California Surveyors Forums

I am doing a property survey in Riverside County. The Parcel map dedicated Lots "A" through "G" for public use for street and public utility purposes.

However, the Board of Supervisor's Cert. states "The offers of dedication are hereon and hereby not accepted". What exactly does this mean?

I am thinking it means that the roads still remain public roads, but the County did not accept them under their maintained roads program.

I have attached the Parcel Map to this posting.

Any ideas?

If the road was dedicated, but not accepted by the BOS, then it is still a private road. There is still the possibility that sometime since this map was recorded that this road could've become public.

If at any time the final map is approved, any streets, paths............etc are rejected, subject to Section 771.010 of Code of Civil Procedure, the offer of dedication shall remain open and the legislative body may by resolution at any later date, without further action by the subdivider, rescind its action and accept and open the streets......., which directly benefit the residents of a subdivision, or storm drain easements for publice use, which acceptance shall be recorded in the office of the county recorder.

Sometimes the public entity will reject the offers before the roads are built (liability issues, I think), then accept later after construction is complete by resolution.

The title report of the properties in question may list the resolution, if it was accepted.

Thanks guys. Here's the catch. My client was issued a trespassing ticket for standing in what I believe should be the public road, at least on paper. It actually happened while I was there surveying. The neighbors aren't all that fond of each other.

One road has been graded in about the right location while the other doesn't exist, except on paper. My understanding is that the roads are privately maintained but under the jurisdiction of a community road committee (per my client).

I also know that my client only pays taxes on the net acreage listed on the map, so I wouldn't think anyone owns the road portions in fee.

My question is this: If I am standing on that road, am I on public or private property?

You're on private property. The road dedication still exists. There are a number of cases that speak to the dedications once being made are irrevocable and can only be "erase" throughh a positive action by the BOS to vacate the dedication.

That BOS language is what was used back then. Call Riverside County to get the language for the current statement.

The current version speaks to accepting the vesting rights on behalf of the ublic but not the actual road.

Fun area to work. Watch out for the rattlesnakes, though. It's quite a "snakey" area.

Does the Assessor map show the lettered lots as separate tax parcels. If they are, the original subdividers may still own the fee title to the lettered lots, which also have an easement dedication. Does your clients deed grant him an easement over the lettered lots fo ingress and egress?

The assessor's map shows it as a road. The title report made no mention of any road or easement or dedication. In fact up until my client mentioned something I assumed it was a regular unimproved street.

I am thinking that since the streets are lettered lots, my clients legal only references her parcel, and she is only paying takes on her parcel that the streets shouldn’t be considered private. I think I'll give the county a call.

Oh and Ian, it is "snakey", the 4' rattling kind. Just ask my terrified chainman. Ha Ha, I was sitting on the tailgate of the truck enjoying my coffee, while he was hiking to a corner. In his words "The stick moved!"

Ryan,

Check the counter book maps and the hanging file maps too. If there was an acceptance later it would be noted on there, at least up to the time the County stopped updating those.

OK. I’m at the office, now and have chance to post a bit more on the topic. I’ve dealt with this many times during the time I practiced in Riverside County.

First, the historical context of this situation is the evolving language of BOS statements in Riverside County. The idea was to be able to accept the dedication of the right-of-way and hold that in trust for the people but not to accept the physical structure of the road until such time as the road was built to County standards. The thinking was (and is) to keep the County OFF the hook for construction of new roads in these “minor” subdivision, as they were once called. The example in this thread is one of the earlier attempts by Riverside County that isn’t very satisfactory. The current version of the statement is much more effective. We need to understand the historical context in order to understand the practical effect, today.

Two statutes come to mind that directly affect the proceedings.

First, CC §831: An owner of land bounded by a road or street is presumed to own to the center of the way, but the contrary may be shown.

Even though the lettered parcels are shown on the map as being separate from the number lots, and even though they may have separate tax identities, they are not separate, legal parcels that can be conveyed separately. If the streets are ultimately found to be non-existent, the full ownership of the streets would likely revert to the owners of the lettered lots in accordance with this section of the statutes. (Yes, there are problems with curved streets, etc., but that is beyond the scope of this post.)

