Over 90% of Listing Agents Insert Faulty Legal Descriptions in MLS

Most listing agents simply copy the "legal description" from an app which contains extraneous information. Does anyone care?

I’ve written about this before, but it bears repeating. As a finicky editor, it has always bothered me that my fellow agents don’t know what is and isn’t a proper legal description.

I analyzed 100 listing on REcolorado, our local MLS, and only 8 of them had a clean legal description. Let me explain.

Most non-rural listings are in a subdivision and are legally described by the name of the subdivision plus the block and lot numbers. But almost every listing agent inserts the “legal description” provided by the Realist report obtained via the MLS. That description also contains the Section, Township, and Range as well as the size of the parcel in addition to the subdivision, block and lot, like this from a recent listing of mine:

SECTION 34 TOWNSHIP 02 RANGE 69 QTR NE SUBDIVISIONCD 138000 SUBDIVISIONNAME CLUB CREST FLG #2 BLOCK 003 LOT 0011 SIZE: 11001 TRACT VALUE: .253

Here is the actual legal description extracted from the above, which the title company inserted in the warranty deed transferring the property to the buyer:

Lot 11, Block 3, Club Crest Filing No. 2, County of Jefferson.

Since the title companies are good at cleaning up the legal subscription, this is not, in the end, a real problem — it just bothers this journalist/editor. There, I got it off my chest!