He Thought He Owned Four Lots. He Owned Two.

A long time ago, I had to make one of the hardest phone calls of my career. I had to tell a seller he didn’t own all the property he thought he owned.

It started the way most of my listings start. Before I write a word of marketing, I pull up the county GIS website and look at the aerial with the parcel lines. It’s one of the first things I do, every time.

This seller had four lots. The house sat on them, the yard stretched across them, and as far as he was concerned, all four were his.

The county map said otherwise. Two of the four lots were owned by two other people.

I didn’t call the seller first. I called the Supervisor of Assessments for that county and asked, “Am I reading this right?”

I was.

So then I made the call. I explained there was a problem and that we needed to get it sorted out before we went any further. He was not happy. He was mad when we hung up, and I understood why. Nobody wants to hear that.

He called his son, who happened to be an attorney.

The next day, the seller called me back. He apologized. He said I was right, and that we shouldn’t sell the house until this was cleared up.

We never did sell that house.

Here’s the part that still stuns me.

He bought those four lots using a REALTOR. That REALTOR listed and sold the property without ever looking at the county aerial. The buyer walked into that house believing he owned all of it, and nobody along the way caught it.

That’s not a small miss. That’s somebody’s home.

So is the county map the absolute truth?

No. Not necessarily.

GIS parcel lines are an approximation. They’re drawn from tax maps, and they can be off. Sometimes a little, sometimes more than a little. I’ve seen lines run through the middle of a garage that has sat in the same spot for 50 years. The county map is not a survey, and it’s not a title search.

What actually settles boundaries and ownership is the deed, the legal description, a survey, and the title work. That’s where the real answers live.

But here’s the thing. The county map is free, it’s fast, and it raises the right questions. In this case, it raised a big one. A five-minute look would have caught a problem that a whole transaction missed.

The moral of the story:

Look at what the county has. Understand that it’s approximate. Then use it for what it’s good for, which is spotting the things that deserve a closer look.

If you’re buying, pull up the aerial before you fall in love with the backyard. If you’re selling, look at it before you list, so you’re not getting a phone call like the one I had to make.

And if the map and your memory don’t agree, don’t panic. Just find out why before anybody signs anything.

Happy Bidding!
Kara C. Belcher-Miller