With the exception of ALTA jobs, which I generally avoid, we never have a fresh Title Insurance Commitment or Policy on hand to start a job. Even if we did, it would not be of any substance when we are focused on only determining the property's boundaries.?ÿ The description on the title work should match what is on the deed we are going to pull anyway.?ÿ Oil leases, unpaid taxes, etc., etc. are not a concern relative to the boundary determination.?ÿ A title policy is like most all insurance policies, it is a gamble based on actuarial tables, which does not list the chain of title back to President Millard Fillmore.?ÿ That may be precisely what we need to see for the subject tract and the adjoiners.
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.
Sometimes there's a difference between what a title company is willing to insure and what the property boundaries are.?ÿ I have a project going right now -- a 16,000-acre ranch -- on which a conflict with the title policy (different title company) of one of the adjoiners arose.?ÿ My client's title company didn't have time to do the research, but invited me to use their plant.?ÿ I spent a couple of days running the chain of title on the area in question, and found that neither description was correct, both companies had overlooked some transfers.?ÿ I presented the chain to the title officer, who agreed with my conclusion, but said he wasn't going to change the description "because it's better to insure too much land than too little."
I look at title policy descriptions differently now.
Excellent point, Jim.?ÿ Their end game and our end game are sometimes very different from one another.
One local title firm will sometimes be the closing agent and prepare the deed.?ÿ When they do, they always drop out any mention of area that we are required to include in our work and then add "Less roads" or "Less all land used as road right-of-way" to our description.?ÿ Because they won't insure the land used as road right-f-way they believe that area should be removed from the description.?ÿ Several of us have done are best to get them to understand the difference between what the tract actually is versus the portion of it they wish to insure title on.?ÿ In a strict interpretation they have just severed a parcel or two or three from what the grantor owns such that those long skinny tracts do not get conveyed.?ÿ Thus, sort of hanging in the Twilight Zone.
Do they give a reason why they aren't happy with "subject to road ROW easement" ?
With the exception of ALTA jobs, which I generally avoid, we never have a fresh Title Insurance Commitment or Policy on hand to start a job. Even if we did, it would not be of any substance when we are focused on only determining the property's boundaries.?ÿ The description on the title work should match what is on the deed we are going to pull anyway.?ÿ Oil leases, unpaid taxes, etc., etc. are not a concern relative to the boundary determination.?ÿ A title policy is like most all insurance policies, it is a gamble based on actuarial tables, which does not list the chain of title back to President Millard Fillmore.?ÿ That may be precisely what we need to see for the subject tract and the adjoiners.
Title insurance itself is meaningless to us. But the documents that go into the title companies evaluation of their risk are the same documents that we need to locate boundaries and easements. Since we work on many of the same parcels at the same time we can and do help each other.?ÿ
They even produce a product that is just for us and our local government reviewers (For subdivisions) that goes be different names in different states (surveyor's certificate, certificate to plat...).?ÿ
Oil leases and unpaid taxes?ÿ would be of interest to surveyors creating new lots, because the plat would need to note that the lots are subject to the lease, and unpaid taxes would be an issue that we woukd need to ensure was cleared up before subdivision approval.?ÿ If there is ni chance of those getting paid, there is no chance of us being able to complete the subdivision we were hired to do.?ÿ
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They say that since they aren't going to insure it they should not include it in the description.?ÿ Not sound reasoning, but they get away with it over and over.
@murphy "Per the advise of Knud Hermansen I also search forward in time from the current deed on file." That's a good thing to do, but forward searches are needed from earlier deeds too. I found an example of this with my own property. The neighborhood was subdivided and the first houses built in the 1960s. I bought my lot and house in the early 1990s, and I'm the sixth post-subdivision owner. My house was one of the first built and sold, in the 1960s. I've collected deeds and plans for this property going back to about 1900.
A few years ago, I was looking at a neighbor's deed out of curiosity, and saw that it contains a reference to a document I had never known about, in which the subdivision's developers had declared restrictive covenants on all the lots prior to their first sale of any of them. In the entire backward-running chain from my deed, there's not a single reference to this document. They're now expired, but those covenants were still in effect for decades after I had bought the property, and I'd never been aware of them (by the way, there'd been no mention by the seller, real estate agents, lawyers, or title insurance company). But here in Massachusetts, the fact that the document had been recorded in a Registry of Deeds means that everyone has constructive notice of it.
