California Surveyors Forums

Check this one out, the lower case is me making it generic.

Real property in the City of Springfield, County of Standard, State of The USA, described as follows:

BEGINNING AT THE MOST WESTERLY CORNER OF LOT xx OF dividing SUBDIVISION, AS SHOWN ON THE MAP THEREOF FILED IN VOLUME x OF MAPS AT PAGE xx, STANDARD COUNTY RECORDS; THENCE NORTH 47 DEGREES 39 FEET 17 INCHES EAST, ALONG THE NORTHWESTERLY LINE OF LOT xx, A DISTANCE OF 579.41 TO THE POINT ON THE SOUTHWEST LINE OF main STREET; THENCE SOUTH 42 DEGREES 22 FEET 16 INCHES EAST, ALONG THE SOUTHWEST LINE OF main STREET, A DISTANCE OF 343.56 FEET; THENCE SOUTH 48 DEGREES 47 FEET 30 INCHES WEST, A DISTANCE OF 240.04 FEET; THENCE SOUTH 42 DEGREES 49 FEET 40 INCHES EAST, A DISTANCE OF 12.98 FEET; THENCE SOUTH 48 DEGREES 47 FEET 30 INCHES WEST, A DISTANCE OF 354.75 FEET TO A POINT ON THE NORTHWEST LINE OF THE PROPERTY CONVEYED TO SPRINGFIELD POST NO. 5059, VETERANS OF FOREIGN WARS OF THE UNITED STATES, BY DEED RECORDED month day, year IN BOOK xxxx, PAGE xx AND AS INSTRUMENT NO. xxxxx; THENCE NORTH 42 DEGREES 20 FEET 41 INCHES EAST, ALONG THE NORTHWESTERLY LINE OF LOT xx, A DISTANCE OF 15 FEET TO THE POINT OF BEGINNING.

And not just the minute and second ticks spelled out as feet and inches, the last line is supposed to say “North 42° 20ʹ 41ʺ West, a distance of 345.03 feet to the point of beginning.”

This was used for the last 3 docs recorded for the parcel and a new PTR I just received.

I suppose it's a good thing the person that transcribed the deed 3 transfers ago didn't truncate "to the point of beginning". Sorry, my attempt at dry humor, it truly is a shame running across conveyance language that has been destroyed by uneducated people attempting to elaborate when they should not. I'd explain your findings to the Title Officer, its apparent this is a transcription error, search of chain of title should confirm.

I contacted Title and have not yet heard back.

I have the document that created the original Legal Description. It was a Certificate of LLA. A Record of Survey was also filed with the LLA. The first deed recorded after the LLA/RoS (10 years after) had the incorrect Legal Description.

well, i have seen much worse. It has all of the elements, proper calls, adjoiners, is locatable, surveyable. without the history to determine conflict, i don't have a problem with it. So what if the dms are spelled out, their type writer didn't have symbols, does it really matter? It is a matter of style,

Forget that they spelled out the bearings' minute ticks as "FEET" and the second ticks as "INCHES", the last call "ALONG THE NORTHWESTERLY LINE OF LOT xx" is not even close to being correct and in fact was just plain added by someone for some unknown reason, they probably thought they were "fixing it". Also, the whole thing doesn't close by 343 feet.

I called title today again and still have not heard back.

The parcel has changed hands 3 times with this incorrect description since the LLA/RoS and there is no deed at all for the parcel with the correct description, only the LLA.

Does anybody have any ideas how this could be fixed?

Scott wrote:Does anybody have any ideas how this could be fixed?

I’ve seen deeds filed with no transfer solely to correct erroneous descriptions. If the property is going to be transferred then that’s even better, just change it to reflect the original LLA version. Is anything stopping you from revising the description back to the way it was intended? Clean it up

This is assuming the intent of original conveyance is clear from some other evidence that you have discovered. If the misclosure is that bad then it might require a survey. There are legal mechanisms for deed reformation. Clerical errors are commonplace

Any lawyer or title officer should be able to advise you on this. Land use attorney is preferable

Unfortunately only the current owner(s) can "fix" this... all a surveyor can do is inform and advise. Maybe the owner will understand and care to go the effort and expense.
Scott: Maybe the nature of your assigned task will demand it... dunno

I wonder, do the other properties involved in that same LLA have their title docs borked similarly?
If so I see a marketing opportunity... to Help the group (for a fee).

If a buyer doesn't like what they see in the description . . . would that trigger unmarketable title?

I'll bet if a claim was filed, the industry that screwed it up, (more likely caused by an OCR scan and nobody at the title plant reviewing) . . . might get fixed with a correction deed by the title company?

Title people used to be our profession "cousins" . . . sad to see those good plant people are almost gone . . . and nobody is replacing them.

It may be a shoe we might consider filling in the future.

Carry on and be safe.

Crazy Phil - Surveyor to Recorder

About a year ago I was looking at a policy where the legal description described and encompassed several parcels surrounding my parcel. No exceptions were included in the legal description. The title company was thankful to my alert and happy to fix it.

Not coincidentally I suppose, but the symbol for minutes and seconds of an arc is prime and double prime, i.e. ' and ". Thus, if you replace the prime for feet and double prime for seconds, feet and inches become minutes and seconds. Thankfully it didn't go to triple prime or quadruple prime!

You can maybe reform the deed if the adjoiners are considered.

Good luck!

Found this.

Interesting:
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The prime symbol ′ is commonly used to represent feet (ft), and the double prime ″ is used to represent inches (in). The triple prime ‴ as used in watchmaking represents a ligne (about 2.26 millimetres or 0.089 inches).

Primes are also used for angles. The prime symbol ′ is used for arcminutes (​1⁄60 of a degree), and the double prime ″ for arcseconds (​1⁄60 of an arcminute). As an angular measurement, 3° 5′ 30″ means 3 degrees, 5 arcminutes and 30 arcseconds. In historical astronomical works, the triple prime was used to denote "thirds" (​1⁄60 of an arcsecond) and a quadruple prime ⁗ "fourths" (​1⁄60 of a third of arc), but modern usage has replaced this with decimal values of arcseconds.

The other parcels' descriptions involved with the LLA in all subsequent deeds are all good.