How many acres is it?

Depends. Most of the time, up to 200 acres, it's within a couple of acres. Now, if any riparian rights are involved, forget it. All bets are off. It's anyones guess. I surveyed one that was supposed to be 100 acres, surveyed out 140 acres. Figured out the creek had jumped. I found the old channel which surveyed out to 103 acres. All adjoiners claimed to the creek flowing, not the old channel. It had jumped, at least 40 years ago, in what I believe was an avulsive move, but couldn't prove it, and since ALL adjoiners, including the paper company (which had surveys of their land at the new creek) claimed to the new creek, my client got another 40 acres of dirt.

I did one, last time it was surveyed was turn of the century. Really poor work. Parts missing, multiple tracts, yadda yadda yadda. Anyway, was supposed to be 265 acres. I found 265.015 acres. Fluke.

Kris

Worst I have encountered was a several years ago. Large farm parcel with property on three sides of the road at a T-intersection.

The parcel had been assembled through a number of purchases spanning several years and several parcels had been conveyed out. Several were only defined by their adjoiners - no bearings or distances in the descriptions. Two parcels comprising 50-60 acres had been conveyed in the couple of years preceding the work being done by our company. Although the Grantee owned both parcels being conveyed, neither surveyor cited valid title to the tract being conveyed.

Adding up all the deeds, including all the client had bought as well as what he had sold, there should have been a little over 820 acres left.

When we got around it, we had about 970 acres. I determined that the biggest source of the difference was that the main deed, which was a large tract that could be placed on the ground with some precision, grossly understated the acreage that it encompassed. The most significant portion of this was a couple of lines where the deed called for the boundary to run north 2000-2500 feet and then turn east for about the same distance, a more or less square corner that was an inside corner to the parcel. What the boundary actually did on the ground was to leave the road running north for a few hundred feet and then begin to bow to the east, taking all the area between the arc and the square corner described in the deed.

To compound all this, the owner was blind and thought he could tell people where he was on the ground so that they could know which parcel they were on. But, his memory was apparently less than stellar. That was one plat that went out with a significant disclaimer about the acreage.

you are talking west virginia, aren't you? i have heard of these problems surveying there

Around here (another colonial state) I consider wihtin about 10% to be pretty good. Most of our older deeds are simply bounding descriptions with a cite for acreage in a most casual manner. "bounded on the north by Obed Brooks, the east by Seth Nickerson, the south by George Heman, and the west by Prince Atkins containing 6 acres, be it more or less."

Therefore the abutters become our monuments and thelcoation of those properties parmaount to our location and if you can fit this together and find about 6 acres you're golden!

It was common during the early 1800's (at least on the Cape) for deeds to declare a smaller acreage in order to reduce the property tax. This creates some problems, and I was invovled in a court case last summer into winter (9 days of trial, including2.5 for me on the stand0 where the surveyor for the defendant claimed that his clients starting deed from arond 1820 which described a 10 acre 4 sided figure REALLY meant to describe a 20 acre 6 sided parcel. I am really looking forward to this decision from the bench! Talk about a scriveners error....