So as part of the platting project the city requires a 60 year title report of the property that shall be used and submitted with your plat for review. My issue is i received a report with 30 documents listed in the report. I go through all of them and half of them don't even relate to the project area. There all in the existing subdivision but not on the lots of the current project. I called and ask if they could look over there report and remove the irrelevant items. I was told its is what came up in there search and its up to me to send them a signed letter stating which documents do not apply (which i am not going to do) and they would remove them. Is this normal practice or am i totally off base for expecting to receive title work for the lots i requested.
> So as part of the platting project the city requires a 60 year title report of the property that shall be used and submitted with your plat for review. My issue is i received a report with 30 documents listed in the report. I go through all of them and half of them don't even relate to the project area. There all in the existing subdivision but not on the lots of the current project. I called and ask if they could look over there report and remove the irrelevant items. I was told its is what came up in there search and its up to me to send them a signed letter stating which documents do not apply (which i am not going to do) and they would remove them. Is this normal practice or am i totally off base for expecting to receive title work for the lots i requested.
Tell them "Sure I'll do it, please see the enclosed invoice".
You're lucky you got that much. Lately I seem to find all sorts of warranty deeds and easements that they did not find. One of our BIG clients orders title abstracts one or two years in advance of our surveys and then questions us when we show a different current owner? A LOT can happen in a few years!!
Get another title company!
I have reviewed hundreds of TR's in the last year for a project I'm working on. About every fifth one has an issue;
One instance was a portion of BNSF ROW with underlying fee title issues. Seems that the RR Co. took possession of the "Strip" with a covenant the says if the RR Co. ever ceases to operate a RR, then title reverts back to the grantor (1890's). The title company seemed to figure out who the successors were and preceded to describe a series of parcels (portions of ROW) for the TR, much the way you would read an alley or roadway abandonment. I decided to do my due diligence and research the issue further (since this particular section will be re-routed at some point) and found that the title company had stated individuals who had an undivided interest in an underlying fee title to said portions of the ROW that had nothing to do with the property. Also, the descriptions in the TR didn't jive with the descriptions in the vesting deeds. Serious cluster #@*%! I called them on it over a month ago. I wonder how long it will take for them to sort this particular issue out. We have miles and miles of this crap to go.
All you can really do in this situation is point out the discrepancies and document them. It's up to the title co. to do the rest. Sure it's more work on your end, but isn't it our job as surveyors to disclose this kind of thing? Used to be you could rely on the information in a TR, not any more.
Yes, that has long been the norm. I send them a list of notations, such as: Is not on or near this site; Is on the site and shown on the survey drawing; Is a blanket easement affecting the site.
I've had that problem only one time. A completely incompetent title company (really just one old fart) had about 40 items listed when only five actually had anything to do with the property we were dealing with. The primary problem was stupidity because there were two subdivisions with nearly identical names and they included items from both subdivisions.
I don't see the concern here
In my corner of the world this happens all the time. Let's use a common example.
50 years ago you've got a 100 acre farm and a utility company gets an easement for a power line to get from the service pole to the house. Where is it? From the public record in the courthouse you can't tell. Now we're dealing with a 5 acre parcel that was cut out of the corner. The Title company knows there's an easment somwhere but has no idea if it affects the 5 acres.
We, the surveyors, are the eyes on the ground. It is up to us to determine if there is a power line cutting across the 5 acres. In fact, it's up to us to see if the house from 50 years ago is still there and where is the power line that serves it.
To me the relationship between the surveyor and title examiner is a back and forth, cooperative effort. They find things we don't. We find things they can't or identify things on the ground.
So just what do you expect them to do. Go out and do the survey for you?
I don't see the concern here
The way we do it around here is to list the items that (do not affect) or (blanket easement) on the Survey Plat. The others we show on the body of the survey as they affect the boundary.
I always note on my surveys that according to xxxxxx title company's commitment for title insurance dated xxxxx and file no. xxxx, easements and other items that affect the subject property are shown hereon unless listed below.
Its not that hard.
Then the Title company revises the TC appropriately.
Sometimes it get a little lengthy on the survey, but it is what it is.
Randy
I don't see the concern here
> So just what do you expect them to do. Go out and do the survey for you?
:good:
Title = What
Survey = Where
I don't see the concern here
Your right its not that big of a concern. The title company is making more work for myself by not making an effort to remove title docs that are not relevant to the project they are searching. I was also told they keep so many of them on is they cannot pin point the legal description on some of the easements. I responded with the example of lot 555 is the only lot involved in an easement and im working in lots 1-100. Its just laziness on the part of a company that was paid for a service. My original post was to see if this is common. I have no problem doing my job. I even found two easements they missed.
I don't see the concern here
One issue I find is that a lot of title reports only go back to marketable title (approx 40 yrs) unless the title company has previous history on the subject site. Please note that not all title reports are abstracts of title. As you know, abstracts of title research the property back to sovereignty.
I would advise everyone to check with the title examiners and ask them what their policy is concerning how far back their research goes.
Knowing this poses the questions “how many easements were granted prior to that date still affect the property?” Maybe the title company does not care about a pipeline easement granted in 1930, but my client might, especially if he wants to build a house near that location. I have seen older easement being missed time and time again.
I believe that it is our duty to show the easements that we have knowledge of on our surveys.
But then, my client does not want to pay me to research the property myself. I know this because 1) he hired the title company to do it and 2) he is already balking at my fee and easement research is not in my budget.
I had an attorney ask me to put down “ALL easements affecting the subject property were shown”. Well you know good and well that you can’t say that if you consider any unrecorded easements. He then asked if I would state “all recorded easements” affecting the subject property were shown since he gave me a title commitment. We had the discussion of marketable title vs abstract of title and the small chance that the title company miss indexed an easement and it just did not show up.
We settled by stating that all the easements shown on the title commitment are shown and that no independent research was made by me. So now we have a statement like that on all of our title surveys.
Miguel A. Escobar, LSLS, RPLS
I don't see the concern here
I would rather get too much information from the title company then not enough (which is the typical scenario around here with certain title companies).
