California Surveyors Forums

Given:
1) Five areas (A,B,C,D,E). A is adjacent to B, B is adjacent C, C is adjacent to D, and D is adjacent to E.
2) In 1990, Areas A & B are one lot (AB), Area C is one lot (C), and Areas D & E are one lot (DE).
3) In 1991, A LLA is done through the County via 2 new legal descriptions and a ROS. Resulting in Area A as one lot and Area BC as the other.
4) In 1992, Area C is gift deeded.
5) In 2000, Area D is gift deeded and Area E is grant deeded to seperate owners (grantees) within 24 hours of each other.
5) In 2001, A LLA is done through the County via 2 new legal descriptions. Resulting in Areas BCD as one lot and Area E as the other. (Area A is still off doing its own thing since 1991).
6) Original title company is out of business.
7) All grantors and grantees (above) are not in the picture at this point and unavailable for comment.
8) The County's LLA file on these areas do not provide additional information.

Question:
1) Was Area C conveyed properly in 1992?
2) Were Areas D & E conveyed properly in 2000?

If the question is, were areas C, D & E created in conformance with the Subdivision Map Act, the answer is no. Those 3 transactions look like illegal subdivisions via deed.

None of these transactions involve public agencies?

The initial post indicates the owners of the parcels in question are not of "arms length" lineage.

Question 1 Has the county tax assessor reckognized these parcels since the dates indicated ?
2 Has the tax assessor collected taxes on the parcels as they are described ?

If the answer to the above is yes, and the current owners are NOT of arms length to the creators of these parcels, then there is some substantial legality to these parcels.

What would the government do ? merge ownerships of the parcels ? merge mortgages ? Take the property in a seizure ?

A great way to clean this mess, is with a certificate of compliance.

The other way is for current owners to back sue all of the previous owners, their title companies, the scrivener who wrote the bogus legals and whoever recorded them.

A suit against the assessor may be in order (good luck) for back over taxation, if the parcels were reassessed unjustly. 8^)

No. . . probably the parcels arent quite legal, however, they do stand pretty strong, simply based upon the very laws of the land which govern ownership of property.
I used this same argument last year and proved out the point to the public agency. A certificate of compliance was filed.
One note worthy of mentioning. . . 3 other Surveyors strongly disagreed with my assessment. One of them ended up preparing the documents for the Certificate of compliance. . . . Hows that for loyality ?

"Good"

E Page
Q1: None of the transactions involve public agencies.

goodgps
Q1: According to the county, if a legal description is recorded describing a portion of the senior parcel, the assessor will designate a new APN for this new description. Also, it is not the recorder's responsibility to verify whether or not a description is legal/legitimate.
Q2: The tax assessor has levied taxes upon the new areas. Whether or not they have collected, I do not know.

GQ1
Yes you are correct, it is not the assessors responsibility to certify legals.
Also we've noticed several "assessors" parcels on one piece of property, yet there is only a single parcel description.

I had a client actually "escrow" one of his "assessors" parcels. Title caught it and we streamlined a parcel map before a 1031 exchange expired.

Speaking of title, are there title policies on these "deeded" parcels ? who's insuring title on these ?

If so, this is where your fee monet may come from, as you do parcel map or Cert of compliance.

its nice to be you ?? no ?? 8^)