Gap or no Gap - Case Law

[Elias French]

I agree that in this case 40 acres minus 30 minus 10 meant the whole parcel was conveyed.

[E_Page]

I've been searching for useful case law on the matter with mixed results. Some of what I've found was using the search term "strips and gores". I found nothing in CA cases, but several from some eastern states.

While the strips & gores doctrine seems to have been applied most often to the question of whether the underlying fee of streets and alleys within subdivided lands is attached to the fee of the adjacent lots, the basic principle most often stated should be as much or perhaps even more applicable to supposed gaps between described parcels.

Here's how it is explained in a couple of cases I found:

Cantley v. Gulf Production Co., 135 Tex. 339, 143 S.W.2d 912, 915 (1940)
"It is well known that separate ownership of long narrow strips of land, distinct from the land adjoining on each side, is a fruitful source of litigation and disputes. To avoid this source of contention, it is presumed that a grantor has no intention of reserving a fee in a narrow strip of land adjoining the land conveyed when it ceases to be of use to him, unless such fee is clearly reserved. The reason for the rule is obvious. Where it appears that a grantor has conveyed all land owned by him adjoining a narrow strip of land that has ceased to be of any benefit or importance to him, the presumption is that the grantor intended to include such strip in such conveyance; unless it clearly appears in the deed, by plain and specific language, that the grantor intended to reserve the strip.

Strayhorn v. Jones, 300 SW 2d 623 - Tex: Supreme Court 1957
[It] is against public policy to leave title of a long narrow strip or gore of land in a grantor conveying a larger tract adjoining or surrounding this strip..."