For a thorough title search, we need to run backwards far enough to make ourselves comfortable, and then run forward from each of the grantors through the date of termination of his/her ownership of the property. We can't rely on the current deed to list all the covenants, restrictions, easements, etc that prior grantors might have declared or granted (to say nothing of prior conflicting conveyances). And as @aliquot mentioned, there are still other bodies of documents to be searched, such as probate actions, that could be relevant and that here in MA are not necessarily recorded or referenced in the Registries of Deeds.
For the job posted in the OP you would be very frustrated. Little of what you proposed as a work flow for research is possible at the location where the job is. A few items can be downloaded, but the scans for county deeds begin in 2004, nothing earlier is available. Also, there are no plats, maps, co road notes. I can glean some info from secondary sources such as oil and gas map filings, water rights maps, reservoir filings, ect.?ÿ
There are no corner records, which makes sense because the land has stood in repose occupied by the same family since they were granted it by a railroad company, 1920's. There is an inholding, but I'm not concerned with it now. Although the inholding does have an active water right which does make a section corner tie. That corner isn't needed if I find the controlling monuments for my portion of the survey. ?ÿ
Anyway, when I go there I will first spend time in the courthouse, the research I need to begin shouldn't take much time, I've been there before.?ÿ
This is a 40+1 state, the family has occupied the property since the 1920's, from that perspective the 1959 grant closes any title arguments. My task is to answer any questions about the south and west lines. The east and north lines are irrelevant to this task.
@holy-cow?ÿ Sorry if I'm being repetitive and realize I work in States with a strong Title Company presence.?ÿ I'll just march down you assertions and counter:
- Yes, Title Companies employ low paid clerics to maintain their plants.?ÿ They certainly have no clue concerning surveyor's interests.
- To say a typical title search goes back only 20-30 years is incorrect.?ÿ The big title companies essentially have duplicated and indexed all the records at the courthouse.?ÿ Their process is to assume the last insurance they issued (maybe 40 years ago) was correctly researched and only search for records after then to update.
- The small time players rent access to the big company's plant, which is free money for the plant owners and no liability, but it means the small player's update may be less reliable.
- I love that Title reports sling every possible encumbrance/deed problem at me and I can eliminate many of them due to not salient/wrong parcel etc.?ÿ They like it to, given that it's gratis advice.
- Agreed the Title clerics are unaware of survey considerations but the Title Insurance officers are a different breed, well aware of our role and I've a good relationship with them.?ÿ We work in tandem to further both our goals.
- Of course having an LS aboard at a Title Company would streamline the process but they can't afford us and can shift liability to us, so why would they do that?
Their process is to assume the last insurance they issued (maybe 40 years ago) was correctly researched and only search for records after then to update.
That works great most of the time, but it also means that mistakes tend to get carried forward silently, often for decades, until someone has reason to check. And the industry consolidation that has occurred over the last 30 out 40 years means that today's title officers don't know how reliable their legacy reports are, as they were compiled by title searchers employed by companies long since assimilated into the current corporation via multiple acquisitions.
That's what happened in the project I mentioned earlier -- someone failed to understand the effect of a 1916 deed description and included land that should have been excepted.?ÿ The faulty description has been passed along via many deeds and title reports until now, involving a strip of land 70 feet wide and a couple of miles long.?ÿ?ÿ
Their process is to assume the last insurance they issued (maybe 40 years ago) was correctly researched and only search for records after then to update.
That works great most of the time, but it also means that mistakes tend to get carried forward silently, often for decades, until someone has reason to check. And the industry consolidation that has occurred over the last 30 out 40 years means that today's title officers don't know how reliable their legacy reports are, as they were compiled by title searchers employed by companies long since assimilated into the current corporation via multiple acquisitions.
That's what happened in the project I mentioned earlier -- someone failed to understand the effect of a 1916 deed description and included land that should have been excepted.?ÿ The faulty description has been passed along via many deeds and title reports until now, involving a strip of land 70 feet wide and a couple of miles long.?ÿ?ÿ
Well then the title insurance company is liable for their ancient error.?ÿ That's what insurance is about, an actuarial examination of risk and the hundreds of sessile policies pay off in the long term compared to what the odd bad mistake costs.?ÿ Realize that in my neck of the woods FATCO was established in 1889, just over 20 years after the birth of title insurance in the United States, when the Orange County Title Company was established; the original predecessor to First American Title Insurance Company.?ÿ Like all insurance companies, revenues minus operating costs are invested in interest bearing accounts which over many decades grow to cover ancient errors and recent imbroglios.?ÿ It's a great business model.
