BTW, we have had to correct misinformation put on a title commitment more times than we can count without pulling off our shoes and our pants.
We are all someone's idiot.
Winner of the internet, today.
Congratulations!
That's true for quality surveyors everywhere, but the title companies can still be helpful for getting the documents you need in jurisdictions where it is not all available online.?ÿ
We simply get the documents by going to the Register of Deeds Office, finding the correct books and making copies for an average of 25 cents per page, then putting the books back.
But if the title company is already involved and they missed something they will get if to your inbox for free.?ÿ They need to fix it.?ÿ
Often it can't be avoided, but when it is possible it?ÿ is usually cheaper for the client to pay title company fees than a land surveyor's research fees. Both because the title company can do it quicker and their per hour equivalent is significantly less.?ÿ
Do they also do the adjoining tracts and the history of how those odd tracts came into being??ÿ Or are they only doing the tract to be surveyed?
You can pay them to do a chain of title for any tract you want.?ÿ The few hundred dollars they charge for?ÿ a chain of title doesn't pay for enough time for a surveyor to gather all that info on their own.?ÿ
Even when they miss a few documents it narrows down your work considerably.?ÿ
I don't understand how it is cost effective to sub-out deed research.?ÿ Are the online registries controlled by a private entity??ÿ Are they incomplete?
Here's my process, please explain how a title company could make it faster/cheaper:
Open free county GIS and find subject tract
Print GIS tax map with subject parcel highlighted and large enough to show all adjoiners.
Create a deed key by numbering all tracts, subject tract is number one, first northern tract is two then sequentially clockwise.
Open free county register of deeds website if there's not a GIS link.
Starting with subject tract download PDF of current deed and save in dedicated folder as "1 Smith from Tutankhamun 40ac DB400-327".?ÿ First adjoiners would be "2 Brown from Jones 5ac DB522-40" etc.
Scan quickly for plat references and save plat PDF with appropriate deed key prefix.
Trace out deeds and plats with individual CAD layers matching the deed key sans surnames.
Follow subject and adjoiners chain back to creation saving PDFs like this: "1 -1 Tutankhamun from Akhenaten 40ac DB301-220", then 1 -2 Akhenaten from Amenhotep etc.
NC's counties have slight differences, but most?ÿhave scanned all the records.?ÿ Deeds prior to 1980 usually require using the grantee or grantor index.?ÿ I download and save every page I view.
Unless your title company traces out your deeds for you, the only service is the time saved by typing book and page numbers into a document viewer and possibly scanning through some index sheets. For a typical lot with four to six adjoiners, I can pull the deeds in less than an hour. Review takes longer. Per the advise of Knud Hermansen I also search forward in time from the current deed on file.
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1 -1 Tutankhamun from Akhenaten 40ac DB301-220", then 1 -2 Akhenaten from Amenhotep etc.
Points for originality.?ÿ Beats the textbook examples of Black to Green.
For one thing you are assuming a luxury not all have, online deeds and a GIS. Even with that, there are several assumptions you need to make for your procedure to work so fast. One is that there are not multiple identical names in the indexes, another is that there where no transfers that occurred that you would miss, for example, probate or other judicial rulings, unrecorded deeds, grants of interest while going by another name, ect...
One reason there is so little competition between title companies is that over time title companies build up a huge system of files that cover most parcels in an area. They got together with that surveyor that worked on your parcel 50 years ago and still have all that documentation. They also keep track of every new document recorded, and add them to their files, something I don't think any surveyor does.?ÿ
At an hour you are pretty close to being even on cost between a land surveyors time and a title companies fee, so if you can keep it in that range and do a complete job it makes sense to do it yourself.?ÿ
They got together with that surveyor that worked on your parcel 50 years ago and still have all that documentation. They also keep track of every new document recorded, and add them to their files, something I don't think any surveyor does.?ÿ
We??re tongue in cheek here, right? ?????ÿ
@flga-2-2
You should ask for a "tour" of a title companie's title plant. They are impressive. Once you educate your local title companies, and they learn to come to you to advise, they can become great resources, and a source of work of you are looking.?ÿ
Just have to get past the stage where the local surveyors just do things, because, "that's what the title company wants", because they don't really want those stupid things, they just need to learn to trust their local surveyors.?ÿ
P.S. Part of the problem is that many of the local surveyors shouldn't be trusted. Your job is to differentiate yourself from those guys.?ÿ
I'm confused.?ÿ Whenever a surveyed property transfer occurs where the buyer/seller/bank orders title insurance to protect themselves I get a copy which I go over with a fine toothed comb and suggest alterations and corrections to Schedule B items and the legal description.?ÿ The Title Company is overjoyed I'm involved and I can order adjacent Deeds gratis and even visit their plant to review obscure microfilm records that their review has missed.?ÿ We're comrades in arms.
But I've only dealt with FATCO and Chicago and they were excellent to deal with.?ÿ I've heard the bottom feeder title companies (rent time on the big plants) don't give a damn and will insure blindly and are not interested in a surveyor's input.?ÿ Strangely, they are capturing a significant part of the market.?ÿ My title guy says it's a case of being 99% right vs. 90% right which involves a careful review of historical and contemporary transactions, but may not pencil out concerning costs.
That being said,?ÿ I've never been involved in a survey concerning land?ÿ transfers where there was not a fresh Title Insurance available to me from the get-go.
Title companies here generally have workers who don't have the knowledge we have about what is important from a surveyor's point of view.?ÿ Plus, quite frequently, we can find out in a few minutes just how much more digging may be required (or not).?ÿ The typical title project search only goes back about 20 to 30 years.?ÿ Sometimes that is adequate.?ÿ Most of the time it is not adequate.?ÿ Where there have been competing title/abstract companies working the same market any one specific company may not have anything on a specific adjoiner tract or the subject tract because they have never researched it before.?ÿ Otherwise they can refer to what they call their plant, which is the totality of what they have discovered on projects during their time of existence.?ÿ We have damn little available online and don't expect to have much added any time soon.?ÿ Too much expense with no clear return.
I was searching for a survey that I knew another firm had done about 15 years ago.?ÿ I searched everywhere I could think of without luck.?ÿ About a week later I was searching for something else and opened a Miscellaneous Book at a random page and saw what looked to be what I had been searching for a week earlier.?ÿ The survey had been filed one township further to the east.?ÿ Not because of a filing error, but, because the surveyor had screwed up and put the wrong range on it.?ÿ When we are doing the research we are tuned in tightly to exactly what we need.?ÿ The title company approach is to throw everything at us like an Atlas of U.S. when all we need is a Map of Springfield County.?ÿ Then we get stuck trying to find benefit from too many pages of detail we discover we really did not need to look at.
In actuality, the title companies would be smart to hire trained surveyors to be the researchers for them.