It is not unusual here in NJ to come across deeds that include only a reference to a tax map and lot and block number and, for some strange reason, it's legal.
It depends on the government agency. Some want a legal description along with the map on a lot split or consolidation.
Because of the statute of frauds.
CAD, GIS, and GNSS were a few years out in the 1700’s, so the few that could read/write had to memorialize the transer of interest(s) in land.
The private ownership of real property was a relatively new concept adopted by The New World.
You misunderstand the question or you misunderstand the whole concept of the statue of frauds.
Right now I can say SW 1/4, T21N, R2E, WM and that is a reference to a map. That map (and notes) show what was set on the ground. No metes and bounds are needed.
I can say, Lot 1 of Bubba's Lakefront Playground Plat, and it is a valid legal description.
I can also say, Parcel 1 of ROS (or plat or map, or whatever they call it where you are) recorded under xxx, and that is a valid legal description.
No wordy metes and bounds are needed on a deed. BTW, a map has a metes and bounds, since it shows the metes and the bounds.
That an awful lot of assuming about the integrity/quality of the plat.
What if the plat is deficient, vague, or subpar?
You may have avoided conflict, but may still obfuscate the intent.
Why would a written tangle of words have any more likelihood of being correct than a map? Which one would tend to clearly show intent with the least effort?
What is more likely? After retyping the description 10 times, the title company leaves something out of a long paragraph, or somehow something changes on the recorded map at the courthouse?
It is not unusual here in NJ to come across deeds that include only a reference to a tax map and lot and block number and, for some strange reason, it’s legal.
That could be a valid legal description in WA as well. Not something I would start off with, but something which I find.
Pray tell, @dmyhill, what am I misunderstanding?
And please be specific.
Pray tell, what am I misunderstanding?
And please be specific.
I was. Why do you want me to repeat it?
Be specific.
I dont get the feeling that YOU have any interest in learning, but in case someone finds this that does:
This:
Lot 1, Block 5 Plat of Jimbo
Is better than this (assuming the same level of care is taken):
Thence
Thence
Thence
Thence
Thence
And along dmyhill's train of thought, don't let the title companies change the lot 5 block 4 description to a thence thence thence description even when they squeal that they must have a metes and bounds description.
Local Planning Dept wants a M&B description on all subdivision plats. If the parent parcel is described as an aliquot division or as a lot of some previous subdivision plat, I refuse to do it. I think I'm the first and continue to be the only (or one of very few) surveyor to refuse. Lots of turnover in the local Planning Dept, so I need to re-educate a new planner once a year or so.
For the same reason I refuse to change a description from a simple aliquot or lot designation to a M&B, I won't change an existing description of a parcel I'm representing on a record of survey: Changing the description potentially changes the intent of the original parties to the conveyance. Also, if not done with the formal agreement of adjoining landowners, being a new description, it will potentially be junior to any conflicting descriptions regardless of any senior/junior relationship existing prior to changing the description.
The boundary I survey and depict on my map is, as mulambda said, my interpretation of the intent of the parties who created the description. Hopefully my measurements are as good or better than any other surveyor's under the same or similar conditions. Even so, they won't be precisely the same. And in 10 or 20 years, technology will be such that much more reliable measurements can be made under the most difficult conditions. I don't want some engineer-minded mathmagician coming through that 10 or 20 years later deciding that I measured wrong and setting a new iron a couple or a few tenths from mine.
There is also the possibility, however slight that a subsequent surveyor might find evidence that I missed or wasn't available to me, changing the best interpretation of the description to something else. With my new description now in the title chain, I will have created a problem for someone else to solve rather than making things clearer.
However, if the landowners on each side of one or all lines of my survey have convoluted descriptions and can agree on the results of my survey, I'm happy to help facilitate Boundary Line Agreements with descriptions based on my survey. That's solving a problem with little to no risk of inadvertently creating one.
Local Planning Dept wants a M&B description on all subdivision plats.
I was asked to provide a legal description for each lot on a plat once...
Lot 1 Description
Lot 1 of Plat
Lot 2 Description
Lot 2 of Plat
rinse/repeat
20 years pass. Seven different surveyors have either surveyed the original tract or its abutters. The latest survey plat shows multiple bearings and distances on all sides of the tract, with the most recent being used to write a new description for the tract.
And we wonder why the general public view us as fools who can never agree about anything.
Title people demanding a M&B description for a subdivision Lot:
Tell us you just got this job and don't know anything without telling us.
"I was asked to provide a legal description for each lot on a plat once…
Lot 1 Description
Lot 1 of Plat
Lot 2 Description
Lot 2 of Plat
rinse/repeat"
I like that.
What he said.
