A zoning administrator’s ruling that a voluntary conveyance of land within the owner’s parcel to the Commonwealth for a road, physically separating the remaining portions of that parcel, did not effect a legal separation of such parcel into two lots, was upheld. Although the property owners did convey the parcel, the Court held that legally separating the noncontiguous portions of the property is not enough to demonstrate a subdivision. The Virginia Supreme Court said that legal separation of property required that the owner, at minimum, duly record a change in the legal description of the retained property either by metes and bounds or by plat. That did not occur, and the owners did not memorialize any intended or desired legal separation of the noncontiguous portion, nor did they record anything to suggest that the property was no longer one unit. Further, the Court noted that the tax records reflected that the property continued to be taxed as one parcel.
W&W Partnership v. Prince William County Board of Zoning Appeals, 2010 WL 653447 (Va. 02/25/2010)
The opinion can be accessed at: http://www.courts.state.va.us/opinions/opnscvwp/1090328.pdf
