
If you look @ it from an old-fashioned boustrophedonic pattern, you have 1-2 from left to right, 3-4 from right to left, then 5-6 from left to right again, and finally 7-8-9-10 from right to left. PLSS layout of a township (and lots in a section) follow a boustrophedonic pattern as well except they start out from right to left.
Still, you can't tell for sure when they don't number the lots accordingly.
Hijack
Only one I can think of where I go routinely. That is the Elk County, Kansas Courthouse. It was just the Courthouse, I believe. About 110-115 years ago.
Hijack
There were many courthouses burned in this area after the War of Northern Aggression in order to destroy public records.
Local records were sent west toward Greenville by wagon that was pursued and burned by carpetbaggers before the records could reach safety.
The loss of many records of the early years of Wood County, Texas resulted from the burning twice of the County Courthouse in Quitman, first in 1878.
The house I own right now is in the Subdivision of CLARKS CREST,
Is that a comma? Like more is supposed to follow it but it doesn't?
Or am I not getting what you are saying?