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Legal descriptions on deeds question?


JL Sargent

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I own 3 parcels of land. Each one has a long legal description. Our county uses PPIN #s and Parcel #s for the description when billing me for taxes. Could I use these same #s for the legal description on a simple Quit Claim Deed? If it matters, I want to add my wife's name to these parcels.

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I cannot give legal advice but I am a civil engineer and a real estate attorney and deal with this all of the time. 

 

You need an actual legal.  I like to provide the legal, Assessor's Parcel Number AND a map to record as I like my documents very clean.  If there is a recorded record of survey I also include a reference to that too. 

 

The legals that you have are metes and bounds and will correspond to a survey which is actually very easy to read (even though almost no attorneys can do so).  If you are technically minded you can figure it out (I was never taught, I just looked at documents). 

 

Does your state use title companies?  They can prepare the deed and legal for a minimal cost.  They basically just copy the legal from a previous deed, hopefully an insured transaction.  You also want to pay them to record it as you will likely use an exemption for transfer tax and if you do it yourself, it will get kicked back and become a PITA.

 

One final thing, most (like 98% or more) of attorneys screw this up and I am constantly being brought in to fix recorded documents after the fact.  A title company that handles commercial transactions should be able to get this right.  If they just do residential it is a crap shoot, but a title officer can do this properly if they even look at it. 

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Apparently even our local surveyors can’t read the metes and bounds descriptions very well.

 

I used a free account at deedplots.com to draw up all the lots on my side of the street and discovered an overlap on the back section of my yard.

The vacant lot that is the other party to the overlap was sold this past year and our local surveying company came out to draw everything up

They confirmed that the previous survey had caused the overlap but they also added an extra 8 feet to the width of my property and stuck a corner pin in the middle of my neighbors driveway.

🤦‍♂️

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Thanks for the thoughts on this. With the digital age here, I guess I thought the "newer" description might suffice. I have deeds of course that include the proper legal description on these. I've owned these for a long time, oldest being 30 years. I don't think I need new warranty deeds for my purpose. I could possibly scan the documents into my PC with optical character recognition and proof read it all. Then write a Quit Claim Deed from myself to my wife and me using a combined PDF. 

 

Marvel's idea about asking the courthouse is good. We are a small county. Typically there is no line for example and workers are helpful.

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26 minutes ago, JL Sargent said:

Thanks for the thoughts on this. With the digital age here, I guess I thought the "newer" description might suffice. I have deeds of course that include the proper legal description on these. I've owned these for a long time, oldest being 30 years. I don't think I need new warranty deeds for my purpose. I could possibly scan the documents into my PC with optical character recognition and proof read it all. Then write a Quit Claim Deed from myself to my wife and me using a combined PDF. 

 

Marvel's idea about asking the courthouse is good. We are a small county. Typically there is no line for example and workers are helpful.

 

If you are in a small county, go to the recorder's office and speak to them.  I work in a large city and things must be done in a very specific manner. 

 

They might even accept a parcel number and a reference to a prior deed (Something like:  that certain real property bearing XXX County Assessor's PArcel Number XXX being legally described in that certain Warranty Deed (??) recorded in the Official Records XXX County on _____________ as instrument number XXXXXX)

 

NOT LEGAL ADVICE, PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK :)

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14 hours ago, tigerwoodKhorns said:

The legals that you have are metes and bounds and will correspond to a survey which is actually very easy to read (even though almost no attorneys can do so).  If you are technically minded you can figure it out (I was never taught, I just looked at documents).

Until you learn that you have to read them backwards it will drive you nuts. You start at the end point and trace backwards.

 

if you start at the beginning and hence to this and hence to that sometimes you don’t end up being where you should be.

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7 hours ago, Travis In Austin said:

Until you learn that you have to read them backwards it will drive you nuts. You start at the end point and trace backwards.

 

if you start at the beginning and hence to this and hence to that sometimes you don’t end up being where you should be.

Nice to see another attorney who knows how to do this!  I'm sure you see all of the same mistakes that I see out there when someone just 'copies the legal'

 

Hmm, on metes and bounds I always start at the commencement to the POB then through the courses clockwise as written.  Aliquot part needs to be backwards if you don't know where the property is (only Township, Range and Section). 

 

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8 hours ago, tigerwoodKhorns said:

Nice to see another attorney who knows how to do this!  I'm sure you see all of the same mistakes that I see out there when someone just 'copies the legal'

 

Hmm, on metes and bounds I always start at the commencement to the POB then through the courses clockwise as written.  Aliquot part needs to be backwards if you don't know where the property is (only Township, Range and Section). 

 

The weird vacant lot behind us is in counter clockwise order on the metes and bounds.

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I highly recommend you pay a professional to do it.  Preferably a real estate attorney.  It can't be that expensive AND it prevents you from making errors you never even considered.

 

For example, under Texas law (and maybe the law of your state), a quit claim is NOT a conveyance.  In Texas, we use either a general warranty deed, a special warranty deed, or a deed without warranty (which can also be a gift deed).

 

I see you're in Alabama.  Read this:

 

https://www.theharrisfirmllc.com/propertydeeds/

 

Also, you might actually want to only convey an undivided one half interest, or you might be intending to convey to both of you as joint tenants with right of survivorship.

 

Do yourself a favor and pay a few hundred bucks to make sure it's done right.  Simple screw ups can cause serious issues later.

 

 

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8 minutes ago, tigerwoodKhorns said:

I spend a lot of time talking to other professions to learn more about what they do.  They tell me that ALTA standards require clockwise. 

Every other lot on my street is clockwise.

The last time the surveyors were out here they showed me a copy of the previous survey and it wasn’t right at ALL and it seems to be the source of the overlap. 
 

I took my drawing based off of the deeds available online with me when I went by the survey office to ask for a copy of the most recent survey. I showed it to their office manager and she asked me if I wanted a job.

 

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15 hours ago, tigerwoodKhorns said:

Nice to see another attorney who knows how to do this!  I'm sure you see all of the same mistakes that I see out there when someone just 'copies the legal'

Only because a good friend friend of mine in Las Vegas (we practiced law together for a few years), his grandfather was a surveyor on the dam, when I bought some land in Section 10 to subdivide (I purchased an ALTA (?) policy that guaranteed property lines) and when we were going through City/County to break it down into lots there was this big deal. He said, they are reading it wrong, you start at the end and work backwards (way before GPS). 5 people out there, City planning, Nevada Power, Southwest Gas, etc., etc. Civil Engineers, but not the City surveyor. They say this legal description doesn’t add up, nothing where it’s supposed to be. Mr. Atkin said well, I know it may seem like that but you are reading it wrong. Of course they are all looking at him rolling their eyes. “What do you know about it?” He said “I laid out the entire town of Boulder City when it was a federal preserve to build the dam. 
 

He said just humor him. He started at the end (a pin in the street I think), went through the whole thing. “Well I’ll be darned” was the last word on it.

 

That is where I learned that.

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