It might make reference to tree stumps, fences, rocks, and other ephemeral physical features of the property that were visible at the time but have since moved or vanished. In describing the corners and boundaries of a new parcel that the seller was splitting off from a larger one, a nineteenth or early twentieth century metes and bounds description may be written in an amateurish fashion by today’s standards. County of Sonoma (2003) 29 Cal.4th 990, 1000.) The grantor would simply describe in metes and bounds terms the portion of the larger parcel that he or she was “slicing off” and conveying to the grantee in the deed. County of Sonoma (2008) 165 Cal.App.4th 543, 553 citing Gardner v. Unlike today, landowners could generally subdivide their properties as they saw fit. How Metes & Bounds Description Errors Tend to Come Aboutīefore 1893, the recording of subdivision maps in California was a voluntary act that was only used on occasion for easier identification of lots in deeds of sale. It can be time consuming and costly to cure legal description flaws of this nature, but fortunately property owners are usually not “stuck” with the problem: there are legal and equitable grounds on which to cure flawed legal descriptions that cannot otherwise be voluntarily resolved with cooperative parties through the use of corrective deeds, easements or lot line adjustments. Once discovered, they will usually place an indefinite hold on pending purchase and sale transactions or development projects because the subject parcel(s) cannot be title insured, and because the local jurisdiction will not grant approval to the proposed project until these discrepancies are reconciled and corrected. These types of flawed legal descriptions are most commonly found with parcels that were created before California’s adoption of the Subdivision Map Act in 1893. Other times, a flawed metes and bounds description may leave out portions of a parcel so that it is beset with missing pieces or “holes ” or it may inadvertently leave spaces in between a parcel and an adjacent parcel to create tiny isolated and unusable residual (“orphaned”) parcels that are called gores or gaps.2 Other times still, a metes and bounds description may neglect to provide the parcel with legal ingress or egress to and from a public right-of-way, meaning that the parcel is landlocked. Unless corrected, these types of flawed metes and bounds descriptions can mean that the corners don’t all connect with one another.
When these types of description flaws come to light, they generally cannot be swept under the rug.
Sometimes, these surveys and title reports reveal that the metes and bounds description that define a parcel’s boundary lines contains ambiguities or indecipherable language.1 Other times, the description will make reference to physical monuments or markers that no longer exist (e.g., trees, fences, posts, etc.), or will contain measurement errors or other irregularities that call into question the true location of the parcel’s boundaries.
The developers of some of these projects are commissioning what may be the first land surveys and title reports that the subject parcels have undergone since they were first created, if not the first time ever. Today, many urban infill development projects are melding back together some of the contiguous parcels that were carved out decades ago to create new high-density housing, retail, mixed-use and other contemporary projects. Most real estate parcels in California’s urban areas were carved out of large tracts of what was once agricultural and ranch land in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
0 kommentar(er)
