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For there to be such a huge difference between the Government call of 40 chains and the true distance tells me that the Government contractor did not do his work per the instructions. In a local case it is evident that many of the north and south quarter corners were stubbed in from either the east or the west, whichever was the easiest.
“I changed some elements of the case to get more out of the discussion.”
You also change the answer…facts matter.
-All thoughts my own, except my typos and when I am wrong.“I see you added the 14 chains in your example. The course in the court case was stated as “thence East to the section line between sections 17 and 18” with no distance given. So the real deed had no total east west distance to compare with the government survey. That changes things. The 1950 surveyor should have been looking for some sort of evidence why the POB was an odd distance of 29 chains 30 links east of the quarter corner. 20 chains is one thing, 29 chains 30 links is another.”
Different facts, different answers. Funny thing is, you could have the same facts and a different court and get a different answer.
-All thoughts my own, except my typos and when I am wrong.Different facts, different answers. Funny thing is, you could have the same facts and a different court and get a different answer.
So true. Depends how the case is presented and defended. How many times have we seen the court state they won’t consider a certain legal principal because they weren’t asked to. The lower courts will sometimes split the baby in half and the parties walk away.
As for legal descriptions in PLSS it would have been so much better to have always referenced the government survey and area in the subsequent subdivisions. It was assumed so without saying so in the early descriptions and gradually the waters were muddied by what the meaning of a true measurement is. It wasn’t so long ago that a subdivision of 5, 10, 20 acres or a deed in rods or chains was made under the assumption of 40 acres in a regular quarter quarter section. We couldn’t leave well enough alone.
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“We couldn’t leave well enough alone”
I don’t understand what you’re getting at?
Metes & bounds descriptions and aliquot part descriptions have been around forever, and are not/were not interchangeable. Both are quite precise in their meaning. Interpretations (assumptions) are often times the first step towards errors.
Lol, sounds like my wife. All I meant is land owners, surveyors, county officials and lawyers kind of abandoned a well thought out system of using the official survey and plat and the aliquot parts therein planned. Not that owners don’t have the right to split land off however they choose but so many opportunities were lost where use of aliquot parts and government measure could have been used but were set aside in favor of terms that might or might not mean certain things and place those decisions in the hands of those who would rather not have to make them.
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