Assessor’s Parcel Numbers are normally included within the authorized description of a deed. However that doesn’t at all times work; there are occasions when the APNs don’t precisely describe the person parcel. The assessor’s workplace doesn’t essentially observe the subdivision map in assigned APNs. Events don’t essentially have the Assessors map to seek advice from and this results in confusion in what’s being conveyed (or insured by the title insurer!).
This can be why use of an APN in a summons revealed in a quiet title motion shouldn’t be ample. This drawback was identified in a current case the place some deeds included a metes and bounds description (Metes and bounds are the boundaries of a parcel of actual property that recognized by its pure landmarks and measurements), plus APNs. The APN included space that’s not inside the metes and bounds description. One get together mentioned I personal all of it, and the opposite mentioned no.
In XPO Logistics Freight, Inc. v. Hayward Property, LLC, a big property was subdivided into 4 parcels in a recorded parcel map. However earlier than that, the County Assessor divided the property for (tax functions) into three parcels with separate APNs proven on an unrecorded assessor’s map. As three numbers had been tacked onto 4 parcels, utilizing an APN doesn’t establish a selected subdivided lot. There have been plenty of subsequent transactions, leading to a dispute about what was truly conveyed. Some authorized descriptions of the property conveyed included a metes and bounds description plus APNs.
The courtroom first famous that the Income & Taxation code supplies that if a deed is recorded in a county with an APN-notation requirement, and the deed bears APN notations referring to an unrecorded assessor’s map, these APN notations is probably not handled as a part of the deed’s authorized description of the parcel conveyed (R&T sections 327 and 11911.1) until the face of the deed clearly signifies such an intention.
One of many events needed to make use of extrinsic proof to show what property was conveyed. Extrinsic proof is proof referring to a contract however not showing on the 4 corners of the contract as a result of it comes from different sources involving the setting by which the events negotiated the contract.
A deed is a contract topic to all common guidelines of contract interpretation. (Pear v. Metropolis and County of San Francisco (2021) 67 Cal.App.fifth 61, 70) Below these guidelines, “the check of admissibility of extrinsic proof to clarify the which means of a written instrument shouldn’t be whether or not [the instrument] seems to the courtroom to be plain and unambiguous on its face, however whether or not the supplied proof is related to show a which means to which the language of the instrument within reason inclined.”
The trial courtroom discovered that the title paperwork weren’t ambiguous in order to allow resort to extrinsic proof: “[Hayward] contends that the [deeds] had been ambiguous as a result of they referred to the [APNs] for the property. However [APNs] are created to be used by the assessor in assessing property taxes; they don’t seem to be related to points regarding the alienation of actual property.” The inclusion of the APN reference doesn’t itself create an ambiguity.
Thus, the APN references on the 1998 deed and the 2002 chapter authorized description have to be construed as APN notations included for tax functions in compliance with the R&T Code and can’t be learn as a part of the authorized description of the property conveyed.
R&T Code part 327 supplies that if, as right here, an assessor’s map is unrecorded, “land shall not be described in any deed or conveyance by a reference to [that] map.” But when, as right here, a county imposes a documentary switch tax, R&T Code part 11911.1 authorizes the county to require that every deed or conveyance “shall have famous upon it the tax roll parcel quantity,” although such notations “won’t be proof of title” and shall be ruled, in case of battle, by “the said authorized description.”
The courtroom concluded that the APN references on the 1998 deed and the 2002 chapter authorized description have to be construed as APN notations included for tax functions in compliance with the R&T Code, and can’t be learn as a part of the authorized description of the property conveyed. The metes and bounds description was all that was conveyed.
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