California Surveyors Forums

I have come across a situation which I could use some assistance. A Certificate of Approval of Lot-Line Adjustment was recorded several years ago. It has now been disclosed that there is an error in the description. The original surveyor has graciously rewritten the description for the purposes of a Correction Deed. The Deed Form is titled Correction Deed and looks like a standard Grant Deed; Grantor, Grantee, see Exhibit…, etc. Since the original document was recorded as a Certificate of Approval, where nothing was deeded (conveyed), what is the appropriate “Deed Formâ€￾ (cover page) for a correction to a LLA?

Sounds like time for an amended LLA plat.

In this neck of the woods, LLA's are done by a Certificate of Approval of Lot-Line Adjustment (CALLA) which is recorded. Within the document is typically an Exhibit A, which describes the parcels prior to adjustment, Exhibit B, which describes the parcels after adjustment, and Exhibit C, which is a plat. Thus, to amend the plat, as you suggest, means amending (correcting) the CALLA.

There should have been a deed or deeds recorded to "complete" the lot line adjustment. Since there is no change in title based upon a Certificate of Lot Line Adjustment, are you sure that is what you want to correct/amend?

If deeds were never exchanged, then the LLA was never completed. A Certificate of Approval is just that and is not the culmination of an LLA. It merely says "Go ahead, we approve".

A Certificate of Approval cannot act as an instrument of conveyance unless it has all of the aspects of an instrument of conveyance, and without the conveyances which separate portions of lots and attach them to adjacent lots, there is no LLA. In order to fit the bill, there must be terms of conveyance from each party separating land from their lot, terms of acceptance, mention of consideration, signatures of the conveying parties...

Do these CAs have all the required elements of an instrument of conveyance or does Modesto have a bunch of incomplete LLAs on the books?

Lot Line Adjustment (or Certificate of Approval as Evan has called them. That is what they are.) And has not required that the deeds be recorded as part of the approval process. They are not instruments of conveyance.

And Yes, the City (and Stanislaus County also) have incomplete LLA's floating around.

Some local Surveyors push for deeds and require Title Company involvement in a LLA, some don't.

Guess which ones are cheaper and do most of the Lot Line Adjustments.

In this case, the parcels are owned by one individual and it is for a Parcel Merger. LLA's are the way mergers are done here.

As a note, CALLA's have the following verbiage on the cover page:
"Approval of the lot-line adjustment does not in itself transfer the title of the land. A separate deed will have to be recorded by the property owners to affect the actual transfer of title."

With one owner, does one need to transfer title to oneself? I think that is rhetorical, but maybe not.

Why don't you just have them record an AMENDED Certificate of Approval of Lot-Line Adjustment with the new description and some verbage stating the reason for the amendment if that is allowable by your local regulations.

Or require the property owner to redo the whole process. The property owner can go after the person who wrote the bad description to foot the bill.

David Lanphear wrote:
Or require the property owner to redo the whole process. The property owner can go after the person who wrote the bad description to foot the bill.

Good luck at that. Let me know how this works out. It will NOT happen this way.

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So you are doing a Merger here? How are you involved after a couple years from the LLA? If a new Deed was never recorded to finalize the merger, you may have to record a Certificate of Compliance to correct and finalize the LLA. I would check with the title company, since a couple years has past.

Some jurisdictions put a time limit on a LLA to finalize the process to transfer title, or the LLA is no longer valid.

Keith,
We are the jurisdiction, thus, we can "make the rules" or ignore them in a matter of speaking.