Township agrees to partially pick up cost of misfiled deeds
By Kelli Siehl, Staff Writer, The Times
Township officials agreed last week to help residents of Riverside fix an issue with their deeds.
POCOPSON — Riverside homeowners, the Toll Brothers Community located off Route 52 and Pocopson Road will receive financial assistance from the township, after discussions during last week’s Board of Supervisors meeting.
Township officials said they received a letter from the Riverside Homeowners Association asking the township to help pay the bill to fix a misfiling of documents related to the subdivision in January, 2012.
Supervisors’ Chair, Steve Conary said, for instance, “every time there’s ground water in one of the basins, if the history is not attached to the title search, Riverside will have to hire someone to pump it out…if they file, the record will show there was a ground water problem and they won’t have to spend the extra money to have it pumped.” Conary added, “From a township point of view, it won’t affect us one way or the other.”
All three Supervisors agreed the paperwork should be filed correctly to reflect changes and amendments to the community so that when a title search is completed, the correct information is received. But there was disagreement about whether the township should help with paying this cost, which the Riverside HOA estimated to be $1,600.
Vice-Chair, Georgia Brutscher, said she believed the cost should be split between the homes in the development amounting to roughly $15 per household, “it’s their basin, it’s their homeowners, and it wasn’t done properly the first time, so why should the township taxpayers have to pay for this?”
Supervisor Ricki Stumpo said she understood Brustcher’s concern but believes the township should help with the costs, “it’s a gesture of good will, they are residents too, and it will help to get it done once and for all.”
Conary proposed a compromise saying, “if the HOA will properly re-record the exhibit, with all of the changes, then the township would pay for the township engineer and solicitor fees…amounting to a few hundred dollars.”
Brutscher voted against the proposal, saying “as a taxpayer in this township, I do not think its right.”
In other news, Supervisors voted to spend $9,800 to install a new, dual zone heat pump to replace two antiquated systems at the township building on Denton Hollow Road.
Also, supervisors discussed the possibility of trading use rights for township facilities in exchange for upgrades of those facilities, but the general consensus was that the township should pay for the work, so as not to lock township residents out of using the facilities.
Mark Knightly, Director of Public Works and Mike McGann, Chair of the Parks, Recreation and Trails Committee (and Editor/Publisher of The Times) discussed the issue relating to renovations to the Pocopson Park soccer (new nets for the goals) and baseball fields (reskinning the infield). As both had already been planned to be funded by the township, neither said they saw a need to enter into a bartering agreement — and supervisors said they agreed.
Maybe Georgia and the other supervisors that unanimously approved the filing of the exhibit according to the township minutes from November 2011 should bear the cost to re-record the deeds since it is obviously their mistake and not the tax payers’.
Why would the Riverside Homeowners Association ask the township to pay for refiling their deeds? Who misfiled them to begin with? Wouldn’t that be the developer’s issue? I agree with Georgia, the township should not have to pay for this.