I think that you misunderstand. Those title reports have plenty of exceptions listed. Just not under "Schedule B".
Most mortgage companies order a Title Commitment to discover any existing debts or lines against the property and any prior claims of ownership like the seller actually own100%. Some gamble.
For several years a surveyor has to have the client or mortgage company to have the commitment be sent to them.
Then again, it depends upon the Title company whether they have the time or give an effort to provide one. The requests fall on deaf ears when it is too difficult for them to do the work on some random new property that they have no prior info in their in house records.
There is one around here that will not close without hard copies and cares less about digital certified products and will not continue until the surveyor provides them with a file that fits their word processing format.
When they keep asking for a quick return of my survey I let them know that it's not going to happen until I get a copy of the Title Commitment and poof one appears in my inbox.
Some institutions consider them priorpatory data and practically refuse to allow the surveyor to be in the loop and demand us to do all their work for them at discount prices.
With or without one, I always an extensive search and get a copy of the actual record and read to see if it actually affects what I am surveying or not and still some Title Companies insist upon boiler plate their policy anyway.
I have found that when a Title company can't keep the same personal or workers that you know are excellent at their job that there is a problem wit how the owner runs their business.
Many want that quickie survey and care less about qquality. They simply want something certified by a surveyor one day and will accept a 1935 survey drawing the next. Then the day comes that one company has adopted one surveyor as the Holy grail and all others are out. Mortgage can act the same insisting that their guy does the survey or there is no deal going to happen.
good luck
Sometimes I have to send a preliminary survey to get schedule B list. If this particular title company will not provide schedule B list. Note on survey survey performed without benefit of title commitment & adjust certification accordingly.
Someone involved in the process always gets me a full copy of the title commitment or I don't start.?ÿ Period.
That is the ONLY way to start. You cannot release a certifiable survey unless you have the complete title policy that is going to be used at closing. If you don't you are placing yourself in jeopardy. And you can bet if something is missed it will show up during construction.
@holy-cow I've been through stages where one in four title reports has an error. I've grown accustomed to not trust them completely but nevertheless, I agree they are playing the odds. Have you ever got someone to thank you for spotting an error? I did once. It was about 1990 I think. Remember the examiners name (Frank Kelly at Chicago) clearly because he was the best.
I don't think they appreciated the problem I found that turned into a big problem for them?ÿ A fellow about 45 whose mother was one of my classmates in high school called me to see if I would survey one side of a large, odd tract.?ÿ I told him I had already been contacted by the adjoiners along that line to mark it.?ÿ In years past I had already surveyed his entire tract and three of the adjoiners on the critical side.?ÿ He told of his plans to build a really good fence along that line plus along the street on the west side of his tract.?ÿ I warned him of the easement for the sewer main serving the entire town that crossed the west end of his property to get to the treatment facility.?ÿ I also mentioned the easement for the main raw water line coming from the river to the city water plant that also ran in that same general area.?ÿ He informed me there were no such easements.?ÿ I assured him that there were as I had made copies of them many years ago when I had surveyed the tract he now owns.?ÿ He pulled out the title insurance policy that had been issued about 45 days prior to our conversation and swore up and down there was no mention of any easements in that area.?ÿ He then called the title office.?ÿ Then they called me.?ÿ Then I met one of their best employees at the courthouse a few days later and showed them both easements.?ÿ They were so old that they pre-dated the standard time frame that they search these days.?ÿ I'm not sure, but, I think the landowner received a new, corrected policy and was returned all the money he had paid to them for the faulty policy.?ÿ After consulting the city on the frequency of their need to access the easement area he abandoned his plan to build the fence that started our conversation.
[?ÿ .?ÿ .?ÿ .?ÿ ]?ÿ Today, title companies are gamblers.?ÿ They do not research all the way back like surveyors are in the habit of doing.?ÿ ?ÿIf something is more than X number of years old, they aren't going to find it.?ÿ I have had to correct title company work so frequently it is second nature to assume they are not adequate. [?ÿ .?ÿ .?ÿ .?ÿ ]
Good Title Companies are acute businessmen. If they're reissuing a Commitment on a parcel they insured decades ago they assume their previous Commitment was a good insurance bet against older claims and do an "update" by examining their plant records for anything after the last issuance, add them to the Schedule B and let us sort it out.?ÿ They do not extirpate earlier doubtful ancient encumbrances because most are now unenforceable and not a big risk.
I too corrected many Schedule B items over the years, and the Title Company was overjoyed; I in turn?ÿ was privileged to access their plant for microfilm searches of off record docs & stuff the County couldn't pull up because it was recorded in a different County.?ÿ A good Title Company relationship was my best friend and we exchanged not a penny in fees.