Second, CCP §771.010: If a proposal is heretofore or hereafter made to dedicate real property for public improvement, there is a conclusive presumption that the proposed dedication was not accepted if all of the following conditions are satisfied:
(a) The proposal was made by filing a map only.
(b) No acceptance of the dedication was made and recorded within 25 years after the map was filed.
(c) The real property was not used for the purpose for which the dedication was proposed within 25 years after the map was filed.
(d) The real property was sold to a third person after the map was filed and used as if free of the dedication.

Note that (c) does not necessarily mean used as a publicly dedicated road. It means: used as a road. Period. Ryan’s original post indicates that there are multiple owners of the parcels and that he didn’t realize that the road was not properly dedicated. I take this to mean that the parcels were ultimately conveyed to others and that the subsequent owners have been using these parcels as access roads to their property.

In my opinion, the roads are still roads, but they are not public roads. They exist as quasi-easements, if you will, allowing a sort of mutual access and use by the owners of the subdivided parcels. They hold the same status as easements. Could the case for trespass be overturned based on this? Probably.

Anyway, after a couple of weeks of hectic field work and lack of cell phone contact, I get to spend a few days in the office, again. I have a pile of office work to catch up on, including reviewing the resumes I have been sent and setting up interviews.

Carry on Campers! And, thanks to those of you who called me to chat about my first post in this thread! I love our profession and those who act as professionals in it!

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Dedication only involves PUBLIC easement rights. There are still PRIVATE easement rights and my guess would be that an owner of one of the parcels in the subject subdivision would have a right to stand or walk or use in any other manner consistent with quite enjoy of the easement rights that attached to the identified street parcel either by way of necessity or by the terms of the grant shown on the subject subdivision map.

Okay, one more question. If your client is planning on building a wall and gate on the line fronting the unimproved road, do you stake the center of the road or the parcel line? I staked the parcel line probably because that holds the least amount of liability for my client and me, and I'm chicken.

Good move or bad move?

By the way I’ve been complaining about all the commercial surveys we been doing lately. I finally got what seemed to be a straight forward residential survey, and the cops are there within the first 10 minutes. Now back to commercial.

rpost wrote: By the way I’ve been complaining about all the commercial surveys we been doing lately. I finally got what seemed to be a straight forward residential survey, and the cops are there within the first 10 minutes. Now back to commercial.

What is the problem with the PD showing up? It doesn't bother me, unless they start getting in my way. But they will move when politely informed of their faux paux.

This is just my experience but I have seen that people tend to be much more emotionally involved in their residential property. In the case of commercial property they tend to be more dispassionate. If you walk in the office of a commercial property and let them know you need access to the rear they seem to be fine with it as long as you don't interrupt their business operation. I have seen a lot more resistance on getting access in residential properties.

I wonder what the hostile neighbor told the police officers in order to convince them that criminal charges were warranted, especially in the presence of the suspect's professional land surveyor? Normally law enforcement is pretty reluctant to get involved in a situation like you described and typically defer the matter to the civil courts. Also, from a legal standpoint, seems like criminal intent to commit the crime would be difficult to prove if your client had a reasonable belief of legal access to the property in question.

Seems pretty strange to me.

Yep. It's all pretty strange. It was interesting though.

The only time I have seen our local Sheriff's on site is when I call because the upset neighbor threated us with a 24oz hammer.

Ryan,

Did the investigating officers solicit your professional opinion prior to citing your client for trespass? Is the hostile neighbor the mayor? :)

Particularly as to the lettered lots being in the original subdivider.
They may be lettered, but they are really dedicated (whether accepted or not) public streets. That's per the ownership cert.

What's with surveyors wanting to get long gone subdividers back onto the site lately?

See Dave Karoly's mention of the court's "marginal street doctrine" in a recent thread.

I can't remember which jurisdiction, somewhere in Alameda County, but they routinely rejected all offers of dedication on a map. In fact, they wrote it into the clerk's statement, that the offers were rejected, but the city reserved the right to accept the dedications at a later date.

