Agenda

Registration:                    8:00 – 8:30 am

Morning Session:             8:30 – 11:45 am

Lunch (On your own):       11:45 am – 12:45 pm

Afternoon Session:           12:45 – 4:30 pm

Understanding Risk In Land Transactions

   Main categories of risk in land transactions
      • Land title risk                       • Boundary survey risk                      • Land use planning risks
   How to identify risks
      • Review of records                • Physical site inspection                  • Field survey
   Common problem areas
      • Encroachments                    • Unauthorized access                      • Invisible easements
      • Natural monuments              • Poor quality surveys                       • Building set-backs
      • Other regulatory boundaries
   How to quantify risk
      • Evaluating your grant deed    • Evaluating your latest survey          • Evaluating property corner history
      • Evaluating chain-of-survey    • Evaluating chain-of-title
      • The role of an ALTA/ACSM Land Title Survey                                • Obtaining a new survey
   Communicating land transaction risks

Reducing Risk In Land Transactions

   Reducing land title risk The surveyors role in preparing/evaluating chain-of-title
   The surveyors role in evaluating a land title report
   The surveyors role in the writing/interpreting the your description
   Dealing with encroachments Reducing boundary survey risk
   Boundary line agreements and lot line adjustments
   The land surveyors role in quiet title actions Replacement of missing monuments
   Marking your parcel boundaries Locating natural monuments
   Locating easements Reducing land use planning risk
   Getting clarification from your local agency Constraining your site design

The Land Surveyor’s Role in Water Boundaries and Riparian Rights

   Understanding water marks
      • Which water mark?              • What water mark?                           • Before man-made changes?
   Understanding meander lines and meander line surveys
   What does navigable really mean?
      • Tidally influenced                 • Support of commerce                       • Navigable in fact/navigable in law
   Different types of water boundaries
      • Fee title                              • Public trust easements                     • Regulatory boundaries
      • Tidelands are special           • Water boundaries and vertical datums
   Riparian water rights and severance

Correcting Land Descriptions

   Should it be done?                       The wrong way to do it                       The right way to do it
   Referencing survey maps in your land descriptions

Types of Easements

   Easement Creation & Maintenance
      • Dedicating/creating easements by map
      • Creating easements by separate instrument
      • Defining easement terms of use
      • Addressing maintenance obligations –
          in easement deeds, other agreements (RMAS), default statutory provisions
   Terminating easements, disputes re: easement usage, etc.
   Obstructing easements Utility rights-of-way
   Current issues involving utility and other easements
   Brief summary of water rights in California
      • Riparian versus appropriative rights
      • Basics of pre-1914 appropriative rights
      • Documenting pre-1914 appropriative rights
      • Understanding and documenting beneficial use
      • State’s new groundwater regulatory regime • Role of state/local agencies
      • Handling water rights in purchase/sale agreements
   Understanding riparian rights, access to surface water, etc.

Credits

California Attorneys
     6.5 CLE Hours

California Engineers &
Land Surveyors
     Non-Credit Continuing Ed.

California Title Insurance
Professionals
     Non-Credit Continuing Ed.

Continuing Education Credit Information

This seminar is open to the public and offers 6.5 CLE hours to California attorneys. HalfMoon Education is an approved CLE provider in California (Provider No. 8370).

This course offers a 6.5 non-credit continuing education opportunity to California professional engineers and land surveyors. It may qualify for mandated continuing education credit in other states. Refer to specific state rules to confirm eligibility.

This event also offers a non-credit continuing education opportunity to California title insurance professionals.

Attendance will be monitored and reported, as required. Attendance certificates will be available after the seminar for most individuals who complete the entire event. Attendance certificates not available at the seminar will be mailed to participants within fifteen business days.

Speakers

Landon Blake

Mapping Department Manager, Hawkins and Associates Engineering, Inc.

Mr. Blake has practiced land surveying throughout central California and western Nevada. He is licensed in both states and is also a certified federal surveyor. He specializes in surveys to support large public works infrastructure projects. He also serves as an expert witness in disputes involving boundary survey or land title issues. He currently works as the Mapping Department manager for Hawkins and Associates in Modesto, California. In his previous positions he worked as the Mapping Department manager for O’Dell Engineering and the assistant surveyor manager for KSN in Stockton, California. Mr. Blake serves as a volunteer on the Land Surveyor Technical Advisory Committee to the California Board for Professional Engineers, Land Surveyors and Geologists. He is currently the president of the California Land Surveyors Association Central Valley Chapter and the vice president of the American Council of Engineering Companies Central California Chapter. Mr. Blake teaches at surveying and GIS events around the Western United States.

Daniel Muller

Gagen McCoy

Partner with Gagen McCoyMr. Muller’s clients include property and business owners, homebuilders, developers, public agencies, and individuals. He has over 20 years’ experience resolving – and litigating, if necessary – a wide array of property and business-related disputes, including matters involving land use, eminent domain/direct condemnation, inverse condemnation (unconstitutional regulatory and physical “takings”), development impact fees and exactions, redevelopment, purchases/sales, easements and boundaries, other municipal/constitutional law issues, as well as probate, will contests, and estate planning disputes. In an era when few cases go to trial, and litigators with trial experience are rare, Mr. Muller’s experience is unusual – and valuable, in allowing him to effectively counsel clients and win in court. Early in his career, he sought increasing litigation responsibility and was given the opportunity to handle dozens of cases from the early pleading and discovery stages, through successful jury and bench trial verdicts.