Lot Line Adjustment Filed as Parcel Map

[LS_8750]

How about this scenario:

One owner, two trusts, and three parcel LLA. Citing 66412(d), the City/County records a Notice of Lot Line Adjustment containing legal descriptions and plats for each of the three newly configured parcels . No grant of "adjustment parcels" takes place to give rise to the new configurations. No Parcel map used.

Did recording the Notice of LLA convey title to represent the new parcel configurations?

[Mr. Smith]

The NOTICE by it's self does not effect FEE until
deeds are granted. Most controlling authorities
mandate that the grants take place within a year
or you start all over.

Brian

[LS_8750]

Furthermore, to clarify:

No grant of "adjustment parcels" took place. Following notice of LLA, owner granted to self "final parcel configurations."

Without Parcel Map, does granting to self "final parcel configurations" convey title?

[Ian Wilson]

It depends. What language was used. What documents were recorded? What did the local agency require? How was the Notice of LLA worded? Was the title company involved?

There are too many questions here to pop off answers. The only thing that we can say with certainty is that something happened. It may or may not have been an adjustment of lot lines. It depends upon the practices of the local agency.

In some counties, it is permitted to grant property to oneself in the case of an LLA. In others, it is not allowed. In some areas, a "straw man" is used. In some areas, the Notice is sufficient; the adjusted descriptions will be used on future conveyances.

The problem with §66412(d) is that it is so widely interpreted. Assumptions cannot be made as to the applicability of the statute from one area to the next, even within the same County!

[LS_8750]

Mr. Wilson, your questions are my questions. I am working with an attorney and title officer presently, looking over a LLA that took place a few years ago, involving my four parcel LLA, which prompted these questions.

Ensuring matters involving the earlier LLA are cleared up ahead of time, would my four parcel LLA recorded as a Parcel Map quash such questions in the future?

[Ian Wilson]

Some simplified for of the Parcel Map would solve many of the problems with the varied interpretations of §66412(d).

If language could be developed that would require notarized signatures of owners and beneficiaries or trustees, and signatures of approval of appropriate local agency staff, the Parcel Line Adjustment Map would be the best method. The map would:

● Serve constructive notice of the intent of the adjustment. [SMA §66468]
● Would provide for the approval of beneficiaries or trustees, removing the problems with Trust Deeds not matching ground boundaries. [SMA §66436(a)(2)]
● Would allow agency review. [SMA §66450]
● Would create the new parcels without need for recording of new deeds (although reforming the deeds and trust deeds would be the best path forward).[SMA §66412.7]

The only problem is that the current wording for §66412(d) states that “…No tentative map, parcel map, or final map shall be required as a condition to the approval of a lot line adjustment. The lot line adjustment shall be reflected in a deed, which shall be recorded…”

If anyone would like to try putting together language that would be enable the above without adding more cost, more agency review, or opening the door to onerous conditions, PLEASE! have a go! And send it to me or the Central Office to forward to the Legislative Committee.

[E_Page]

They've essentially been doing that in El Dorado County for several years. As interpreted there (last time I spoke with Rich about it - maybe if he sees this thread, he might chime in), if the LLA is based on field surveyed info, then 8762(b)(5) is automatically triggered and a RS is required regardless of whether the LLA proceeds. Assuming the LLA does proceed, the RS is drawn to reflect the LLA and, last I checked, the review of the map together with the other LLA documents was still less than most counties charge for RS review. That works just fine where the adjusted parcels are not under common ownership.

Where they are under common ownership, rather than submitting a RS, the map submitted is a PM, but the review is limited to the zoning provisions allowed under 66412(d), there are no further requirements of additional dedications and no further exactions that usually come with dividing a parcel through the PM process. And the best part is that the review fee for the map is the same is it is for a RS for LLA. Downright cheap compared to most counties.

If the LLA is completely a paper LLA, then you can do it without a map (other than simple exhibit for Planning Dept.), which works just fine for parcels under separate ownership. But where the parcels are under common ownership, the questions and challenges about conveying to oneself arise. I'm sure there are ways to do it without getting a 3rd party intermediate grantee/grantor involved, but you could also prepare a record data parcel map and get it done at a very reasonable cost - no more, and likely less than it would cost to get an attorney and/or other parties involved.

