Surveyor's preparing Deeds

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Something needs to change. Surveying was held in higher regard in previous years, why are we letting lawyers and less competent people ruin this profession!!?!?!?

Edit...I comingled the rant to include county employees making flippant comments.?ÿ Retracted.

Although it felt good, it wasn't adequately produced diatribe. Hopefully the coven will forgive moi.

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If you are competent in the preparation of deeds and it does not violate your laws, go for it. If you have any pause on either of those take a pass...

Watching with interest. ?ÿSorry I have no helpful words.

A surveyor is qualified to prepare a legal description to be used in a deed, but I wouldn't want to prepare a deed in a professional capacity since that involves what is necessary or prudent in the conveyance of a piece of property. Something that I don't believe surveyors in general have expertise in. Let the lawyers or title companies prepare the deeds. That is their area of expertise.

I prepare descriptions, I don't prepare deeds.

Just because a title company won't do it doesn't mean an attorney won't.

Have the client find one who will.?ÿ

I would be in trouble if I did it here, practicing law without a license is more frowned on than practicing surveying without one.?ÿ

Maybe it's ok in Montana, but you seem very wary of it, I know enough to be wary also.

Terminology isn't always the same across the country (or world since we have many countries represented on the board).

What, in your neck of the woods, is a "certificate of survey"?

It seems odd to me that a clerk or recorder can make any demand that a deed be recorded, maybe that hinges on what a certificate of survey is.

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Unless an attorney is required to prepare the deed, I guess you can prepare it.?ÿ However, most state code of conduct sections of statute or regulations require not practicing outside your competency - so make sure you know all the ins and outs of preparing a deed.

What I find disgusting is that they say they will not allow you to record the survey until a deed is recorded.?ÿ That is totally ridiculous.?ÿ That is in direct conflict with our recordation requirement as a licensed land surveyor to meet the statutory requirements in our minimum standards.?ÿ What is done with our work is entirely up to the landowner who officially creates the tract when he/she records a deed.?ÿ Surveying a tract does not create it, the land owner's action does.

Your state land surveyors organization needs to jump on this like a chicken on a June bug...................and soon.

It's not just the surveyors who are impacted.?ÿ Real estate appraisers, lenders and title companies want our work completed before they move forward in their roles.?ÿ That includes having a recorded survey that can be referenced by book and page in their work products.

The state land surveyors organization needs to get the affiliated organizations to work with them to stop this load of **** from happening.

Preparation of a correct deed reaches far beyond the description (our area of expertise) as there are so many types of deeds and the words contained within mean very important things, plus simply getting the correct names, etc. to put into the form is a pain in the neck sometimes.?ÿ I have typed up a handful of deeds over the years for very simple personal use for cash transactions.?ÿ I would not prepare a deed for a third party.

Lawyers should not survey - or create legals.?ÿ Surveyors (generally) should not prepare deeds.

What I always advocate for - and they most times ignore, is to just prepare a deed, and indicate "see attached for legal"?ÿ And have them just attached the whole darn survey to the deed.?ÿ Case closed.

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In your case, I would just make the surveys a deed attachment.?ÿ

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In my state, they recently changed the recording from a per-page fee, to a document fee.?ÿ Now and then I will just attach old unrecorded surveys, affidavits, pictures, and other deeds and research to my surveys.?ÿ Some 10-20 pages long - I don't care - help the next guy out!

Yeah, we get clients both external and internal (our engineers and planners are usually the internal ones) who continually ask us to prepare easement documents and deeds. They get weirdly annoyed when I explain to them the difference between a description and a conveyance document. Sorry Charlie, that ain't my bailiwick, go hire an attorney.

(Although I have jokingly said that I would be glad to do it if they were willing to pay me as much as a real estate attorney makes per hour...)

@holy-cow

So you don't think it would be confusing to potentially have surveys showing lot splits or consolidations that didn't happen floating around out there?

We describe property, not the transfer of interests a deed promulgates.?ÿ That's the purview of attorneys, bless their hearts.
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OTOH I've prepared Deeds where I've named the Grantor-Grantee in the preamble, etc. with no consequence given that it's a family transfer backed up by a Title Report.?ÿ But?ÿ a complicated commercial transfer, nope, I'm only responsible for the description.

