2023 Wisconsin Statutes & Annotations › Chapter 70 - General property taxes. › 70.27 - Assessor's plat.

70.27
Assessor's plat.
(1)
Who may order. Whenever any area of platted or unplatted land or land and the buildings, improvements, and fixtures on that land is owned by 2 or more persons in severalty, and when in the judgment of the governing body having jurisdiction, the description of one or more of the different parcels thereof cannot be made sufficiently certain and accurate for the purposes of assessment, taxation, or tax title procedures without noting the correct metes and bounds of the same, or when such gross errors exist in lot measurements or locations that difficulty is encountered in locating new structures, public utilities, or streets, such governing body may cause a plat to be made for such purposes. Such plat shall be called “assessor's plat," and shall plainly define the boundary of each parcel, building, improvement, and fixture, and each street, alley, lane, or roadway, or dedication to public or special use, as such is evidenced by the records of the register of deeds or a court of record. Such plats in cities may be ordered by the city council, in villages by the village board, in towns by the town board, or the county board. A plat or part of a plat included in an assessor's plat shall be deemed vacated to the extent it is included in or altered by an assessor's plat. The actual and necessary costs and expenses of making assessors' plats shall be paid out of the treasury of the city, village, town, or county whose governing body ordered the plat, and all or any part of such cost may be charged to the land, without inclusion of improvements, so platted in the proportion that the last assessed valuation of each parcel bears to the last assessed total valuation of all property included in the assessor's plat, and collected as a special assessment on such property, as provided by s. 66.0703.
(2)
Certification, approval, recording. Such plat, when completed and certified as provided by this section, and when approved by the governing body, shall be acknowledged by the clerk thereof and recorded in the office of the register of deeds. No plat may be recorded in the office of the register of deeds unless it is produced on media that is acceptable to the register of deeds.
(3)
Assessment, taxation, conveyancing.
(a)
Reference to any land or land and the buildings, improvements, and fixtures on that land as the reference appears on a recorded assessor's plat is deemed sufficient for purposes of assessment and taxation. Conveyance may be made by reference to such plat and shall be as effective to pass title to the land so described as it would be if the same premises had been described by metes and bounds. Such plat or record thereof shall be received in evidence in all courts and places as correctly describing the several parcels of land or land and the buildings, improvements, and fixtures on that land therein designated. After an assessor's plat has been made and recorded with the register of deeds as provided by this section, all conveyances of lands or land and the buildings, improvements, and fixtures on that land included in such assessor's plat shall be by reference to such plat. Any instrument dated and acknowledged after September 1, 1955, purporting to convey, mortgage, or otherwise give notice of an interest in land or land and the buildings, improvements, and fixtures on that land that is within or part of an assessor's plat shall describe the affected land by the name of the assessor's plat, lot, block, or outlot.
(b)
Notwithstanding par. (a), lands within an assessor's plat that are divided by a subdivision plat that is prepared, approved and recorded and filed in compliance with ch. 236 or a certified survey map that is prepared and recorded and filed in compliance with s. 236.34 shall be described for all purposes with reference to the subdivision plat or certified survey map, as provided in ss. 236.28 and 236.34 (3).
(4)
Amendments. Amendments or corrections to an assessor's plat may be made at any time by the governing body by recording with the register of deeds a plat of the area affected by such amendment or correction, made and authenticated as provided by this section. It shall not be necessary to refer to any amendment of the plat, but all assessments or instruments wherein any parcel of land or land and the buildings, improvements, and fixtures on that land are described as being in an assessor's plat, shall be construed to mean the assessor's plat of lands or land and the buildings, improvements, and fixtures on that land with its amendments or corrections as it stood on the date of making such assessment or instrument, or such plats may be identified by number. This subsection does not prohibit the division of lands or land and the buildings, improvements, and fixtures on that land that are included in an assessor's plat by subdivision plat, as provided in s. 236.03, or by certified survey map, as provided in s. 236.34.
(5)
Surveys, reconciliations. The surveyor making the plat shall be a professional land surveyor licensed under ch. 443 and shall survey and lay out the boundaries of each parcel, building, improvement, fixture, street, alley, lane, roadway, or dedication to public or private use, according to the records of the register of deeds, and whatever evidence that may be available to show the intent of the buyer and seller, in the chronological order of their conveyance or dedication, and set temporary monuments to show the results of such survey which shall be made permanent upon recording of the plat as provided for in this section. The map shall be at a scale of not more than 100 feet per inch, unless waived in writing by the department of administration under s. 236.20 (2) (L). The owners of record of lands or the land and the buildings, improvements, and fixtures on that land in the plat shall be notified by certified letter mailed to their last-known addresses, in order that they shall have opportunity to examine the map, view the temporary monuments, and make known any disagreement with the boundaries as shown by the temporary monuments. It is the duty of the professional land surveyor making the plat to reconcile any discrepancies that may be revealed so that the plat as certified to the governing body is in conformity with the records of the register of deeds as nearly as is practicable. When boundary lines between adjacent parcels, as evidenced on the ground, are mutually agreed to in writing by the owners of record, those lines shall be the true boundaries for all purposes thereafter, even though they may vary from the metes and bounds descriptions previously of record. Such written agreements shall be recorded in the office of the register of deeds. On every assessor's plat, as certified to the governing body, shall appear the document number of the record and, if given on the record, the volume and page where the record is recorded for the record that contains the metes and bounds description of each parcel, as recorded in the office of the register of deeds, which shall be identified with the number by which such parcel is designated on the plat, except that a lot that has been conveyed or otherwise acquired but upon which no deed is recorded in the office of register of deeds may be shown on an assessor's plat and when so shown shall contain a full metes and bounds description.