Unless there's something in the SMA that I'm unaware of, there's nothing that says the county must allow every department that has anything remotely to do with property, infrastructure, or public safety review the map simply because it is a PM. The county can choose to exercise a little common sense and designate a far more streamlined, and far less costly process when using a PM to reflect a LLA. PM for LLA fees (CS and Planning Dept.) = $1000+/-. PM to create new parcels, fees $100,000 and up.

[William Magee]

...

Unless there's something in the SMA that I'm unaware of, there's nothing that says the county must allow every department that has anything remotely to do with property, infrastructure, or public safety review the map simply because it is a PM. The county can choose to exercise a little common sense and designate a far more streamlined, and far less costly process when using a PM to reflect a LLA. ........

SMA 66474 thru 66474.10 dictates some of the necessary review processes. They are not discretionary. There are also triggers elsewhere that may bring in DOT, DOE among other reviews.

[E_Page]

Most of those triggers are relative to proposed development of new parcels. I don't see where it specifies how the reviews are to be made, and in many cases allows for a finding by the legislative body (BoS) that the relevant conditions have been met or are not applicable. In others, the Planning Dept. can limit their review to the minimum required for a PM for new parcels, which is pretty much what is allowed for as to a LLA under 66412(d).

The PM process was intended as a streamlined process by which minor subdivisions could be accomplished. Most, if not all jurisdictions have turned it into a costly process which is almost as onerous as the process for a large development (TM & Final tract Map). If a jurisdiction has found a way to use the process to accomplish something that is primarily a ministerial task, why would you want to insist that they instead make the ministerial task far more difficult by closing that avenue and asserting that the process must be as expensive, time consuming and onerous as the local government is allowed to make it.

Is there a statute that says that a PM cannot be used as the map form to accomplish a LLA?

[William Magee]

At times when I venture out I find that bringing along a mule is most appropriate. Other times, a horse better meets the objective at hand. I suppose there are some who might be fooled by the bandit who paints his mule black and tries to sell it as stallion. I also suppose there are those who might try to use a painted black mule to round up cows.

[E_Page]

Mules, Stallions, Cows... Bull!

Well, that's a fancy way of saying nothing of meaning. Try answering with facts. Who knows, you may even get me to believe that my local county has been doing something they can't do for the past 10 or 15 years.

[PLS9196]

All fee's and bureaucratic review processes aside I'm curious as to why we can accept that a PM can be used as an LLA but the same rules of conveyance for an LLA that is done via PM would not be applicable, I would think that recording of grant deeds to perfect title would be a prudent and simple function to protect all parties involved, perhaps I'm missing something.

[William Magee]

All fee's and bureaucratic review processes aside I'm curious as to why we can accept that a PM can be used as an LLA but the same rules of conveyance for an LLA that is done via PM would not be applicable, I would think that recording of grant deeds to perfect title would be a prudent and simple function to protect all parties involved, perhaps I'm missing something.

Most of the agencies I work in only record grant deeds for the transfer portion and only when the lands involved are under different ownership. Perhaps the legislature intended the LLA process to include regranting of the entire resultant parcels and regardless of whether the parcels were held under common or separate ownership. If it was, that is not how it has been interpreted by the many various agencies.

[William Magee]

Mules, Stallions, Cows... Bull!

Well, that's a fancy way of saying nothing of meaning. Try answering with facts. Who knows, you may even get me to believe that my local county has been doing something they can't do for the past 10 or 15 years.

How rude.

