spending the weekend wrapping up a large title survey. boundary is all tied down, 2 sides of 400+ acres are by fence post calls, 5000'+ for over a mile each. one of those two sides fronts a road. 3rd side had a taking resulted in monumentation of a still-partial fence post line. both roads, obviously, have been there for a while- prescriptive implications, iow.
the county just came through and completed (like, last week) a widening and drainage improvement project along the fence post r.o.w. line. their strip maps and construction plans show no taking- i.e. "existing r.o.w. line" along the length of the subject tract. however, there are two distinct sections of fence that are new, along with two 60" RCPs and appurtenant concrete present, which span the sum total length of 5 out of the 23 calls.
i have two deeds calling to, roughly, the same posts. from the 2001 survey i located every rod or pipe called for, and 93 out of 101 fence posts called for (at least, i'm confident i found the same post or one sunk there to replace it.
the previous deeds were essentially bounds calls in varas.
i have numerous save & excepts, all of which were established- for the most part- and fit- for the most part, according to the two previous deeds.
so, alls well.
there are no agreements of record, no conveyances of record, and very little in the way of awareness on the part of the current owner (a broker, a company) that anything was occurring in the first place.
where's the "existing" r.o.w. line? the difference we're talking about is in the hundreds of square feet, out of 18,000,000+. we're also talking about a road that's been around, in some form or another, since well before anybody around here "cared" enough to drive something other than a fence post in the ground to demarcate a line.
the county says "no taking". nobody seems to be arguing with them. they put in new fence, lopped off two small triangles from previous fence calls (i staked to within a foot of a still-standing telephone pedestal in the middle of a freshly graded berm).
in what form does the road control? it's static state at the time of a conveyance, or as a matter of acquiescence by all parties involved?
i know how i'm going to deal with it, but i'm interested in any and all means of input.
> in what form does the road control? it's static state at the time of a conveyance, or as a matter of acquiescence by all parties involved?
>
> i know how i'm going to deal with it, but i'm interested in any and all means of input.
The obvious first question is "How was the county road created"? Was it established by order of Commissioners Court with a certain classification as is usually the case, or was it dedicated to the county by some specific instrument (not unknown)? The answer to either requires a surveyor to hit the books. The title insurer won't have a clue.
ha, couldn't wait for you to ask, kent.
it's camino real. which is, you know, called a "county road" of late... maybe for the last 100 years.
> it's camino real. which is, you know, called a "county road" of late... maybe for the last 100 years.
The Old San Antonio Road does have a width derived from its classification in most of the counties I'm somewhat familiar with. The obvious question is whether the part of the road you're dealing with is the original road or a relocation of the original road. If the latter, when was the relocation done and how was it described in the order by which it was relocated?
We have an El Camino Avenue, literally "The Road" Avenue.
There is an El Camino Real in San Mateo County. I don't know if it follows the exact route of the Mission Road.
> There is an El Camino Real in San Mateo County. I don't know if it follows the exact route of the Mission Road.
The Camino Real that the soloist is almost certainly referring to is a road that ran from San Antonio in present day Texas to Nacogdoches in what is now East Texas. The route was adjusted many times during the period before the Republic of Texas as well as afterwards.
As a result, there are portions of the original alignment that have been in continuous use since before 1835 and there are portions of a road known as either "Old San Antonio Road" or "Camino Real" or "Old Spanish Trail" or some variation on any that date from the late 19th century, established as public roads during statehood according to the laws then applicable.
Usually, it isn't that difficult to determine from research what one is dealing with as far as the origins of the road go.