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Required Plat Certificates
Approval Certificates are generally required and identified by specific jurisdictions.
Currently, Plats that are submitted to the County Surveyor’s office are supposed to be ready to record. That means that all of the certificates should be signed. However, certain issues with approval signatures virtually guarantee that three of the required approvals will not be signed at the time of submittal. The following list shows what we look for in ALL certificates.
Review
· Is the seal and signature original?
· Is the seal in Black permanent ink? Very dark blue has been accepted in the past, only if it is dark and dense enough that a digital scanner can read it, or a blue line can be clearly made of it. Light blue, red and green are not accepted.
· Are the appropriate jurisdiction approvals on the plat? If the project were in one of the cities, why would the Certificate of Approval of County Commissioners be on it? Only the required certificates should be on the plat. Simply ‘crossing out’ the certificate on the page tends to highlight a lack of planning.
· Certain certificates require the signer to “certify”, while other certificates require “acceptance and approval”. Depending on the certificate, the keywords “certify” or “acceptance and approval” should be in the certificate. Legal staff can argue about this subject for hours. However, Idaho State Code requires signers to ‘certify’ certain items. If ‘certify’ is not in the wording of the certificate, it will probably not be accepted.
· Is the certificate correct for the jurisdiction? One can only wonder why a city engineer signed a certificate that clearly stated it was for another jurisdiction miles away from their city limits. Read the Certificate!
· Does the signature really look like the last signature that was submitted from that particular jurisdiction? And yes, we have been known to verify that they really signed the plat. It is not often that the signers of the plat mis-spell their own name.
Some really entertaining typographical errors have been found. Some have been “overlooked”. After all, the signers should really be reading what they sign.
Required Plat Certificates
Approval Certificates are generally required and identified by specific jurisdictions.
Currently, Plats that are submitted to the County Surveyor’s office are supposed to be ready to record. That means that all of the certificates should be signed. However, certain issues with approval signatures virtually guarantee that three of the required approvals will not be signed at the time of submittal. The following list shows what we look for in ALL certificates.
Review
· Is the seal and signature original?
· Is the seal in Black permanent ink? Very dark blue has been accepted in the past, only if it is dark and dense enough that a digital scanner can read it, or a blue line can be clearly made of it. Light blue, red and green are not accepted.
· Are the appropriate jurisdiction approvals on the plat? If the project were in one of the cities, why would the Certificate of Approval of County Commissioners be on it? Only the required certificates should be on the plat. Simply ‘crossing out’ the certificate on the page tends to highlight a lack of planning.
· Certain certificates require the signer to “certify”, while other certificates require “acceptance and approval”. Depending on the certificate, the keywords “certify” or “acceptance and approval” should be in the certificate. Legal staff can argue about this subject for hours. However, Idaho State Code requires signers to ‘certify’ certain items. If ‘certify’ is not in the wording of the certificate, it will probably not be accepted.
· Is the certificate correct for the jurisdiction? One can only wonder why a city engineer signed a certificate that clearly stated it was for another jurisdiction miles away from their city limits. Read the Certificate!
· Does the signature really look like the last signature that was submitted from that particular jurisdiction? And yes, we have been known to verify that they really signed the plat. It is not often that the signers of the plat mis-spell their own name.
Some really entertaining typographical errors have been found. Some have been “overlooked”. After all, the signers should really be reading what they sign.
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