Deed Question regarding survey description

[Henro]

I happened to look at the deed description for a piece of property I have that is one of three that are contiguous, and on one deed now. But they have separate lot and block numbers for tax purposes, since they were originally bought as individual properties adjoining our original piece.

I for some strange reason decided to read the descriptions of each property, and the survey description on one did not seem right, and still doesn't.

Apparently the surveyor or whoever produced the original deed got it wrong, and the four sides do not close back on the original starting point. It is obvious that one side points east when it should point west.

So ASSUMING I got it right, is this something to be concerned about? The property is also called out on the deed by lot and block number. And it is obvious if you change the direction called out for one side then the four sides close and make a rectangle more or less. I should say an enclosed geometric shape, since it is not a rectangle, and not a parallelogram either.

My guess is that I should not worry about it...but what do you guys think, probably knowing more about these things than I do.

 

[Russell King]

I would not worry about it too much (I have a similar issue with the survey of my property).

You could get in touch with the title company and ask them to get it fixed and filed for you since they have a stake in it being correct.

You may want to look into the title insurance documentation and see if there is a statement that covers that error already.

 

[ken erickson]

I would not worry about it too much (I have a similar issue with the survey of my property).

You could get in touch with the title company and ask them to get it fixed and filed for you since they have a stake in it being correct.

You may want to look into the title insurance documentation and see if there is a statement that covers that error already.

As Russel King said , do not worry about it too much , but doing research on your end , and possibly getting it fixed is always a good thing. Do you have independent surveys that show the correct corners also filed with your county's recording office?



And I can tell you this, do not let the engineering company hired by the local phone company to research deeds and easements get away with burying almost a full mile of fiber optic cable without having a legal easement to do it!

 

[GreensvilleJay]

Better get ahold of some kind of 'property lawyer' PDQ ! Here in Ontario, those would have become 'attached' to your house land and now ONE property. If on ONE deed, it may not be possible to sell any of the 3 original properties. HUGE 'can of legal worms'.
I would have expected ONE deed per property but heck lots of things are 'funny', south of the 49th....

 

[Henro]

I don't have title insurance as I just paid cash for the property and did not worry about it at the time. That was about 20 years ago.

I bought if from a Japanese friend that bought it ten years or so before that, when he thought he might end up living in the US and building a house there, but that did not work out. Only bought it because it adjoined our property on the back side. Only 2.2 acres.

My guess is at this point, I will do nothing, and let my heirs worry about it. Might not even mention it to anyone and expect it will go unnoticed by others in the future like it has in the past...

Just wanted to post this and get opinions, as I have little experience in this area and want to be sure just ignoring the situation is not a major mistake.

 

[ken erickson]

I am not lecturing in any way but can tell you a quick story of not buying title insurance and how that can come back to biting you hard in arse.

Purchased a total of 35 land locked acres in a very remote Missouri location that I had ingress and egress via the Mark Twain US forest service roads. Problem came about a decade later when I put it up for sale. The new owner was wise enough to get title insurance. The sale was temporarily halted by the buyers title insurer due to the fact that the Forest Service, at least at that time, do not give legal easements for purposes of ingress and egress. It was implied consent and I , long distance, living in Wis by then, had to reach the right department and the right person to write a letter to the title company explaining this, which when dealing with a Federal dept was quite challenging. In the end, 2 weeks of phone tag etc that letter was finally delivered and accepted to the satisfaction of the title insurer and the sale went thru.

 

[Henro]

Better get ahold of some kind of 'property lawyer' PDQ ! Here in Ontario, those would have become 'attached' to your house land and now ONE property. If on ONE deed, it may not be possible to sell any of the 3 original properties. HUGE 'can of legal worms'.
I would have expected ONE deed per property but heck lots of things are 'funny', south of the 49th....

Originally there was one deed for each property. The properties were put on one deed last year or the year before, for estate planning reasons. Crazy legal sh*t.

No plan to sell any of the property while I am still alive, so that concern is a non issue.

Actually probably a non issue, as from the time this piece of property was subdivided from a larger piece decades ago, no one apparently noticed the error, or if they did, they kept quiet about it...

No doubt things are different here than in what years ago we locally used to refer to as the 51st state...LOL

 

[Henro]

I am not lecturing in any way but can tell you a quick story of not buying title insurance and how that can come back to biting you hard in arse.

Purchased a total of 35 land locked acres in a very remote Missouri location that I had ingress and egress via the Mark Twain US forest service roads. Problem came about a decade later when I put it up for sale. The new owner was wise enough to get title insurance. The sale was temporarily halted by the buyers title insurer due to the fact that the Forest Service, at least at that time, do not give legal easements for purposes of ingress and egress. It was implied consent and I , long distance, living in Wis by then, had to reach the right department and the right person to write a letter to the title company explaining this, which when dealing with a Federal dept was quite challenging. In the end, 2 weeks of phone tag etc that letter was finally delivered and accepted to the satisfaction of the title insurer and the sale went thru.

I don't have a clue about title insurance, but did get it when we bought our original house here.

BUT I think all title insurance covers is the cost of the property to begin with. So no sure it offers much really in this case, as the purchase price was well below what the current market value is.