No matter. Still a worthwhile discussion. For debate sake and for example, I recently performed a LLA for a fellow who had 2 parcels, one large and one tiny sliver. The sliver was a remnent of a agency acquisition (exempt from SMA) and was completely unusuable as it was only 7' wide at the widest end. It was a separate legal lot, but undevelopable. I performed a LLA and the result was the owner now had 2 developable lots instead of 1 developable and one worthless lot. This resulted in an increase in burden, however small, on local agency infrastructure, school facilities etc. But as a LLA it was exempt from many of the reviews which may have encumbered the process.
Now say some fellow from El Dorado County tried the same thing. And for arguement's sake lets say I'm part of the El Dorado Do-Gooders Save the Pine Bark Beetle and Barbeque Society. And I catch wind of the atrocity that this fellow is attempting and that instead of the clear as mud LLA process under state law, the evil developer, his henchman surveyor is using the El Dorado County LLA/PM process found under the Black Mule section of their muni code. Being as motivated as any respectable Do-Gooder out there, I seize upon the opportunity and legally challenge the El Dorado Black Mule muni code in an attempt to delay and derail the obviously environmentally devastating project being proposed.

Would I win. Maybe. Maybe not.

[E_Page]

Rude? Perhaps, but I see it as simply being more direct than attempting to veil rudeness in some folksy sounding nonsense. If you want to deride the validity of what I've said, just do it. I've previously accepted and once or twice commented on valid reasons to remain anonymous, but when you attempt to veil your insults in gibberish, or when you continue to do so under the guise of "worthwhile discussion", it begins to raise questions about your character. Are you anonymous for some valid reason, or simply so that your real identity doesn't have to take responsibility for your on-line persona's rudeness and condescending replies?

You describe having recently performed an LLA for someone for the purposes of using a portion of one parcel to increase the size of an adjacent useless parcel, and go on to characterize a surveyor who would do that as some eeevil developer's "henchman". Odd sense of ethics, but I'll leave that for another discussion.

The situation you describe, where a landowner has one parcel that exceeds zoning minimum area and dimensions and an adjacent one that has been rendered useless because of some public taking is a perfect example of the equitable nature of the LLA process and the practicality of using a PM to do it.

First, there is an inarguable sense of injustice that a public agency would leave a landowner with an unusable yet taxable parcel rather than acquiring the full parcel. Suppose that landowner didn't own an adjacent parcel. They are left with nothing more than a tax liability with virtually no remaining market value. Their only options would be 1) continue paying taxes on something they can never use, 2) default on the taxes until the county seizes the land and disposes it at tax sale, 3) try to purchase some property from the adjoiner in order to create a usable parcel, 4) offer to sell it to the adjoiner, who could then merge it with the larger parcel or do an LLA to create 2 usable parcels,

In your scenario, the landowner was fortunate to have owned the adjoining parcel. Prior to the agency acquiring most of the one parcel, leaving the unusable portion, that parcel was presumably a conforming parcel. So the assertion that an LLA that decreases one parcel in order to make the remnant buildable again creates some additional burden on the community infrastructure that didn't previously exist is nothing more than a red herring. The LLA merely restores the developable capacity that previously existed.

And don't lose sight of the fact that the larger of the two parcels was necessarily decreased in size, and thereby decreased to some extent in value in order to restore the remnant parcel to conforming dimensions.

Using a PM as the vehicle to create the desired boundary configuration eliminates the problem of how to get around conveying property to oneself. Suggesting that the legislature did not intend that a party owning adjacent parcels should be able to avail themselves of the LLA process is not even remotely reasonable. If the PM is not used as a vehicle, an owner of two such parcels would have to go through machinations which are convoluted, such as artificially brining in a 3rd party as a go-between grantee/grantor.

Without invoking farm animals as an attempt at an indirect means of casting discredit, please educate me as to why a PM cannot be used in the way I described. What statutes prevent it?

[LS_8750]

Mr. Wilson and Mr. Page, thank you.

In the last week or so, I learned that the LLA that preceded my present four parcel LLA is totally invalid. Nobody followed through to correctly effectuate the earlier LLA. The title company took the whole thing, void as it was, hook line and sinker; parcels were sold, building permits issued, etc. A title fiasco.

I'm disgusted at this point. The law needs to be changed to give guidance to lot line adjustments.

The subject of this thread needs to carry on, so that a solution can be entered into law.

