12.2 Sequential and Simultaneous Conveyances
Key Takeaways
- Sequential conveyances create senior and junior rights: the earlier grantee takes the described land; later grantees take only what the grantor still owned.
- Simultaneous conveyances—lots on one recorded map, equal devises under one will-plan, or parcels in one partition—have equal standing among themselves.
- Excess or deficiency between recovered original block or tract monuments is apportioned proportionally among simultaneous lots; it is not dumped on the end lot.
- An original interior monument stops proration: place the excess or deficiency in the gap where it occurred; do not carry it through an undisturbed original corner.
- On a recorded 300.00-foot four-lot block measured 302.00 feet between original block corners with no original interiors, each 75.00-foot lot becomes 75.50 feet (302.00/300.00 × 75.00).
Sequential and simultaneous conveyances are not two ways to draw the same line. They are two different title machines. Independent OpenExamPrep teaching in this section is built for Domain IV knowledge areas F (simultaneous), G (sequential), and H (junior/senior rights), and for activity IV.4 (assess boundary location conflicts). The California PLS item will often hide the machine in a chain of title: two deeds a decade apart versus four lots on one recorded block. If you pick the wrong machine, you will prorate a senior parcel or freeze a simultaneous lot at record width while original block corners sit two feet apart.
Sequential conveyances create senior and junior rights
A sequential conveyance is a grant out of a parent tract after an earlier grant has already left the grantor. Order of title, not the date you survey, controls. The first grantee is senior. That senior takes the land the senior deed describes, located by the same evidence hierarchy as section 12.1: intent, then monuments, then measurements. The later grantee is junior and takes only what the grantor still owned. Excess in the parent tract stays with the grantor or the junior remainder. Deficiency comes out of the junior remainder. You do not "be fair" by splitting the shortage between senior and junior. Fairness is not a title doctrine.
Worked sequential example. The Jones Tract had a record east-west width of 200.00 feet. In 1988 Grantor conveyed "the easterly 80.00 feet of the Jones Tract" to A. In 1992 Grantor conveyed "the westerly 60.00 feet of the Jones Tract" to B. In 1996 Grantor quitclaimed "all remaining interest in the Jones Tract" to C. You recover original monuments on the east and west lines of the Jones Tract 198.00 feet apart (2.00-foot deficiency).
A is senior as to the east 80.00 feet. Hold 80.00 feet from the east original, using the called direction of that east line. B's 1992 deed was next: 60.00 feet from the west original. C, last in time, takes the remainder: 198.00 − 80.00 − 60.00 = 58.00 feet, not the record remainder of 60.00 feet. C's junior remainder absorbed the 2.00-foot hit. If you prorated 198/200 across all three, you would take land from A and B to subsidize C. That is the sequential trap.
If the 1992 deed had instead said "the westerly 60.00 feet of the remainder of the Jones Tract after the 1988 conveyance," you still locate A's senior 80 first, then B, then C. Junior words that ignore the senior gap still cannot enlarge the grantor's remaining estate.
Simultaneous conveyances stand equal
A simultaneous conveyance is not "two deeds signed on Tuesday." It is a division under one plan so that the lots, parcels, or devises were created to stand together: a recorded lot-and-block subdivision, a will that devises equal shares by a plat, a partition that carves a tract into numbered parcels in one judgment. Among those lots, there is no senior lot and no junior lot. They have equal standing. The original exterior monuments of the block or parent plan control the whole. Interior record distances are a plan, not a set of sequential remainders.
That is why excess and deficiency are apportioned among simultaneous lots between the recovered original monuments that control that frontage. Each lot takes its record width times (measured original-to-original distance divided by record original-to-original distance). The end lot does not eat the entire overage just because it is Lot 24.
Worked numeric excess on a four-lot block
Maple Tract, Block 4, recorded 1924. The north line of the block is shown as 300.00 feet. Lots 1, 2, 3, and 4 run west to east, each 75.00 feet. You recover original stone block corners at the northwest and northeast corners. Your measure between those stones along the block's north line is 302.00 feet. You find no original interior lot corners. Occupation fences sit near the record 75-foot marks but were never called as monuments.
