Title Company Re-write II

I want to thank whoever posted this comment and I also want to thank them for actually taking the time to ask and learn something.
I really got a lot out of this post, it puts things in perspective from the eyes of a title agent.
Please read.

"Anonymous said...

I too, have had a lot of bad experiences with title company rewrites. At one seminar I attended, there was a nice gentleman, a title examiner, who I have a lot of respect for, and I approached him with the, "How come you guys always rewrite our descriptions."

He explained. Not ALL descriptions get rewritten. Generally, new parcel descriptions prepared by surveyors aren't. Generally, that is.

He further explained that when a surveyor writes a new description that is part of a parent parcel, CITE the reference to the original description ("A part of that parcel of land as described in . . ."). That way, it tells the title examiner exactly what your intentions are right up front. Also, if you have a tie to a record line, call that out as well (". . . to a half inch rebar with plastic cap stamped ABC, accepted as the southeast corner of that parcel as described in a deed recorded in . . ."
Again, this tells the title examiner exactly what your intentions are.

I discussed the point of calling out a line as defined by two existing monuments and why that was better, in a surveyor's eyes than just calling out a line without any monument references.

He explained that yes, calling for the monuments AND the record line you are saying the monuments define is a sure-fire way of telling the title person that, "Hey, here's the record line and it is defined be the location of these two monuments."

Then, he explained something to me that I had never considered. He said from a title examiner's point of view, when they have an original description that they have previously insured title on, it's gold (or should be in a perfect world). Now, take it one step further and say the north line of this parcel has a deed call for "EAST a distance of 100 feet."
A new survey is done to split off a piece from the parent parcel and uses the found monuments on the north line to define it's location, but does not call out for these monuments to define the deed line location. And, because we always have a difference between record and measured, that line is now called out as "North 89 degrees 55 minutes East a distance of 100.05 feet to a found half inch rebar."

From a title examiner's viewpoint, since a call wasn't made to the deed line or some statement added like "accepted as the northeast corner of . . ." WE have just created an overlap or gap.

There is now a 5 minute angle between the original deed line and also a .05' excess onto the next parcel, so from a title examiner's point of view, do they insure title to this new parcel knowing there's a potential for the discrepancy?

I think most of us are on board with calling for found or set monuments and we understand why that's important, but after hearing this guy's take on it, I gained a whole new perspective and in addition to that, started writing my descriptions in a whole new way that make them as bulletproof as I possibly can.

This guy wasn't saying he knew a better way of writing descriptions (although I have had many a fight with title people who felt they could!). He was merely saying there are other ways of looking at deed descriptions. In retrospect, I have a lot of respect for this gentleman's integrity. He was doing his job and also gave ME an education."