Fellow called a few weeks back in need of what sounded like a simple little survey to him. He owns two metes and bounds tracts that are side by side. He wants to slice maybe thirty feet off of one and add it to the other. On the surface it does sound simple. Then I read his two deeds. OMG, what kind of fools were involved with creating those disasters?????
So, today I finally hit the courthouse to attempt to sort out how anyone could botch things so miserably. What this normally leads to is working backwards on both tracts plus several others in the same quarter section at least. Sometimes this takes you back over 100 years to sort out who started choppin' up the big block, why and how. After an hour or so I had discovered that once upon a time there was a description for a somewhat rectangular tract something like 695.6 feet by 723 feet in the northwest corner of the quarter section. That is now five metes and bounds tracts that do not agree well with each other. I go back one more transaction and discover the tract is really a quasi-rectangle, it's a goofer. That description says the south line is parallel with an aliquot line that is roughly 724 four feet to the south of my tract's south line instead of being parallel with the north section line. I go back two more transactions only to discover that they do not mention the parallel to the aliquot line thing. Then a couple more transactions and they do mention the aliquot line. Finally, I end up going back to when the entire area was owned by the Town Company in the 1870's. Turns out the first piece chopped out ran parallel with the aliquot line mentioned. The second piece was adjacent to that and parallel as well. Then my piece (the big one that is now five pieces) was sold and the description not only mentions the south line being parallel to the subject aliquot line but differing dimensions are listed on the east and west sides where connection to the north section line was required. Something like 695.6 on the west side and 698.9 on the east side. That makes a difference!!! That's what four hours of research will produce..............the correct solution. Grabbing the first deed you are handed and running with those precise numbers will not mean diddly in this case.
A halfbutt attempt was made by a local surveyor in the early 1970's to find the divide line that the client wants to move eastward by something like 30 feet. He simply laid out a line parallel to the west section line at the specified distance to the east (perpendicular) but didn't set any bars to mark corners. At one end he claimed there was a gap between descriptions based on precise measurements not matching record measurement numbers. At the other end was the screwed up description that still makes no sense. He made no attempt to solve the mystery. He merely did as little as possible to make the client at the time think a real survey had been made.
Here in my part of the world, one generally has to go back to pre Civil War to find a decent description. One recent survey had deeds that were clearly the result of an unrecorded survey circa 1802. No problem, except that two of the original deeds overlapped by 15 feet (200x200 block) but also, building face to building face on the block was 10 feet more than was described. In these cases I tend to believe that the folks who built the houses in 1805 had a pretty good idea of where the lines as originally ran were. Sometimes you just have to follow the trail. Its what I really enjoy about surveying in a city that is nearly 400 years old (394 but who's counting). Try explaining to an attorney in Tulsa why the road in front of your ALTA is variable width when its been in existence prior to written records.
Sent from my SM-G900P using Tapatalk
Holy Cow, post: 428633, member: 50 wrote: So, today I finally hit the courthouse to attempt to sort out how anyone could botch things so miserably.
I guess in PLSSIa where the land transactions are idexed by Twp, Range, and Section it's just as easy to search the public indices as it would be to visit the abstract company?
In most of Texas familiar to me, the visit to the abstract company to rent a look at their plant materials is invariably easier.
Paul D, post: 428662, member: 323 wrote: Try explaining to an attorney in Tulsa why the road in front of your ALTA is variable width when its been in existence prior to written records.
Been there, done that.
[INDENT]Attorney in Tulsa; Please label Pennsylvania Ave as a public right of way.
Surveyor: It's not a right of way. All the streets in the original L'Enfant Plan are fee simple parcels owned by the federal government and maintained through congressional transfers of jurisdiction by the District of Columbia. They are the remainder parcels of the original purchase of land from the Maryland proprietors to establish the federal city.
Attorney in Tulsa; Please label Pennsylvania Ave as a public right of way. [/INDENT]
[USER=136]@James Fleming[/USER]
Well, don't leave us hanging, what was your reply after the second request??????
FL/GA PLS., post: 428688, member: 379 wrote: [USER=136]@James Fleming[/USER]
Well, don't leave us hanging, what was your reply after the second request??????
When I get silly comments I generally just ignore them and submit the final survey the way that the professional whose job it is to prepare said survey (me) thinks it should be done.
[USER=3]@Kent McMillan[/USER]
Yes and no. Missouri abstractors have taken the index books hostage and charge for a looksee. Kansas is wide open. I'm sure other PLSSia types will chime in on this.
Digging deep is a regular practice here. The difference is in the individual surveyors. Some enjoy solving mysteries. Others merely want to declare they are done, grab a paycheck and move on.
What is wonderful is that we can check out the history of the adjoiners while we are checking out the history we absolutely need to have.
Last year about this time, I had a similar dig.
It seemed like a pretty straight forward survey; a 10 acre rectangle cut out of a portion of a larger tract. I visited the property, I read the face deed, I gave a proposal, and the survey began.
My client was the original owner of the lot. Her children had no idea where anything was, and mom was 93 or such. When it was all said and done, the grantor/grantee search yielded about 10 easements granted over the years (many in favor of the remaining lands), and then the adjoiners deeds clued me into an additional "together with" and an "excepting" that happened way prior to their moms ownership.
It ended up being much more than I bargained for, but I feel I tracked everything down and most importantly, did a good job.
