Recently a title insurance company refused to insure property that was for a conveyance, claiming that the survey I performed for the seller did not match the description given in the deed.
Why this sudden consciousness alert. Have they been asleep all these years?
The seller??s attorney agrees.
A description that has been used, edited and transcribed by attorneys for numerous conveyances since before 1800 suddenly comes into question after a survey has been completed. Is this common?
The description of the property was originally three separate parcels that got combined into one without the benefit of a survey. In fact there is no record of a survey since the parcels were first described. ?ÿ
So, where were the questions from the attorneys when they continuously edited and transcribed the deed? Did they ever ask themselves that maybe a surveyor should be involved?
Shouldn??t they be asking this same question for nearly every conveyance? Maybe they are thinking that waiting a few hundred years is a proper amount of time to ask for a surveyor??s intervention.
...claiming that the survey I performed for the seller did not match the description given in the deed.
I'm confused... so how are they different??ÿ Did you show each of the 3 parcels separately?
No, they had been combined long ago by deed. I did show them a sketch showing how the three were configured from a prior deed.
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Right, but how exactly did your survey not match the deed?
I have no idea. That is all the seller's attorney told me.
My survey map describes that the three parcels were separate and references the prior deed I found that describes as such.?ÿ
Since the current description is compiled with former distances in rods converted and no bearings I cannot imagine how they were determining the differences.
Besides that, one of the buildings from 1780 is still there and the description follows that the line is four feet distant and parallel to it.?ÿ
I also found two monuments of a prior survey done before 1970.
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Send them copies of Brown's Evidence and Procedures for Boundary Location?ÿand Wattles' Writing Legal Descriptions.
You've got an inexperienced person you're dealing with. Time to do some educating. I run into that kind of stuff all the time. By the time I get them trained to be half way competent, they quit and move on.
Philadelphia lawyers have had a reputation for being smarter than most for at lest 150 years.?ÿ Well, I had one about 25 years ago who was tearing her hair out trying to understand how some hick town could do such stupid things and still exist.?ÿ We were doing an ALTA on a senior living facility where a portion of the overall tract had once been part of an addition to the city named Popular Hills or something close to that.?ÿ Sometime in the 1890's about half of that addition was officially vacated including the associated streets and alleys platted in that portion of the addition.?ÿ However, as the town grew they pretended it had never been vacated.?ÿ Lots were described as :?ÿ Formerly platted as Lots 1,2 and 3 in Block 12 of Popular Hills Addition (since vacated).?ÿ The streets were developed the same as the streets elsewhere and the alleys looked and functioned the same as the alleys elsewhere.?ÿ I was showing access to the rear and one side of the overall tract from these supposedly non-existent streets and alleys because, in fact, that access existed
My answers to her questions did not fit the little checkoff boxes she had in front of her.?ÿ Her "i's" weren't getting dotted and her "t's" weren't getting crossed.?ÿ I referred her to the appropriate City officials who might be able to provide some sort of official correspondence on the subject.
P.S.?ÿ Woody Guthrie had an entertaining song about a Philadelphia lawyer.
I just listened to that tune on You Tube after reading your comment. He picked the wrong Hollywood maid.?ÿ
and get copywrite clearance too so more legal genius types dont add to the dog pile on
