LAND SURVEYING
Part two of a series
PROPERTY LINE ADJUSTMENTS

By Katrina M. Olsen, L.S. 7058

Part two of this series addresses property line adjustments. A property line adjustment alters existing property lines to better fit your needs. It is important to remember that your are not creating any new parcels only changing those which already exist. There will be as many parcels after the adjustment as there were before it. Typically property line adjustments are done to move property lines to match existing fence lines or to allow for better use of the property due to the terrain or other features. You can, however, adjust your property lines for any reason.

The process take approximately ten to twelve weeks. The first step is to get a conference check sheet filled out at Fresno County. You can go down in person to 2220 Tulare Street, Suite A (Street Level) at the corner of Tulare and 'M' Street, or mail your request to: Public Works & Development Services Department, Zoning Counter, 2220 Tulare Street, Sixth Floor, Fresno, CA 93721. You can expect to spend approximately one hour if you go down in person and approximately two weeks for a reply by mail. Make sure you provide them with your Assessors Parcel Number's (APN's) and a description of what you would like to do. The surveyor will need the conference check sheet to prepare his estimate and will often get the check sheet for you as a courtesy. The conference check sheet is used for many different applications and contains important information about your property. For a property line adjustment, you will need to submit the following to the county: copies of a map showing how you want to adjust the property lines, copies of current deeds on the parcels involved, a legal description of the portion of the property to be exchanged, an application form, and a $820.00 check for the review process. The map does not need to be prepare by a licensed professional, but the legal descriptions do. Although the county has handouts listing what kind of information needs to be shown on the map, it may well be worth the additional costs to have a professional take you through the process. Since any and all structures need to be shown on the map, it would be advantages to have a surveyor locate those structures accurately and make all necessary calculation to assure that the property line adjustment is accomplishing what you want. It would be very frustrating to put a lot of your time and money into adjusting a property line ten feet only to later find out that you should have adjusted it twelve feet.

Occasionally a variance is required in order to do a property line adjustment. A variance allows you to do something which is not in conformance with the zoning ordinance such as parcel size. If you are changing the area of the existing parcels to be less than zoning allows you will need a variance with a few exceptions. If a variance is required the cost is approximately $3,200.00 and it would have been listed on the conference check sheet.

Once the county has approved your application for the property line adjustment, deeds will need to be recorded to change the ownership of the property and any deeds of trusts will need to be modified. After the deeds have been recorded, a title company will need to issue a Lot Book Guarantee which costs approximately $400.  Once the county has received the Lot Book Guarantee, they will also need $100 per parcel to prepare and record a Certificate of Compliance for each parcel being adjusted.  Once the Certificates of Compliance are recorded, the process is complete and the property line(s) are adjusted. The new property corners are not required to be set, however, you may choose to have the surveyor do so.  Setting the corners will provide you with the physical location of the new property lines.  As mentioned in part one of this series a Record of Survey map will be required if the new property corners are set.

Katrina M. Olsen is a Licensed Land Surveyor in the State of California and is employed with McPheeters & Associates, Inc.

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