Bad Title Companies are to be avoided, the local small town "Valley Title" outfit that rents access to the State FATCO/Fidelity plant for an update or a bare commitment without old record insurance.?ÿ That's risk and cost for them but it pays off 95% of the time so they *don't* want some surveyor screwing up the transaction.?ÿ They claim that they're local and in tune with the local real estate market but my experience is they haven't a clue concerning the boundaries and consider your explorations serving other parties (buyer) as an aggressive act.?ÿ They win because most single family small lot transactions really do not need Title Insurance unless a bank is involved.
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I too have experienced alot of schedule B's that did not list all of the easements. All of my surveys show this statement.
There may be easements and or improvements affecting this tract that are not shown hereon.
Several title companies in the Central TX area are encouraging people that have an older survey to draw in any improvements made since the survey was completed. They also insist on re-typing my field notes which I provide in PDF format and then insert it into the body of the deed instead of as an exhibit.?ÿ This effectively removes off the surveyors letterhead, signature and stamp. Then you have not clue who did the survey. Its one of the few things that pisses me off more than Nancy Pelosi and shifty Schiff.
I keep hearing rumors about Title Companies that are willing to provide their Schedule B to the Surveyor before the survey is complete. I say rumors because I have never had a Title Company offer that and the few times I asked, they said it wasn't ready. Almost all my work is construction but I am working on a tract that I really need to look at the Schedule B because any easements or abandoned pipelines may affect the use of the land by the buyer. This Title Company is refusing to finish the Schedule B until I have provided them with my survey.
I have called in to 811 for a locate but some of the oilfield collector lines don't show up on those. There is a well on the neighbor,?ÿ 467' from the property line and there was a dry well drilled on my parent tract but not the 8 acre corner that is being sold.
My question: do any of the Title Companies actually provide a Schedule B to the Surveyor or is that just a nasty rumor to get my hopes up for nothing. This is in Texas.
James
I won't issue a boundary survey on a tract of land that is not on a filed map without a title search provided by the client or title company.
If the job is not for title transfer, we will order our own search through a title company and pass the charge to the client plus a percentage.
same here, I found a prelim, it has Exhibit A the legal, no Schedule A, Exceptions (typical list of encumbrances), and Schedule B-1.
my foggy memory is Schedule A was the legal description or maybe the owner, don't remember. I think Schedule B was always just boilerplate
Being able to research the adjoining properties and others nearby can be critical to successfully doing a boundary survey in PLSSia. The surveyor is the best person to go through that information and sort out what is pertinent and what is not. Not just the client's property, any nearby that provide a clue to the true location of controlling monuments.
Tracing only the client's description is folly in far too many cases.
Current situation. A family owned the west half of the southwest quarter of a section. They loved writing their own descriptions to sell off small tracts. This began about 50 years ago. No one told them they couldn't write their own descriptions so they continued. The first tract the sold of began 250 feet north of the southwest corner, then east 300, north 150, west 300, south 150. A bit later they sold more to the same person by going 250 north and 300 east to the pob, then north 190, east 250, south 190, west 250. Eventually the sold an even smaller piece to the same buyer that began 400 feet north, then east 300, north 40, west 300, south 40. That left the buyer with ownership of an area 190 by 550 starting 250 north of the southwest corner. One must assume right angles everywhere as there is nothing to tell you different.
Later they sold off a tract beginning 1320 feet south of the northwest corner of the quarter section. It went 600 feet east, 440 south, west 600, north 440. As they owned the entire west half of the southwest quarter of the section this did not automatically suggest that east was to follow a quarter-quarter line. A bit later they sold a tract directly to the south of that one being 660 east-west by 300 north-south.
As everyone knows, a half mile is 2640 feet. That meant they still had a strip 140 feet wide in between the others. So, they ended up writing a description for a tract beginning 2060 south of the northwest corner, then 660 east, 140 south, 660 west and 140 north. The south line of that tract would run along the north side of the three-tracts-in-one parcel that was 190 north-south by 550 east-west that began 250 north of the southwest corner.
My client has that last parcel plus the 3 in 1 parcel. He is about to learn that he is missing over seven feet of road frontage because the half mile is only 2632. 88 feet in length.
We had to research all of the tracts to get the time sequence of creation.
BTW, there is a tract behind a portion of what the client owns that was created much later and contains a thirty foot error such that it attempts to overlap onto his land. It is obvious what happened. They measured from the corner post that is 30 feet east of the section corner road right-of-way line) instead of from the monument at the section corner but described the tract as commencing at the southwest section corner and then going a certain distance east to the point of beginning.
Spending two hours in the courthouse was the correct way to do the job rather than relying on a title commitment.
