So tax descriptions. Yeah, whenever we get a new transaction as the title company, we're comparing a number of things within the system. We're looking at the deed that the seller received when they first got the property. We're comparing the vesting.
Yep. We're comparing that to a survey if there is one and then very importantly the tax description that the county shows.
Yeah and this can be a big deal or a little deal sometimes depending on the county. So, walk us through the little details.
Sometimes you just never know why the county thinks the legal description is one versus the other, but when you contact the county it's a simple change. They recognize that there was a typo or something like that other times. It can be a very big deal. The best example we have is we were working at two commercial properties that were next to each other and one buyer came in to buy both properties, but different sellers. Well, when we went to combine the properties we found that there was a sliver of property between them that wasn't recognized by the county and wasn't in the deeds. It was kind of a chance land. So the question is how do we get these tax descriptions? So it's a matter of the title company working with the county working with the sellers doing that kind of thing. The challenge is it's time consuming.
Yeah, depending on the county, if it's a county with a very sophisticated mapping description system. They can accommodate that pretty quickly, but not all counties do and if there's not a survey, typically the survey has to get ordered to see what happened in the chain title. What does the survey say and what does the county have on record?
Exactly. And if the county tax description doesn't match what we're trying to record on the warranty deed the warranty deed will not get recorded. They won't record the warranty. They'll kick that back exactly. So it's something that has to get fixed before you get to closing the other thing where tax distributions come up often is when properties are being split, right? So you'll have a parcel number. Let's say it ends in zero one and they're going to split it into two separate parcel numbers, right? So we have to ask what's the existing?
What does the post split look like typically in a survey? We submit those and the split application or the homeowner does to the county that gets approved. What people have to understand is that the old parcel number will be surrendered, and two new parcel numbers will be issued.
That's exactly right—one for both parcels. So yeah, bottom line if the tax legal description doesn't meet the title, they will not record the warranty deed. It’s an issue that we're going to have to take issue with.