Not selling though, so I wish the value of the property to be as low as possible, for tax purposes...fortunately, ten years ago on appeal I ended up with very favorable tax assessments. Partly because they we justified, and perhaps a bit because I was a good salesman at the appeal hearing...if a salesman ever talks down price...LOL

 

[fried1765]

Better get ahold of some kind of 'property lawyer' PDQ ! Here in Ontario, those would have become 'attached' to your house land and now ONE property. If on ONE deed, it may not be possible to sell any of the 3 original properties. HUGE 'can of legal worms'.
I would have expected ONE deed per property but heck lots of things are 'funny', south of the 49th....

The government of Canada would likely deport you over such a heinous issue.

 

[ctfjr]

Personally I would get it straigtened out asap.

We bought this house from a friend about 5 months. 5 years previously the owner of the adjacent 12 acres passed away. His children decided to subdivide and sell off lots so they had the property surveyed. This house was straddling the property line.

My friend received a demand letter from an attorney to 'move his house off the property'. Long story short, my friend's title company ponied up mid 6 figure $$$ to buy a strip of land.

Even though we paid cash for this house I took out title insurance.

 

[rc51stierhoff]

Good day.

I guess depending on where you live and the local rules/laws:

1. If it will require a recent survey to transfer the title, it could be an issue for someone (maybe you, maybe not). Some counties and townships require based on years or every other transfer, etc.

2. Or is there any concern whoever has the adjoining property could take advantage? Property line desputes are common. I wonder what their survey says?

3. I guess before I did much of anything I’d check the auditors website and see what they have on record…that’s what you would likely be taxed on, correct?

I’d be more concerned about a property line dispute personally.

Good luck.

 

[GreensvilleJay]

Best ( worst) property horror story happened 3 miles from me(old farm land...). Guy split his 2 acres in half, sells the new lot. It sells fast, and new guy starts to build...excavator digs up a huge friggin 'tile bed'.hmm... that's NOT a tile bed, that's a weeping tile bed !!! It seems original owner, now the next door neighbour, had put HIS house's weeping bed on the 'side lot'...ooopsy... man there was a LOT of stink over that problem.

I still have a headache over the one deed- three properties though. Each property should have it's own deed ( aka title ) ?

 

[torch]

I still have a headache over the one deed- three properties though. Each property should have it's own deed ( aka title ) ?

Here in Ontario, that's called "merged on title" and it's automatic if two (or more) adjacent parcels are acquired by the same owner. If you want to keep them separate, you must have separate ownerships -- eg: lot 1 in your name, lot 2 in your wife's name, lot 3 in your name again, etc.

But (again, here in Ontario) there is a tax advantage to merging title with a lot containing the principle residence -- there's no capital gains tax on a principle residence. If the lots are left separate, then capital gains applies to the additional lots.

 

[fried1765]

Personally I would get it straigtened out asap.

We bought this house from a friend about 5 months. 5 years previously the owner of the adjacent 12 acres passed away. His children decided to subdivide and sell off lots so they had the property surveyed. This house was straddling the property line.

My friend received a demand letter from an attorney to 'move his house off the property'. Long story short, my friend's title company ponied up mid 6 figure $$$ to buy a strip of land.

Even though we paid cash for this house I took out title insurance.

The situation that Henro describes is an obvious written description error.
A line of proper length, but described in the deed as being in the opposite direction.
Thus, the written description does not follow the survey facts on the ground.
It can/should be corrected, but is very obviously a transcript error.
The physical measurements are correct, but there was obvious human error in recording the description.

 

[ajschnitzelbank]

My deed had a similar error where the described shape was not closed.

The lawyer filed a corrective deed for me. Needed to go back two property owners to have them sign papers; I’m not exactly sure why, maybe because that’s when the error occurred in the chain.

Good luck figuring it out. Or good luck hoping nobody ever notices.

 

[DustyRusty]

It is easier to fix it now while you are alive than to leave it for another person to straighten it out after you are gone. Stupid mistakes like that can cause a lot of grief when it comes time to sell the property, and it can greatly affect the value of your estate. Right now it can be fixed reasonably, and might just need an amended title to be filed. Later on, it might require a new survey, and a bond to fix the problem.

 

[TX Chris]

Just curious as you obviously have a clue since you took the time to read the deeds, but are you 100% certain the deed is wrong? I'm not sure what your background is, hence the question. Not too many people out there fully understand metes and bounds or legal property descriptions.

 

[Motion]

I'd start with a surveyor, preferably the one who subdivided the property originally and have him confirm your concerns, additionally I'd suggest having him produce a certified survey showing all improvements, easements, ROW's, utilities, fence rows, etc. Also have him confirm that what you have, matches your tax bills, personally I prefer to have everything on one tax bill.

 

[mikester]

My guess is at this point, I will do nothing, and let my heirs worry about it. Might not even mention it to anyone and expect it will go unnoticed by others in the future like it has in the past...

Sounds like you don't "like" your heirs!

 

[johnjk]

We own multiple parcels that abut each other. We left them as separate parcels due to the ease of selling if needed. We can combine for free but to separate would be charges with survey companies and govt involved. Since we contract farm both parcels we can combine in to one CAUV (current agricultural use valuation) which drives down the taxes on the other parcels, since they touch and have the same owner, they are considered one larger parcel for ag purposes. The analogy our county auditor gave me was he could combine parcels to make one easily, like dumping a glass of milk in to a glass of water but separating them would be like removing all the milk from that water. Your post made me review the supporting documentation on file and it all lines up