Real Estate Legal Description Checker

Real Estate Legal Description Checker analyzes real estate legal description text and flags possible structure, consistency, completeness, and formatting issues before professional review.

It is designed for real estate, title, property research, document intake, due diligence, and pre-review workflows where legal descriptions need a fast structured screening before they are reviewed by a qualified professional.

What this Actor does

This Actor reviews real estate legal description text and returns structured JSON with:

• Likely legal description type
• Confidence score
• Risk level
• Risk score
• Detected legal description components
• Missing components
• Anomaly flags
• Consistency checks
• Approximate closure check for metes-and-bounds descriptions
• Professional review checklist
• Items that cannot be verified from text alone
• Review recommendation

Supported description types

The checker can detect and analyze common real estate legal description formats, including:

• Lot and Block
• Metes and Bounds
• Section / Township / Range
• Condominium / Unit
• Tax Parcel / APN reference
• Street Address reference
• Mixed description structures
• Unknown or unclassified structures

Issues this Actor can flag

The Actor can flag possible issues such as:

• Missing county
• Missing state
• County mismatch
• State mismatch
• Missing lot reference
• Missing block reference
• Missing subdivision or plat name
• Missing unit reference
• Missing section, township, or range
• Missing recording reference
• Missing point of beginning
• Low boundary call count
• Low distance call count
• Low bearing call count
• Possible metes-and-bounds closure issue
• Mixed legal description structures
• Address-only text
• APN or tax parcel-only text
• Placeholder blanks
• Possible OCR or formatting issues
• Ambiguous terms like “more or less,” “part of,” “subject to,” or “unknown”
• Easement or right-of-way language
• Exception or reservation language
• Mineral, water, timber, air, or development rights language
• Restriction, covenant, HOA, zoning, flood, wetland, or setback language

Best use cases

Use this Actor for:

• Real estate document intake
• Title workflow pre-screening
• Property research
• Due diligence support
• Legal description cleanup workflows
• Flagging descriptions before professional review
• Batch review of legal description text
• Building structured JSON from messy legal descriptions
• Detecting possible missing or inconsistent description components

Input

You can analyze a single legal description by entering the description text and optional reference fields.

Example input

{
  "legalDescription": "Lot 12, Block 4, Sunny Acres Subdivision, according to the plat thereof recorded in Plat Book 10, Page 22, Miami-Dade County, Florida.",
  "county": "Miami-Dade",
  "state": "Florida",
  "parcelId": "",
  "propertyAddress": "",
  "documentReference": "",
  "expectedDescriptionType": "Lot and Block"
}

Input fields

Field	Description
legalDescription	The real estate legal description text to analyze
county	Optional expected county for mismatch checks
state	Optional expected state for mismatch checks
parcelId	Optional parcel ID, APN, folio number, or tax parcel number
propertyAddress	Optional property address for reference
documentReference	Optional deed, instrument, title commitment, or file reference
expectedDescriptionType	Optional expected type, such as Lot and Block, Metes and Bounds, Section Township Range, or Condominium

Output

Each result contains a structured legal-description review report.

Output fields

Field	Description
descriptionType	Likely legal description structure
confidence	Confidence score for the detected description type
riskLevel	Low, Medium, or High
riskScore	Numeric risk score from 0 to 100
detectedComponents	Lots, blocks, units, sections, townships, ranges, counties, states, recording references, and other detected parts
missingComponents	Important components that may be missing
anomalyFlags	Possible issues found in the legal description
consistencyChecks	Checks for mixed types, closure estimate, county comparison, state comparison, and parcel/address reference
professionalReviewChecklist	Checklist of items that may need title, legal, survey, or records review
cannotVerifyFromText	Items that require external records or professional review
structuredSummary	Clean summary of detected identifiers and risk
reviewRecommendation	Suggested review priority

Example output

{
  "descriptionType": "Lot and Block",
  "confidence": 96,
  "riskLevel": "Low",
  "riskScore": 0,
  "detectedComponents": {
    "lots": ["12"],
    "blocks": ["4"],
    "subdivisions": ["Sunny Acres Subdivision"],
    "counties": ["Miami-Dade"],
    "states": ["Florida"],
    "recordingReferences": ["Plat Book 10, Page 22"]
  },
  "missingComponents": [],
  "anomalyFlags": [],
  "reviewRecommendation": "No major structure issues were detected from the text, but professional review is still recommended before relying on the description."
}

Example flagged result

{
  "descriptionType": "Metes and Bounds",
  "confidence": 96,
  "riskLevel": "Medium",
  "riskScore": 55,
  "anomalyFlags": [
    {
      "code": "LOW_DISTANCE_CALL_COUNT",
      "severity": "medium",
      "message": "Few distance calls were detected."
    },
    {
      "code": "IMPORTANT_TERM_MORE_OR_LESS",
      "severity": "low",
      "message": "Potentially important qualifier detected: \"more or less\"."
    },
    {
      "code": "IMPORTANT_TERM_UNKNOWN",
      "severity": "high",
      "message": "Potentially important qualifier detected: \"unknown\"."
    }
  ],
  "reviewRecommendation": "Medium-risk flags were found. Review the flagged items before professional review or closing workflow use."
}

API / Standby mode

This Actor is built to work as both a normal Apify Actor and an API-style standby service.

Supported endpoints:

• GET /
• POST /analyze
• POST /batch

Example API request

{
  "legalDescription": "Lot 12, Block 4, Sunny Acres Subdivision, according to the plat thereof recorded in Plat Book 10, Page 22, Miami-Dade County, Florida.",
  "county": "Miami-Dade",
  "state": "Florida",
  "saveToDataset": true
}

What this Actor cannot verify from text alone

Some legal and title issues require external records, survey review, title review, or legal review. This Actor does not verify:

• Ownership or title validity
• Chain of title
• County recording acceptance
• State or county-specific legal sufficiency
• Survey accuracy
• Monument location
• Encroachments
• Boundary disputes
• Parcel or APN match
• Zoning restrictions
• Flood, wetland, or land-use restrictions
• Easement enforceability
• Mineral, water, timber, air, or development rights ownership
• Document signatures, notarization, or recording formalities

Important disclaimer

This Actor flags possible structure, consistency, completeness, and formatting issues for pre-review only. It does not provide legal advice, determine ownership, validate title, validate legal sufficiency, or replace review by an attorney, title professional, surveyor, or other qualified professional.