Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Apparent property line reduction

It's the deed description and a survey that matters. Call me directly at 6192223504.

Re: Apparent property line reduction

I'm not sure how you can determine property lines from a satellite photograph. If there's a question about the actual landmarks of your property, it might be worthwhile to invest in a survey to satisfy yourself that your piece of earth is not shrinking.

Re: Apparent property line reduction

Surveys, not satellite photos, determine legal boundaries.....or, more accurately, legal descriptions contained in deeds dictate legal boundaries, and their location in three-dimensional reality is determined by surveyors working from the legal descriptions.

In increasingly rare situations, the so-called agreed boundary doctrine has been employed by the courts to declare that the legal boundary between two neighboring properties was where the old fence, or the boundary road, had been in place for umpteen decades with everyone's understanding (right or wrong) that that's where the actual deed-description boundary was. Indeed, many older deeds in rural areas make reference to landmarks such as old oak trees, fences, the center line of the abandoned railroad, etc., rather than fixed geospatial concepts such as townships, ranges, meridians, sections and quarters, or even recorded maps. In such cases, the agreed boundaries or the deed descriptions based upon local landmarks will be given legal recognition.

However, in urban settings, or where the deed is written with reference to geodesic rather than landmark delimiters, agreed boundaries, fences, hedges, tree lines and the like will be disregarded in favor of what the deed language and survey instruments show.

If you want to know where your property lines are in any city, or even a rural area where topography and tradition favor surveys, have a licensed surveyour stake it for you.