We just finished a Boundary Survey of a farm that should have been a piece of cake. Then I noticed that on the front of our client's Warranty Deed, in bold letters, was the sentence "No Title Search was performed" followed by some sort of disclaimer. Things went terribly wrong when we tried to match the plats with what was on the ground. It bothered me enough that I couldn't get it out of my mind. I had a gut feeling... One area just looked like a "zig zag" had been straightened out. Older aerials backed that theory up. We had our client's title nailed down.. we thought. I decided to look for missing links in the chain. I had to make some assumptions and ended up on more than one wild goose chase. Luckily, the tract in question was created less than fifty years ago and I only had a few owners in the chain to search. After an hour or so, there it was, a "land swap" by a previous owner. The attorney used the original deed and plat references in the current description instead of the revised plat reference and deed references describing the exchange with an adjoiner. Our client's legal description was standard for our area. "All that tract or parcel of land... as described by a plat of survey... being found in... This being the same property as described in a warranty deed from... being found in..." There is no mention of a "swap" even though it was recorded and properly indexed. At the very least, a corrective deed should be filed. I'm sure there is probably more involved. Who should pay the legal fees to correct this mess? Does the disclaimer give the lawyer a "weasel hole"? Seems eerily similar to the Mortgage Surveys/Inspections that I've read about on the message boards for years. Could this be the legal profession's equivalent? I know some states allow something less than a Boundary Survey. In Georgia, a mortgage survey is a Boundary Survey and must comply with the Technical Standards for Property Surveys in Georgia as well as the Georgia Plat Act. I sure hope this doesn't become a trend.
[sarcasm]But the lawyer who did not do a search saved his client some money![/sarcasm]
You can bet he is not offering to pay to straighten this mess out!
Ken
> You can bet he is not offering to pay to straighten this mess out!
Him Pay...oh he11 no. To him it would be an oppotunity to make more money. Here...let me charge you to make a big mess and offer to clean it up for you at an additional fee.
The Attorneys insurance will pay the bill after the over-site by him or her is beyond a doubt, I had one once involving an ingress and egress easement granted in a sales contract but left out of the title transfer, the insurance company for the Attorney who wrote them both payed for the new recording and the second purchase price of the easement, the incumbered one was payed twice for the same strip used for the different recordings of the easement. Your example provides a reason for good research of all the deed documents rearward looking for discrepancies in the chain of title and changes in descriptions, that should include the descriptions of the adjoiners also, few surveyors do it and just run with the description provided to them by an owner. Using a title company for research will not protect the surveyor, title companies look for title issues and include a disclaimer about location on their policies about location discrepancies reveled by survey, surveyors look for location so the eyes and pocket books of the researchers are focused on different things.
jud
