A distance of

I'm with you. Correct and concise is best.

I guess I would be guilty. That was the way the guys did it that I learned under. I guess I just never thought too much about it.

I hate to say but I don't have a copy of Wattles in my library yet. It's on my list of books to get once of these days.

I equally hate seeing that between a bearing and a distance on a general call. unnecessary, imho. That call comes up from a few of the standard autocad report writing tools pre-canned in their xml legals description writer. To modify those "standard" legal formats, one has to modify html files and thats not in my bag of tricks.
If I am using that report tool, I do a find and replace in the text "a distance of " for ", ". That way in the end, It's just N89°38'25"E, 245.00 feet

Dang.....I wish you hadn't posted that...:-/

Actually I'm glad you did. I was just working on a long description and I used a auto-description writing tool in InRoads to put all of my parcel distances into a description format. The format I used has "a distance of" everywhere before a distance. (of course a find-and-replace tool in Word took care of that fairly quickly.)

I guess I'm like Jered, and hadn't thought much about it. I do like short and concise to an extent, but would rather be redundant, than to not say enough.

I had just been thinking about it, and was just going into my description to check if I had used "from whence" instead of just "whence". I used the "from". It almost sounds funny without the "from". But really, if you are using the word "from", why not use "from where". Whence takes care of that in one word.

(PS the primary reason I send the description to a prewritten format, is to put all of the bearings and distances in there straight from where I calculated them, and avoiding typos. I still put in my more important calls, etc.)

> .... do you see "a distance of" in your area....
I recently had this debate with a surveyor who employed "a distance of" . His argument was that it would reduce errors in reading poor quality copies of copies of copies, etc.

I pointed out that it was highly unlikely that any description written today would be distributed in the future as a copy of a copy of a copy. It would be a digitally delivered file, clean and clear.

I don't use "a distance of" and discourage others from using it.

I use it, as I was taught-
and will continue to do so- thank you very much-

remember- don't communicate to be understood, communicate so that you can't possibly be misunderstood.

At one time scriveners were paid by the word.

I am for simple language myself.

B-)

In all my years of reading, writing, interpreting, and deciphering descriptions, I don't recall one time where an inclusion or exclusion of the phrase "distance of" would have made a difference in understanding the description. Same is true for "to a point". Extra words.

I agree with cmsurveyor, that there are places to use it if it clarifies or unmuddies the language. Good example ".....section 11, a distance of....." so that there isn't a run-on of numbers. (ie never say never 😉 )

> ... The legals are the type that are 5 pages long and at the end say containg 4 acres, so lots of short calls.
For that sort of situation I will sometimes use the following format:

.....thence along the following seventeen (17) courses:
(1) N XX°XX'XX"E, XX.XX feet;
(2) N XX°XX'XX"E, XX.XX feet;
(3) N XX°XX'XX"E, XX.XX feet;
(4) N XX°XX'XX"E, XX.XX feet;
(5) .........
...
(17) N XX°XX'XX"E, XX.XX feet to west line of .....;

Target Locked included it, but I have to say it again:

"to a point" is even worse that "a distance of" - both are just extra words that add nothing, usually included "because that is what I learned" or some other lame reasoning.

Look at Wattles; lots of good info. there.

of course, there are times to specify the distance, such as when parallel WITH something (not parallel TOO - another common problem) or when running along a curve, one calls out the arc distance, but that is another topic.

Ken

Most descriptions I deal with leave out the "a distance of" and the comma. N XX XX XX W XXX.XX feet.

Does anyone also put something like "on a bearing of" with the "a distance of" with every call?

Sorry Guys I disagree. I am An old fart who has been writing metes and bounds descriptions for over 35 years. In my early days we wrote the bearings and distances in words as well as numeric. Given the effort made to CORRECTLY copy a description having the bearing and description appear twice was frequently a godsend. While I no longer write each course twice I am a firm believer in writing a thorough description.
Don't be so arrogant to think that a description is just for your benefit. The general public also reads these descriptions and they are not familiar with our professional shorthand. Take the extra time to write a fluent description that everyone can understand.

Good points Mr. Nixon. I have read a lot of old descriptions and have never been confused reading 'degrees' 'minutes' and 'seconds' spelled out, or "a distance of" written out. Even "on a bearing of" doesn't confuse me. I think there are much bigger issues than having a word written out. I have seen more errors such as N.E. instead of S.E. that has cause me to scratch my head much more than being to specific in the words.

And yes, how many times have we made fun of some paralegal reading 17°21'30" as Seventeen degrees, twenty-one feet, and thirty inches? While I can see the point of reading a lot of "to a point" and "a distance of", that has been the least of my worries on retracing a description.

I wasn't saying that's how I write descriptions, mine are usually a lot longer than most. I'm just saying what I deal with when doing deed research. I'm usually lucky to find anything more than just a truncated list of bearings and distances (the math) around a boundary (long form non reduced coordinates). Calls to any monuments are rare as is also a hard call to the POB in the ground (usually some aliquot corner anywhere in a section many times never monumented). Many times bearings are north, south, east, and west (not even in conformance with the orignal GLO plat). This is sort of the legacy of a system where you could deed land without a survey (it's all square and 5280 x 5280, even when it isn't). But it saved sellers a bunch of effort and money at the time.

at the risk of bringing shame upon the house of Billings, I will readily confess to using "a distance of" in every call. I suppose if we are interested in the briefest of descriptions, we could just use line tables. I've never found inclusion of "a distance of" to detract from our descriptions. Your mileage may vary.

I use "to a point" to explicitly indicate that there is no monument after I have turned my bearing and travelled my distance.

If there is a monument, then it is "to a two-bit rebar/goat stake/blue gumball"

> I use "to a point" to explicitly indicate that there is no monument after I have turned my bearing and travelled my distance.
Shouldn't that be "to an unmarked unmonumented theoretical point" for maximum clarity?

> > ... The legals are the type that are 5 pages long and at the end say containg 4 acres, so lots of short calls.
> For that sort of situation I will sometimes use the following format:
>
> .....thence along the following seventeen (17) courses:
> (1) N XX°XX'XX"E, XX.XX feet;
> (2) N XX°XX'XX"E, XX.XX feet;
> (3) N XX°XX'XX"E, XX.XX feet;
> (4) N XX°XX'XX"E, XX.XX feet;
> (5) .........
> ...
> (17) N XX°XX'XX"E, XX.XX feet to west line of .....;

:good: Ditto