I'll reiterate that partnering with a good title company is a win-win for both parties; they provide me with a huge records research, and I provide them with authoritative "does not affect the parcel" advice and an actual survey which they can use in their Schedule B disclaimers dicta "the?ÿ effects of ROS xyz"?ÿ which shifts liability onto me.?ÿ Fair enough, they charge a few 100 bucks for the Title Insurance and my fee is in the thousands.?ÿ Notice that I have *never* paid for a Title Report for a survey and they have *never* paid me to do a survey.?ÿ We are on each side of the street and the landowners, developers, banks etc., pay for our services as necessary to do transactions.?ÿ
I beg to differ on the 20-30 year search limit.?ÿ The companies use that as a standard limit for general transactions.?ÿ If their company has done something prior, they should be in good shape.?ÿ If they have no prior history, they take the gamble as their own history assures them it is cheaper to pay off from time to time than to spend money to be absolutely certain of what they are insuring.
An example I commented on here a couple of years back was a case of not looking at relevant surveys or easements more than twenty years back.?ÿ They completely missed the?ÿ easement for the entire city's primary water line from the river and the easement for the final section of the city's sewer line running to the sewage ponds.?ÿ They also missed the widening of the road right-of-way in the 1930's when it was a State Highway.?ÿ All of that was pertinent to the purchaser of the subject tract.?ÿ I saw him starting to build a fence in the wrong place and got him stopped.?ÿ I had no survey connection to his land purchase.?ÿ But, his mother had been a classmate of mine and he had been in grade school with two of my daughters.?ÿ I stopped him because I was a friend.?ÿ He showed me his title policy.?ÿ I showed him a survey by another firm done about 30 years ago showing the location of the road widening and the two significant easements.?ÿ After he went back to his title company, they called me.?ÿ I provided them the exact data they had chosen to not even look for because it was "too old" to be of concern.?ÿ The title company did spend some money that time.
Sadly, all but one title firm with which I have frequent conversations is a "profit center", not really a source of great wisdom and knowledge.?ÿ The people profiting from the local work live several States away and don't seem to care much about what is going on so long as they have a steady income from their investment.?ÿ One firm has had four different names in a stretch of roughly six years.?ÿ The local manager had perhaps two years of experience with title work when awarded the corner office.?ÿ The vast majority of their policies are for the benefit of the lending entities with few of the borrowers realizing they are paying for the lender policy and don't have any coverage in their own name.?ÿ As long as the borrower keeps paying the mortgage, the lender is content.?ÿ It takes an adjoiner or some other interested party to open the can of worms that has been ignored.
Twenty years ago, I told my boss "We should get into that GIS business_"
Twenty more years later I'm telling you folks "You should get into that Title Insurance business"
-Dali Lama or better known as Wise Ass on the Hill.
@holy-cow at a trial the two title experts were advocating for their clients so well that the judge confirmed me an expert in title just to get a straight answer.?ÿ Then came the age old Warranty vs Quitclaim question and I refused to answer on the grounds that lawyers will argue in their clients' favor.?ÿ It only bolstered the judge's opinion of my testimony.
I had an ALTA - half Registered Land (Land Court, supposedly all the documents are easily available on the Certificate of Title, but they are often missing one or two) They provided a 50year and one day title commitment where all the action on the property took place 60 years ago.?ÿ The lawyer argued when I provided a change order for research...
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It was about 1996 when I gave a serious look at becoming a part owner in a nearby title company. I was very interested.?ÿ They were thinking they might retire.?ÿ They didn't retire and quietly sold it to their rival about 2010.
We had a local attorney who decided to create his own title office.?ÿ He did quite well until AIDS sent him to the cemetery.
@flga-2-2
Groucho Marx sang a song about "Lydia, oh Lydia, the tattooed lady".
Old High School classmate of mine sold her Title Company and retired and bought a lakeside home.
I'm still surveying and live In the same house on a gravel road.
There's a story here someplace.