Top of the head types of deeds:

Warranty Deed

Special Warranty Deed

Corrective Warranty Deed

Quitclaim Deed

Deed of Trust

Grant Deed

Bargain and Sale Deed

Mortgage Deed

There are more I can't think of right now.?ÿ

Each has a reason to be used instead of another type. I'm not going there to prepare one of them.

Do any of you file prepared deeds? Would you know what a statement of consideration is?

Anyway, besides physically taking them down from the attorney to the clerk I stay out of it.?ÿ

@jon-payne

Some of your questions are outside the scope of the subject.

But to answer one question. I have never attended a continuing education course in preparing deeds. I'm unaware of a course ever being offered. In Montana the Clerk and Recorder requires all kinds of hairbrained ideas to be noted on a Plat or Certificate of Survey. If you don't comply they won't file your survey. Survey doesn't get filed you don't get paid.

@holy-cow

I disagree, the survey does create the tract, it doesn't transfer ownership of the tract. That's why the Clerk and Recorder wants the deed. There aren't many exemption avenues in creating a tract other than a full subdivision. An expensive and time consuming endeavor. The Family Transfer is an exemption that is often used to avoid the Subdivision requirements. It's probably abused to some extent. The family member named when the tract is created may never get ownership of the tract and the tract is immediately sold to a nonfamily member. But never the less it's an exemption frequently used. The County taxing authority used ownership data (deeds) to issue tax bills. If the parent doesn't file a deed to the family member the taxing authority considers it to still be owned by the parent. The County's concern is it's taxed a at larger parcel fee rate instead of the smaller parcel rate. A considerable difference. A large 40+ acre agricultural taxed tract can have a substantial smaller tax bill than a 1 acre homesite. That's the only reason I can see why the County requires deeds be filed with the Plat (Certificate of Survey). It's all about money.

@toivo1037

I reference the Deed description to the Survey being filed. You have to pencil the number in the deed because the Survey Number hasn't been created yet when the deed was filed. Creates a not too professional looking document.

Attorney's copy the description from the survey. This opens the door to typo errors and transposed number errors.

What seems to be coming up here is a difference in "the way things are done" in different states, different counties/parishes,?ÿ different cities.

In my area the mindset is that the property owner creates a new tract by recording a deed, even if that deed is from himself to himself.?ÿ The survey alone only provides a description that can be used on that deed.?ÿ Our minimum standards dictate we will file any surveys for tracts that do not currently exist.?ÿ What appears in the OP is a situation where the property owner would need to have a deed created and filed simultaneously with the recordation of our survey.?ÿ The official transaction of conveying the property to another party might not happen for a long time, if ever.?ÿ This could play heck with other laws.?ÿ For example, our statutes on annexation of lands into a city state that if a tract is at least 21 acres in size, it can not be forced to annex into the city because the city wants to do something specific.?ÿ So, if someone were to have us do a survey to slice a 30-acre tract into two 15-acre tracts for a future gift to two heirs just so they know where that divide line is and possibly build a fence along that line, going with the demands of the OP would put both tracts at risk of a forced annexation.?ÿ That is a bunch of what you find behind a horse that hasn't moved in a few hours.

In most of our counties (not all), a landowner could have us survey 15 pieces out of a much larger tract of land that might someday result in none, one, two, up to fifteen ever becoming separate tracts.?ÿ This does not require formal subdivision platting.?ÿ I can think of a case in a nearby county where there are probably forty M&B tracts that have been created, so far, by the owner recording a deed transferring ownership to a buyer.?ÿ The survey work all took place at one time.?ÿ I believe there are more tracts still to be sold out of that large parent tract.?ÿ The remainder tract is an agricultural tract and taxed accordingly for property taxes.

Your mileage may vary under different rules

@holy-cow

Surveyors, not surveyorƒ??s, should be writing and sign/seal the legal description under the title ƒ??exhibit ƒ??Aƒ??ƒ?. This is so the deed documents can include it and refer to it as exhibit A as to the parcel being conveyed.