I learned a valuable lesson about 10 years ago. I had a client when land values were high who sold pieces of his ranch at the perfect time. He created some parcels along an improved private road and I wrote easements to get to them. I did each legal and then on a separate sheet the easement, which ended up accessing four parcels.
However on the end parcel the title people didn't file the easement with the deed, and I went through years of clean up over it, court and all. What a mess
Looking back I should have just included it with the deed on the same page, then none of this would have happened.
So here we are 5 years down the road from my learned lesson and have 3 miles of road to write an easement over that includes a detour at a bridge that isn't in service now at the very end of a county road.
One of the guys has some time was looking for something to do so I have him do the easements, but he ends up with two sheets, the long easement on one and the short detour on the other.
He likes to isolate each call, double spaced and it looks nice.
But I want it all on one sheet, so I ask him to get rid of the spacing and run it together, he balks saying it isn't as nice for another surveyor or GIS guy to imput.
Which is true, but I explain that I don't survey for other surveyors, I'm interested in protecting the client and giving him one piece of paper is way better for him than two sheets with two easements where one might get lost, since I've seen it happen before.
There are times when it is appropriate to place "SHEET X of Y SHEETS", or even "ACCESS EASEMENT DESCRIPTION ON FOLLOWING SHEET(S)" at the bottom.
Or even "END OF DESCRIPTION" on the last sheet.
Warren Smith, post: 338006, member: 9900 wrote: There are times when it is appropriate to place "SHEET X of Y SHEETS", or even "ACCESS EASEMENT DESCRIPTION ON FOLLOWING SHEET(S)" at the bottom.
Or even "END OF DESCRIPTION" on the last sheet.
I've learned to avoid anything like that. Sometimes you need to, but if it can be done on one sheet I will. I even do an Exhibit A referencing Exhibit B, the A being the description and the B being the drawing, can't tell you how many times the attorney excludes the drawing.........:-(
But I hear what you are saying,,,,,,,and I do the same thing on long winded ones.
I agree that if you hire someone, you should be able to tell them how to format the sheet. You should have a good enough relationship to be able to discuss some of the calls or other issues you might have between professionals.
One thought, I have sometimes in Word got to page layout, and change the spacing "after" the line. Instead of doing full spaces, you might be able to set up "3 pt" spacing after the lines at the end of calls or end of paragraphs which might help to squeeze the document down to a page and keep some of the clean reading clarity that double-spacing does.
Regardless, I like to get a two-pager into one when necessary. I also use "page x of y" format, so it is clear as to whether you are at the last page or not.
Things that make you go hmmmm...
Sounds like you have options.
You can choose clarity and two sheets.
Or you can choose one sheet in anticipation that someone in the future might lose one of the above mentioned two sheets.
Had a project once based on three very long winded descriptions for tracts that had been separated and then came back together. The problem was that at the end of the deed it said, "AND". The third description was missing. They had closed the sale and mortgaged based on the deed months before I was called in to sever a few acres around a house from the remainder of the farm land.
Page numbers and staples can fix lots of problems......making mention of the package contents in the invoice is a bonus.
It seems that most of the descriptions I write span multiple sheets, so I put a brief title and "Page X of Y" in the sheet header. I also put "End of description" as the last line. Neither one guarantees that a sheet won't get left out somewhere down the road, but foolproof guarantees are hard to come by.
Brad Ott, post: 338015, member: 197 wrote: Things that make you go hmmmm...
Sounds like you have options.
You can choose clarity and two sheets.
Or you can choose one sheet in anticipation that someone in the future might lose one of the above mentioned two sheets.
I'd like to think the ending product is more clear and on one sheet 😉
For this one getting it on the one sheet helps greatly with clarity.
Handing that to the attorney is much simpler than sending him two sheets with two separate easements. And having the detour easement together with the main road easement will save any later confusion.
As far as legal access goes the preamble will cover it, since I referenced the centerline of the easement as a developed ranch road beginning in the NE4NE4 sec xx thence through xxx, xxxx, xxxx and terminating on the east line of Tract xx.
With just that they have an access using the road, the bearing and distances just being survey stuff which my guy was trying to make simple to use, probably no one ever will.
Jim Frame, post: 338094, member: 10 wrote: It seems that most of the descriptions I write span multiple sheets, so I put a brief title and "Page X of Y" in the sheet header. I also put "End of description" as the last line. Neither one guarantees that a sheet won't get left out somewhere down the road, but foolproof guarantees are hard to come by.
Jim,
You can't make something Fool Proof.
There are too many of them and they have too much practice at being what they are.
Make something foolproof and only a fool will use it. Or so I've heard...