[Anthony Maffia]

I've witnessed the planning departments of three counties file and one city file "notice of approval" for a LLA, and then wash their hands of the matter, without requiring (in one case allowing) deeds to oneself to enter into the chain of title the new legal description. Then an attorney pulls the last deed (!), puts the property into a trust, then the property is sold and title company doesn't catch it, then ....

I'd like to see County Recorders and Planning Directors be brought into the discussion, and procedures and practices standardized state wide.

Also, planners shouldn't be allowed to review legal descriptions or require a metes and bounds description because that was what they were taught in Virginia. If they're not trained or licensed to write legal, they shouldn't review them.

Finally, perhaps BPELSG or the state attorney can compel counties & cities to follow state law. I wish. :)

End of rant.

[LS_8750]

Well, I prepared a four lot "Parcel Map, Being a Lot Line Adjustment" in accordance with this discussion, and with the City's consulting PLS. We worked out a solid approach.

But, the Sonoma County Recorder apparently has a problem with it being labelled as a "Parcel Map". The map does not meet the Recorder's checklist requirements for a parcel map, because it doesn't have:
1. Ownership Title Guarantee, and
2. Certificate of Tax Security by an Authorized Officer.
I don't see how these statements are applicable, or necessary to accomplish the LLA. We have four quitclaim deeds following in with the Map ready to be recorded to effectuate the LLA.

I'm stuck. How might I help the Recorder see the forest through the trees? The City PLS will be contacting the Recorder tomorrow and I would like to help the City PLS in the event that he/she runs into a wall.

Any ideas?

Regards,

[Edward M Reading]

We require all of those in San Luis Obispo County for a LLA PM.

[LS_8750]

It was a mess, but it got done.

The parcel map route proved to be an effective vehicle, which allowed attorneys to create covenants of easements from the map per Gov. Code. Sections 65870 - 65875.

[Dylan Kolstad]

I'm resurrecting this thread as it's on the same topic, though in my case, Humboldt County planning is *requiring* the Parcel Map as a condition of approval of this lot line adjustment. It is not the applicant's choice, excepting as far as wanting to resolve her LLA most quickly and cheaply. The rationale is: The Parcel Map is required due to the quirk in the B-6 zone that requires the subdivision to be the underlying reference for lot size. It appears County Code supersedes the SMA in this case due to the unique situation with the B-6 zone.

I don't object out of hand to the use of a parcel map for a lot line adjustment due to the benefits it carries, but it should be the owner (or surveyor's) choice rather than a requirement. The Humboldt County checking fee for a Parcel Map is $1840 (or more), vs. about $300 for legal description review (plus Record of Survey checking fee appx $300 if applicable), and monumentation requirements for Parcel Maps may require more field survey. As well, the principle of the issue seems important to me, as I fail to see how much clearer the sentence "No tentative map, parcel map, or final map shall be required as a condition of approval to the Lot Line Adjustment" could be.

Anyone have thoughts about whether this is commonplace in other counties?

You can all read Gov't Code 66412 (d). In addition,
Humboldt County Code 325.5-4 states:

325.5-4. DECLARATION OF POLICY.
It is the County policy to provide for the adjustment of property boundaries between contiguous parcels in a manner consistent with State Law.
The Planning Department shall limit its review and approval to a determination of whether or not the parcels resulting from the Lot Line Adjustment will conform to local building and zoning ordinances. The County of Humboldt shall not impose conditions or exactions on its approval of a Lot Line Adjustment except to conform to local zoning and building ordinances, or except to facilitate the relocation of existing utilities, infrastructure or easements. No tentative map, parcel map, or final map shall be required as a condition of approval to the Lot Line Adjustment. The Lot Line Adjustment shall be reflected in a deed and in a Record of Survey or Notice of Lot Line Adjustment which shall be recorded.
This policy reflects a distinction between "subdivision" as defined by State statutes as a type of land division development, and "lot line adjustment" which is not a land division or a development.
EXCEPTION: When parcels being adjusted are held in common ownership, no new deeds shall be required for the purpose of the Lot Line Adjustment
process. A Notice of Lot Line Adjustment shall be required.

and: sentence from the zoning regulations and interpretation quoted to me:

“Building site area as shown on subdivision maps of record. Front, side and rear yards to be not less than B‑4 requirements unless otherwise indicated on the subdivision map of record.”

