Missing or incorrect legal descriptions of mortgages can also be critical in insolvency situations. Receivers regularly try to avoid mortgages if they have not been properly registered. Sometimes an omission is noticeable immediately after recording. It`s insignificant, and everyone knows what the description should say. A clarification would help and not significantly alter the document. This would only exacerbate the ambiguous language of the legal description. A remediation certificate contains the information saved about the previously registered (erroneous) certificate. He notes the error and the exact legal description. The parties may not introduce new names into the document, create other new interests or modify the content of the document. More serious errors such as an incorrect parcel number or a direction that is heading east, when it should have gone west, changing the location of the property, must be corrected by an act of correction. This is essentially a repetition of the original forged document. Buyers and sellers must sign a newly prepared correction document that lists the correct legal description.
The correction certificate indicates the dates of registration of the original document to be corrected and the error that occurred. If a correction document is difficult to obtain, for example if the seller is deceased or does not cooperate, or if the error has occurred several times in several deeds and the required signatories are unknown or cannot be found, a court order may be required. After several years of litigation, the Court of Appeal reviewed the original judgment for the securities company and editorial counsel, as well as a final judgment establishing a privilege for the tax office. Due to its error in the legal description of the property, the title company paid several thousand dollars to correct the error. The securities company and the lawyer also paid the additional costs of defending the lawsuit. Corrective actions are limited in the errors they perfect. Minor errors such as misspelled or incomplete names and omission of marital status can be corrected using a corrective certificate or affidavit from the author. In other cases, some states require a new document to be registered for clerical errors, major problems such as incorrect legal description, adjustment of the amount of consideration, and addition or deletion of names. What can the buyer do if a real estate deed contains a false legal description of the property? Maybe it describes the wrong plot or doesn`t reflect all the land purchased at the time of sale. Download the correct form, depending on the condition where the property is located and the requirements of that state for acts of correction.
For example, the wrong lot, as in the case of the unfortunate veteran, or a description that indicates the wrong direction of the compass and thus changes the property boundaries, cannot be corrected by an affidavit of correction. The document must be replaced by a correction document. In order to reform or amend an instrument, the parties to the document must file a lawsuit in a district court asking the court to “fix” the document by making a judgment or order stating the original intent of the parties and what must be legally changed. If all efforts to resolve the issue by agreement between the parties have failed, you can file a lawsuit known as a “deed reform action.” They will present the judge with evidence that the problem was caused by an error in the description of the property. If the judge rules in your favour, he or she can ask the clerk of the court to sign a corrective or reform document that resolves the problem. It is important to check the address and legal description of the property before signing a deed of closure of the escrow account, as an error can sometimes occur. It is easy for your trustee to print a corrected copy for your signature. However, if you only discover the error after it has already been recorded, even years later, there is always a way to get it right by filing a certificate of verification or an affidavit from a scribe. Marie Murdock has been in the legal and title insurance industry for over 25 years. Murdock was first published in print in 1979 and has been writing articles online since mid-2010. His articles have been published on LegalZoom and various other websites. The ATG has seen a significant increase in the number of requests processed for documents submitted with an incorrect legal description or without a legal description.
The increase is related to the increase in seizure operations. An incorrect legal description or lack of a legal description should never occur when the mortgage debtor makes the mortgage payments. However, when a lender reviews a file because the mortgage debtor is late, this type of error is more likely to be detected. The transfer of real estate from the seller to the buyer is often a complicated transaction. Although many people carefully review and revise the necessary final documents, mistakes still occur. The incorrect legal description of the property has led to long-term litigation for buyers and sellers. Although Texas Property Code Section 5.027-031 permits the correction of errors, all parties are generally required to agree to material changes. Spelling mistakes are usually corrected with little effort. However, if one party does not agree, sometimes very costly problems arise.
If the legal description is incorrect or missing, the document must be corrected and re-registered. This usually includes obtaining a certified copy and then paying for readmission. The good news is that these are relatively inexpensive claims that can usually be resolved for around $100. The bad news is the volume with which these claims are received: ATG usually receives at least one of these claims each week. Please compare your legal description with the legal description of the obligation. If the legal description does not appear on the front of the document, make sure a legal description is attached. We see a lot of mortgages with the words “legal description attached,” and there are none. One of these post-completion issues that can arise is an error in the registered deed. There are several examples of what constitutes an error in the saved document; One of the most common is an error in the legal description of the transferred property.
An incorrect legal description attached to a document will result in the inaccuracy of the registered document and affect the chain of ownership. Some examples of false legal description in a registered deed include, but are not limited to, an incorrect request in the legal description of the transferred property, an incorrect lot number in a plated legal description, or an incorrect reference to the flat book. However, the good news is that it can be corrected by taking the necessary corrective measures. Minor errors found in legal descriptions can be corrected by a notice of cure registered in the county public record. The legal description may be “Northeast” when it should have been “North”. Errors found in waiver deeds or deeds containing boundary descriptions are corrected by recording correction deeds that inform real estate professionals of a previous but minor problem in the transfer instrument. If an error in the legal description is revealed, the remedies will depend on the nature of the error. Is this a typo? Or is it a matter of substance? Similar to the silent title action, the Reformation trial is considered a last resort when all other means of remedying a problem affecting real estate have been exhausted.
Usually, this action is conducted in conjunction with another judicial measure such as foreclosure to lift the clouds on a security before repossessing a property in default. Correcting misdescription and resolving the problems they cause can be a sensitive area of real estate law. You can protect yourself as a homeowner by knowing what mistakes to look out for and how to react if you notice one. If you intend to purchase lot 5 of a subdivision, but the description of your deed says “Lot 6”, you may not have ownership of lot 5 until the problem is resolved. If you intended to buy lots 5 and 6, but your certificate only mentions lot 5, you only have one of the lots you wanted to buy. Legal descriptions are especially important in a real estate transaction because they dictate which property will be sold. An incorrect legal description on the deed is usually also found on the mortgage, because it is created at the same time and the information is simply implemented. Correcting a legal description may involve additional steps beyond what is discussed here.
A defective document cannot only be re-registered with the correct new legal description or provided with information after execution. In Connelly v. Smith, 97 So.2d 865 (Fla.3d DCA 1957), the section, the community and the area were omitted from the legal description of the transferred property. The beneficiary of this transaction inserted the section, municipality and zone after the deed was signed and delivered, and then registered the deed again. The court found that the legal description in the original document was insufficient and that the voluntary insertion of information in the legal description by the beneficiary after performance and delivery had no effect. There are circumstances in which a deed provides for an incorrect valuation of the land included in a real estate transaction or defines the wrong property entirely. These errors can occur as remnants of obsolete measurement techniques or as a result of gross negligence.
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