I needed to finish a 960 acre survey by tomorrow. The property was being split along a Creek into 700 and 260 acres. The client informed us thursday about it and wanted the COS ready today with the final legal. Big hurry and a really good client so dropped everything else. Finished the corner staking yesterday and finishing up the COS and legal today. I was talking to the LS who was checking the plat and mentioned I didn't understand how this would work since at least some of the property is under a conservation easement (but, this client is very informed about title issues and wasn't asking us to figure the particulars out).
He said that they can't split it if it's under a conservation easement. Everyone involved knows there is this easement, but it strted bugging me. So I called the title person to ask how that worked; did we need to show it on the plat, does it include all the property, ect.?
An hour later I'm getting emails and phone calls. Stop, stop with the COS. They can't split the property. If they buy it they have to buy it all. Continue the work but no split. So no COS and now I might have to survey all the property on the other side of the water; but, it's not going to be a rush. They have to rework the agreement.
Guess I'm not working late tonite afterall.
And I don't have to come at 5:00.
Feels like a little vacation.
Sounds like you did a good job by not assuming that everyone knew what was going on. You saved your client and yourself some time and money, and got more work for yourself in the process. Well done!
What is a COS?
Cosine?
Certificate of survey?
I'm not taking credit for this one. If I hadn't talked to the other LS (he's done a number of them) I wouldn't have called. He wasn't up to speed on the easement. We get a few every year and we all point to his office to anyone who comes in with one.
There ways around it, but from what I understand it's expensive.
Certificate of survey?
Yes, they need one to do the property division.
haha...Cosine...I almost posted that.
I've been checking a COS for a conservation easement- nearly 300 ac. The underlying fee is 4 seperately held tracts of varying size, meaning 4 seperate owners, in 2 different townships.
But the cons. easement is 1 easement across (Portions of) them all.
My question was wouldn't it be better to do 4 seperate cons. easement for the same foot print? Apparently the planners (my client) wasn't concerned, the submitting surveyor didn't change it. so that's how it's going thru.
I'm thinking down the road someone will be wishing this had been better done...
I've been roped into checking a few.
They can sure get longwinded.
One of those tasks you need to sit down and work, shut the door and turn off the phone until you get through it.
Of course, that never works out.
gotta love 100 shots along a feature +/- 30 feet apart bearings to the second and distance to the .01'......
I had a river survey this summer. The east boundary was a call for the river, so when we got it located I went along it and designed a line to the nearest degree and nearest five foot for each segment. It made it so much simpler to check and draw that way.
Mighty Moe For President!!!!
YOU ARE MY HERO!
Mighty Moe For President!!!!
So a COS is a Certificate of Survey? This must pertain to a survey in Montana and Montana law? Right? We take so much for granted in using generalized terms, it makes it hard on us who are handicapped or challenged by simple issues.
B-)
Pablo
Pablo
You're up, downloading plats!
I'm so used to seeing COS used, it's second nature at this point.
These people had tried to transfer the property a few weeks ago and the county said not so fast, you need a Certificate of Survey to do that.
So some frantic calls to us, a long meeting on thursday and no one thought out the easement issue. The only guy who would have jumped right on it was the one who didn't know about it.
Pablo- at least "COS" makes sense...
think about the Washington alternative...--- what in the world is a "SHORT PLAT"
[sarcasm]and besides everyone wishes they could survey in Montana. Rumor has it there's a guy in Austin just itching for an opportunity to measure a zenith angle less than 89^30'00.00" 😛 [/sarcasm]
why would you call a title person to ask if you needed to show an easement on a plat?? every easement that affects the property should always be shown. And yes you can still split the property, the easement stays the same, no reason you cannot split a parcel just because there is an easement on it. the new owner would need to be informed of the easement
And yes you can still split the property, the easement stays the same, no reason you cannot split a parcel just because there is an easement on it. the new owner would need to be informed of the easement
In this case the property can't be split with the easement in place. There is a way to do it I was told, but it isn't possible for this split.
Even with the 200+ pages of documents I have in the area-that easement and a 1930's deed are the two I'm missing so I don't even know what the easement covers or who was granted the easement. And that is why I was having the conversation with the title people, part of getting this done quickly was having their title people send us all the info we didn't already have. And during our review was when the question came up.
There are a number of different entities that acquire these kinds of easements. I should be getting it today; from hearsay it covers the entire ranch, but don't know who the grantee was.
Like I say I'm no expert on these easement-but I know who to ask.
I would be very interested in hearing how the easement would prevent the underlying fee title from being split. It would be great if you could explain some of the particulars about that. Unless its a matter of the split being non-conforming with the zoning regs because of the easement.
Some open space easements are more of a restrictive covenant than an easement, but they still call it an conservation easement. Could be that's what's happening here. It needs to be an easement rather than covenant because it's held by a third party, I think.
OK, I’m getting into an area that I’m not all that familiar with so if I get it wrong it’s because I’m not up on the details of these easement. I’ve tried to stay away from them as much as possible; they are usually a real pain.
This is what I think I know:
A ranch will take out an easement with someone like the Nature Conservancy. The Nature Conservancy, however, is not the only organization that does these. They will usually place a part of the ranch into a conservation easement. Other parts of the ranch will usually be kept out. These easements can wander around wetlands, park areas, streams, maybe historical sites, they can get really wordy and often the grantee will make a bunch of demands on what they want and where it is to be. As Rankin said 300 courses +-30’ long with calls to the second and .01 feet around a swamp area.
By placing this easement the ranch agrees to conditions and in return gets tax advantages. One of the conditions is not to split the property the easement covers. Others might be not building on the easement, no roads, no pipelines, reservoirs, ect.
The unusual thing here is that the entire (so I think) ranch was placed into one. If the easement holder would give permission then maybe they could split this property. Or the buyer or seller could “buy out” the easement and I guess maybe pay the taxes that were saved over the time of the easement. There may be some kind of penalty involved.
Like I say I don't know all the details-what I do know is this split won't work.