This means that the minimum parcel size is that shown on the map of record. There will be no subdivision requirements since we are not processing a subdivision. It will be processed like a normal LLA, just as a condition of approval we will need to file a Parcel Map instead of recording Notices of Lot Line Adjustment.

Thanks, Dylan

[hellsangle]

Yes Dylan . . . I had an experience in Marin County that required a Parcel Map as Conditions of Approval for a Lot Line Adjustment (elimination) and voluntary merger.

In 1998 I had a lot line adjustment/merger employing a Record of Survey. It flew. It recorded. Simple. (see attached 1998-M-44)

Much water has passed under the bridge since this was done . . . but I believe Marin County did not have a Voluntary Merger Ordinance at the time. Thus: Parcel Map requirement. (see attached 2007-M-135)

I believe, in some cases, the Parcel Map can be a better product to short-stop future problems (for all the previously mentioned reasons).

And the fees - were astronomical!

Although my examples may not relate to Clark's situation - the County seemed to be looking for exactions and fees.

Phil - Sonoma

[E_Page]

Clark,

I believe that the County can require proof that taxes are up to date and a title guarantee. They could, and many do, require those (at least the taxes) even when no map is required. If the documentation for these things is required anyway, placing the notes on the face of the PM is no real additional burden and doesn't represent any additional substantial action not otherwise required.


Dylan,

Although many jurisdictions get away with stating and enforcing the requirement for a map, they have no authority to unless one of the 8762 triggers is encountered. Therefore, if the LLA can be effected without the need of a field survey (i.e. 2 vacant parcels and moving a common boundary a certain distance such that the resultant common line is parallel to the pre-adjustment common line), then there is no basis for requiring a map for filing, although an exhibit map to show pre- and post-adjustment configurations may be required.

If a field survey is conducted to determine the location(s) of any feature(s) that will be considered to determine the new boundary location, then those features trigger 8762(b)(1) and a RS is then required not because of the LLA directly, but because the boundary location will have been based on the material evidence located by a field survey. Normal review fees for a RS should apply with regard to the map.

In addition, the CS Office has review fees for the descriptions and/or perhaps just an overall fee or per-parcel fee for LLA document review.

I also believe that a County is on thin or non-existent legal ground to charge a greater amount for map review of a PM for an LLA than for a RS for an LLA, because they are then clearly not tying the map requirement to 8762 requirements but instead tying it directly to the LLA, in clear violation of 66412(d).

Since there are no exactions or conditions placed on the PM other than meeting zoning requirements (same as there would be for a LLA shown on an RS, or an LLA not requiring a filed map), there is no additional review required on a LLA PM as compared to a LLA RS, and therefore no justification for a greater review fee.

[Dylan Kolstad]

Thanks Evan. I'm of the same understanding as you as to the bases for Record of Survey filing. I also do not think that is within the County's purview to "require" or enforce either, but rather the Board. My situation wasn't "Record of Survey or Parcel Map" but rather: You must file a Parcel Map. Had there been no field survey for this one, this would be even more unpalatable. The County has since offered a $500 "deposit" for PM checking fee rather than the $1840; $500 is still higher than their R/S checking fee, but I grant your point about the description review fees making costs balance out... On this one project it's not a great burden to make the change, I just hate to see what I see as unlawful county policies become entrenched through acquiescence.

[David Kendall]

Dylan I am with you 100% on this. The review standards for PM are unduly onerous for LLA and they have much more discretion than they do on RS or legal descriptions. Please consider that a path to a $500 Parcel Map review may be a good outcome from this discussion considering the alternative (the last two I've worked on were $5000+). Also the following document may provide some relief, they probably are on thin legal ground hence the price negotiation.

Keep in mind the existence of the Subdivision Waiver Appeals Board (last paragraph). I have never heard of this being used but I would love to see it happen. It's just going to take the perfect storm of conditions for someone to seize the opportunity. After that I'm betting they will quickly and discretely change their ordinance but there is an opportunity for someone.