My warranty deed says that the acreage is .44, according to the plat which I have just seen says .044. What needs to be done to correct this? Was I taken?

So what is correct ?

What other type of description does your deed contain? Does it have something called a "metes and bounds" description? That type usually begins with "Beginning at a point..." and goes on to describe the boundaries of the property with degrees, minutes, seconds, feet and inches.

If your deed contains a metes and bounds description then that is the controlling description and you really don't need to change the acreage amount.

If the legal description instead refers to a survey or filed map then the description isn't quite as accurate and should be changed. To correct this you can file a Corrective Deed. To do that you have a deed prepared with the current owners as Grantors and the current owners as Grantees. You copy the rest of the legal description but you add a statement such as "The purpose of this Corrective Deed is to correct the acreage shown in the Deed dated xxxx, from (your seller), as Grantor, to (you), as Grantee. The correct acreage is xxx."

Then you have the Corrective Deed filed in the county clerk or county register's office.

... Was i taken?

Did you buy the land for the purpose in mind of paying so much per acre? If you don't know the difference between 1/2 acre and 1/20th of an acre, I find that difficult to believe.

A square .44 acre would be, as I calculate it, about 140' x 140'
On the other hand, a square .044 acre would be about 43' x 43'.

Major difference.


... To correct this you can file a Corrective Deed. ...

But why bother? What purpose would that serve?

But why bother? What purpose would that serve?

To create an accurate legal description.

To create an accurate legal description.

OP can just as easily do that when he/she sells or mortgages it. Why do it now?

OP can just as easily do that when he/she sells or mortgages it. Why do it now?

Why not do it now? They bear the cost of recording it no matter when they do it.
And we don't know if the OP is going to sell or finance the property. They may choose not to.

Why would you knowingly leave an incorrect deed on record?

...
Why would you knowingly leave an incorrect deed on record?

Because I'm not an obsessive/ compulsive perhaps?

Sounds like the plot is wrong to me, not many lots that small, not near large enough to build anything on.

Because I'm not an obsessive/ compulsive perhaps?

Perhaps. But if I had a client who received an incorrect deed and I left it on record that way, particularly if I didn't know their future intentions for the property, I'd think that would be very poor representation.

Perhaps. But if I had a client who received an incorrect deed and I left it on record that way, particularly if I didn't know their future intentions for the property, I'd think that would be very poor representation.

If I was the lawyer responsible for a typo, I'd want to correct it to. But I don't believe OP said this just happened. Could be the deed was recorded years ago and OP just happened to look at the plat.

But, the actual size of the lot needs to be arrived at. If the size in the deed was copied incorrectly from the plat or from the previous deed, that might be easy to fix. But if the discrepency results from an incorrect survey, we are talking about another survey, probably. That's not cheap, so that's why I asked "why change it now?"