This is simultaneous. Do not give Lot 4 the extra 2.00 feet. Do not hold every lot at 75.00 and create a 2.00-foot gore. Apportion:
- Proration factor = 302.00 / 300.00 = 1.006666...
- Each lot width = 75.00 × 302.00 / 300.00 = 75.50 feet
- Check: 4 × 75.50 = 302.00 feet
Lot 1 begins at the original northwest stone. Lot 4 ends at the original northeast stone. The two-foot excess is in every lot as 0.50 foot.
If the same 302.00-foot block had been created by four sequential metes-and-bounds deeds ("easterly 75 feet," then "easterly 75 feet of the remainder," and so on), the first 75-foot grantee would be senior at 75.00 feet from the called end, and the last remainder would take the leftover 77.00 feet or 73.00 feet depending on which end was senior. Same dirt, opposite math. The exam expects you to read the creation, not only the tape.
Do not prorate through an original interior monument
Apportionment lives only in the gap between controlling original monuments. If you then find an original interior pipe at the record Lot 2/Lot 3 corner, you stop the proration there.
Same Block 4. West original to that interior original measures 151.50 feet (record 150.00). East original is still 302.00 from the west original, so the east gap is 302.00 − 151.50 = 150.50 feet (record 150.00).
- Lots 1 and 2 share the west gap: 151.50 / 150.00 = 1.01. Each is 75.00 × 1.01 = 75.75 feet.
- Lots 3 and 4 share the east gap: 150.50 / 150.00. Each is 75.00 × 150.50 / 150.00 = 75.25 feet.
- Check: 75.75 + 75.75 + 75.25 + 75.25 = 302.00.
The 1.50-foot excess west of the interior original stays west. The 0.50-foot excess east of it stays east. You do not smear 2.00 feet across all four lots after you have found where the original survey actually put the interior corner.
Conflicts that look like proration problems
Activity IV.4 often mixes occupation with simultaneous math. A fence 1.2 feet into Lot 2 does not move a simultaneous lot line if original block corners fix the math. The fence may be an encroachment, evidence of a use, or a lead to an agreed-boundary claim that needs proof of uncertainty plus agreement. It is not a substitute original monument. Conversely, a found original lot-corner pipe that does not match your whole-block proration is not automatically "wrong"—it is a reason to stop prorating through it.
| Question | Sequential | Simultaneous |
|---|---|---|
| How created? | Separate grants over time from a remainder | One plan: map, will, or partition |
| Standing | Senior first; junior takes leftover | Equal standing among the lots |
| Excess in the parent | Stays with grantor or junior remainder | Apportioned among lots between original monuments |
| Deficiency | Comes out of junior remainder | Apportioned the same way |
| Original interior monument | Locates the senior/junior line if it is the called corner | Stops proration; do not carry excess through it |
| Typical California product | Metes-and-bounds remainder deeds | Lot-and-block tract map |
Exam traps
- Treating simultaneous as a requirement that the deeds closed on the same hour rather than that one plan created the lots.
- Reading sequential remainder language ("all remaining") as a prompt to prorate with the senior.
- Holding every simultaneous lot at record width after original block corners measure long or short.
- Dumping the entire excess on the end lot of a recorded block.
- Treating uncalled occupation as an original interior monument that stops or starts proration.
Grantor owns a 200-foot frontage. In 1990 Grantor conveys the easterly 100 feet to A. In 1995 Grantor conveys the westerly 100 feet to B. Today's measure of the parent tract between original end monuments is 196 feet. How should the 4-foot shortage be treated?
A recorded block is shown as 300.00 feet with four lots each 75.00 feet. Original block corners are recovered 302.00 feet apart. No original interior lot corners are found. Under simultaneous-conveyance apportionment, each lot is:
Which statement correctly distinguishes sequential from simultaneous conveyances?