(6)
Monuments, plat requirements. The provisions of s. 236.15 as to monuments, and the provisions of s. 236.20 as to form and procedure, insofar as they are applicable to the purposes of assessors' plats, shall apply. Any stake or monument found and accepted as correct by a professional land surveyor laying out an assessor's plat shall be indicated as “stake found" or “monument found" when mapping the plat and such stake or monument shall not be removed or replaced even though it is inconsistent with the standards of s. 236.15.
(7)
Certificate. When completed, the assessor's plat shall be filed with the clerk of the governing body that ordered the plat. On its title page shall appear the sworn certificate of the professional land surveyor who made the plat, which shall state and contain:
(a)
The name of the governing body by whose order the plat was made, and the date of the order.
(b)
A clear and concise description of the land or the land and the buildings, improvements, and fixtures on that land so surveyed and mapped, by government lot, quarter quarter-section, township, range and county, or if located in a city or village or platted area, then according to the plat; otherwise by metes and bounds beginning with some corner marked and established in the United States land survey.
(c)
A statement that the plat is a correct representation of all the exterior boundaries of the land surveyed and each parcel thereof.
(d)
A statement that the professional land surveyor has fully complied with the provisions of this section in filing the same.
(8)
Plat filed with governing body. Within 2 days after the assessor's plat is filed with the governing body, it shall be transmitted to the department of administration by the clerk of the governing body which ordered the plat. The department of administration shall review the plat within 30 days of its receipt. No such plat may be given final approval by the local governing body until the department of administration has certified on the face of the original plat that it complies with the applicable provisions of ss. 236.15 and 236.20. After the plat has been so certified the clerk shall promptly publish a class 3 notice thereof, under ch. 985. The plat shall remain on file in the clerk's office for 30 days after the first publication. At any time within the 30-day period any person or public body having an interest in any lands affected by the plat may bring a suit to have the plat corrected. If no suit is brought within the 30-day period, the plat may be approved by the governing body, and filed for record. If a suit is brought, approval shall be withheld until the suit is decided. The plat shall then be revised in accordance with the decision if necessary, and, without rereferral to the department of administration unless rereferral is ordered by the court. The plat may then be approved by the governing body and filed for record. When so filed the plat shall carry on its face the certificate of the clerk that all provisions of this section have been complied with. When recorded after approval by the governing body, the plat shall have the same effect for all purposes as if it were a land division plat made by the owners in full compliance with ch. 236. Before January 1 of each year, the register of deeds shall notify the town clerks of the recording of any assessors' plats made or amended during the preceding year, affecting lands in their towns.
History:  1977 c. 29 s. 1646 (3); 1979 c. 221, 248, 355, 361; 1983 a. 473; 1987 a. 172; 1989 a. 31, 56; 1991 a. 316; 1995 a. 27 ss. 3361, 3362, 9116 (5); 1997 a. 27, 99; 1999 a. 96; 1999 a. 150 s. 672; 2005 a. 41, 254; 2013 a. 358; 2017 a. 102; 2023 a. 12.
The reference to s. 66.60 [now s. 66.0703] in sub. (1) refers only to the collection procedures; it does not make all of that section apply. Dittner v. Town of Spencer, 55 Wis. 2d 707, 201 N.W.2d 45 (1972).
The division of a lot within an assessor's plat is an amendment of the plat and must be made by following the procedure under this section. Ahlgren v. Pierce County, 198 Wis. 2d 576, 543 N.W.2d 812 (Ct. App. 1995), 95-2088.
The provisions of s. 236.41 relating to vacation of streets are inapplicable to assessors' plats. Once properly filed and recorded, an assessor's plat becomes the operative document of record, and only sections specified in s. 236.03 (2) apply to assessors' plats. Schaetz v. Town of Scott, 222 Wis. 2d 90, 585 N.W.2d 889 (Ct. App. 1998), 98-0841.
Section 236.03 (2) sets forth the “applicable provisions" of ss. 236.15 and 236.20 with which assessors' plats must comply under sub. (8). A determination by the state under sub. (8) that an assessor's plat does not comply with the applicable provisions of ss. 236.15 and 236.20 may be reviewed under ch. 227. 58 Atty. Gen. 198.
The temporary survey monuments required to be set in the field prior to the submission of an assessor's plat for state level review are not made permanent until the recording of the assessor's plat. 59 Atty. Gen. 262.
Section 236.295 does not apply to assessors' plats. The amendment or correction of an assessor's plat under sub. (4) is an exercise of the police power that is accomplished for the same purposes and in the same manner as the original assessor's plat. The governing body involved is not required to conduct a public hearing concerning a proposed amendment or correction to an assessor's plat of record. Other questions concerning the amendment or correction of an assessor's plat are answered. 61 Atty. Gen. 25.