When I asked about it, I was told two things. The city said they don't accept new roads until the improvements are completed and accepted, after which they'd accept it at a later city council meeting.

Alameda County Flood Control did the same thing, and they said it was because of liability. They get all of the benefits of an easement, but none of the liability if someone is injured. I asked if they ever accept the easement, and he said sure, when the land owner threatens to sue to remove the easement.

My suggestion would be to investigate the county road records at public works. They may have an independent record of roads with offer / deed / easement / acceptance information.

Even an irrevocable offer of dedication does not exist in perpituity. There are general guidelines depending on whether it was offered by a map or a deed (usually around 20+ years). And those guidelines can vary depending on jurisdiction.

Secondly, you might want to check the ownership of those small parcels, as it is possible that a local entity now owns it due to a tax sale. Once the local agency declines ownership, it is still a privately owned parcel which should be subject to taxation. Unless the original owner paid the taxes, it is often sold as a tax delinquent parcel. So, it is possible that the County could own fee for the parcel and yet it is still not dedicated as a public road. In that case, whether the local agency vacated the easement that was dedicated on the sub map, they would still own the underlying fee.

But like Ian said, you need to be aware that there are two components to those lettered lots, the fee and the easement that was dedicated by the sub map.

4 parcels is all that can be created with a parcel map. Therefore the lettered objects are not fee title parcels IMO. Also they appear to be part of the gross area of the adjacent parcel.

a parcel map in a while, but I thought for sure that a parcel map could have more than 4 parcels if the parcels were a minimum size of 5 acres or 10 acres or maybe it was 20 acres. And I am not gonna look it up.

I sure thought I drafted one for Fred Crowe LS back in 1970. Maybe it was a dream or bad memory. But then again, maybe I should just stick to lot surveys, monument perpetuations and construction staking and leave the parcel maps to those who know who owns what, at least as far as lettered lots go.

Whoa, everyone! Let’s take a breath.

Ryan’s original post was about a specific map in Riverside County. The parcels are all between 5 and 6 ½ acres with three streets dedicated. No big deal.

The problem comes from the wording of the Board of Supervisor’s Certificate that was used back then (1977).

“THE COUNTY RIVERSIDE, STATE OF CALIFORNIA, BY AND THROUGH ITS ONLY AUTHORIZED OFFICERS HEREBY APPROVES SAID PARCEL MAP. THE OFFERS OF DEDICATION MADE HEREON ARE HEREBY NOT ACCEPTED.”

The idea was that the BOS was not going to accept the roads because the roads weren’t built, or weren’t built to County Road Standards. The BOS did not want to get put on the hook for building these roads. The wording of the certificate was not the greatest. Oh well.

This is not an uncommon problem in Riverside County. As the good folks at the County Surveyor’s office can tell you, I have ended up getting the Board to accept the old dedications of right-of-way in title but decline the acceptance of the road into the County Road System. This happens so often in Riverside County that they have a pretty straight forward procedure and paperwork for handling this.

Not long before I came up to Sacramento, I ended up doing just that for a Parcel Map that butted up against a well-traveled road that actually WAS maintained by the County as an arterial. My survey discovered that the east half of the road had never been “properly” accepted by the BOS. My client ended up being part of the solution. End of Story.

There was no intent by the original subdivider to keep fee title to the roads. What would be the purpose of that? Strips of land 60 feet wide aren’t going to do anyone any good except as roads serving the parcels created by the map.

If the streets HAD been accepted, and later vacated, who do you think would get the land under the streets? The original subdivider? Nope, think again. So, why is this situation any different?

Let’s not try to create trouble where no trouble exists. That’s the corollary to “Cooley’s Dictum”.

The technician does not understand the nuances and is likely to find problems without offering solutions. The professional understands and creates solutions that all parties can live with.

Can anyone from Riverside County Transportation post the wording of the current BOS Certificate to show the difference? Wes? Ken? Anyone?



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http://www.tlma.co.riverside.ca.us/tran ... 202010.pdf

You can see the CO of Riverside BOS statements starting on Page 4 of this PDF.