Paul, the sovereign, just like any other land owner can only own what is granted to it. The public has special rights when it comes to things like averse possesion, but is still most definitely bound by original monuments.
But aside from that, what does this have to do with the question? The distance between lots 3 and 7 is short by 1 ft. We don't know if there is a ROW to the south of lot 7, and if there was, the ROW would be gaining a foot not losing.
Proportion between 3-7 for the test. You are accepting original monuments and giving equal frontage to the lots as per the original subdivision.
proportion between Lots 3-7 on the east side of Block 1. I don't see enough information to set any other corner in the block. the question is surely based on the assumption that no one has built on any of the lots, because normally, once people build and occupy a lot, senior rights and evidence of possession must be considered. as has been said, it is rare to find so many undisturbed "clean" lots. proportion is pretty rare, but the intent of the question is whether or not to discard the northeast corner of Lot 3, since it is "out of whack" and set a pincushion by proportioning over that pin. The answer is not to set a new pin for the northeast corner of Lot 3. Ask the same question to 3 surveyors, get 5 different answers, I HOPE that's how they do it in Texas, but don't know.
Not a discussion about public lands where the street is usually a fixed width on either side of a section line. This discussion is about metes and bounds. The dedication grant back to the sovereign is established by the document, not by the monuments, 50' holds.
Assume there is evidence of a monument 49' to he South, which you say would make the street ROW 49'. I disagree, the ROW is 50' and there may then be logic in claiming 0.5' from each street abutting lot. Now you are creating more trouble than should be desired.
BTW, the superior monument for a street is the street itself, which is most often constructed before other monuments are set.
All in all, this posted problem is a poor example of surveying.
Paul in PA
Paul in PA, post: 419635, member: 236 wrote: Not a discussion about public lands where the street is usually a fixed width on either side of a section line. This discussion is about metes and bounds. The dedication grant back to the sovereign is established by the document, not by the monuments, 50' holds.
Assume there is evidence of a monument 49' to he South, which you say would make the street ROW 49'. I disagree, the ROW is 50' and there may then be logic in claiming 0.5' from each street abutting lot. Now you are creating more trouble than should be desired.
BTW, the superior monument for a street is the street itself, which is most often constructed before other monuments are set.
All in all, this posted problem is a poor example of surveying.
Paul in PA
Paul,
I agree this isnt a good example of a real world survey problem. At the same time, it is typical of a question on an examination. It is obvious what the examiner is looking for. If we inject things that arent in the fact pattern described we will miss that question. While there is some good value in discussing jurisdictional nuances, we need to be careful not to confuse the poor fellow who started the thread.
I don't see any roads or ROWs listed in the example given. I see two rectangular lots and a clear math problem. That is all they are asking for in the exam problem. You can not assume more then what they have given you. Maybe there is more description in the question on the exam, but it is not here. Who is to say that there is a ROW on the south? The sketch does not say it is. Perhaps it is more lots.
The question does show 5 original monuments and not other evidence. If surveying I would definitely need more information and evidence. But for an exam this is all you will get and you need to give them an answer. My answer would be to prorate between lots 3 to 7.
Prorate between the found original monuments. That is what the exam is going to be looking for. Just remember that if a ROW falls in between the original monuments, to give it the called amount and adjust the size of lots accordingly. I believe that to be a more likely test scenario.
Yep, I'm going to pile on here...
My internet must be broken again because what I see of the posted problem is two blocks/lots where some designated original corners have northings and eastings and lots are denoted as 50'
No street row or adjoiner information is provided.
Simple problem to present proration of lots in a simultaneous conveyance that one can cipher in their head. This is all interpreted by my milieu of experience.
Focus: original monuments as paramount. There is no mistake or blunder presented in the information.
BUT
Added input in the thread states that the problem is presented as a Texas boundary situation. That's a game changer from what I have learned here reading posts about Texas rules and laws for boundary surveying.
If that is the case, then things may be different.
But I don't think so. Proration and proportion are the same by definition.
Over analysis
Analysis paralysis
Paul in PA, post: 419635, member: 236 wrote: Not a discussion about public lands where the street is usually a fixed width on either side of a section line. This discussion is about metes and bounds. The dedication grant back to the sovereign is established by the document, not by the monuments, 50' holds.
Assume there is evidence of a monument 49' to he South, which you say would make the street ROW 49'. I disagree, the ROW is 50' and there may then be logic in claiming 0.5' from each street abutting lot. Now you are creating more trouble than should be desired.
BTW, the superior monument for a street is the street itself, which is most often constructed before other monuments are set.
All in all, this posted problem is a poor example of surveying.
Paul in PA
I keep going back and looking at the original post, after reading how you would solve the problem, thinking I am missing something. I do not see anywhere on the question abouts metes and bounds, or sovereign, or section lines, also if you want to assume the road is 49, why not also assume it is 50 or 51, or 52.6.
This is not a bad prep question for an Exam, there are problems like this on an Exam, its to make you stop and think and look at what evidence you have and what evidence you would like to have.
I understand some Surveyors can only figure out a boundary if they find all the corners, if they had questions on the exam that showed 3 out of 4 corners found then anyone would pass the exam.
Yes it is a simple exam problem, everything fits perfectly except one monument (one of these things is not like the others-Sesame Street), distribute the 1' north-south error proportionately to Lots 3 to 7 of Block 1. Given no other information I would suggest the same for Block 2.
Skelton å¤218 (5) covers it:
5. Strayhorn v. Jones
Court of Civil Appeals of Texas, Amarillo. March 5, 1956 289 S.W.2d 321
Headnote: Where a corner or line is found marked, it influences all other surveys in block, even though it operates to change call for courses or distances, and surveyor or court distributes excess or loss proportionately to all other sections in block up to mark so established.
1 Case that cites this legal issue
Document Summary: Suit in trespass to try title. The District Court of Kent County, Ben Charlie Chapman, J., rendered the judgment challenged by appeal. The Court of Civil Appeals, Martin, J., held that even if the Small Bill, which became effective in 1929, vested title to riverbed, across which tracts lay, in common grantor to exclusion of grantees to whom common grantor conveyed parcels lying wholly on one or the other side of the river, such grantees (and their successors), who were in possession for periods of time ranging from approximately 12 to 25 years, could prevail as against parties to whom common grantor quitclaimed river bed in 1948. Affirmed.
6. Carmichall v. Stanolind Oil & Gas Co.
Court of Civil Appeals of Texas, Amarillo. September 22, 1952 256 S.W.2d 129
Headnote: Where old survey is being retraced, excesses over course and distance calls between original monuments on the ground must be prorated among various sections within given block or system of surveys.
5 Cases that cite this legal issue
Document Summary: Suit was brought to remove cloud from title to three tracts of land by seeking revocation of alleged awards attempted to be made of the tracts as vacant unsurveyed school land by Commissioner of General Land Office. The District Court of Garza County, Louis B. Reed, J., entered judgment for plaintiffs, and defendants appealed. The Court of Civil Appeals, Pitts, C. J., held that District Court was justified in holding that tracts in question were excess lands and that no vacancies existed. Judgment affirmed.
I've got more, 28 headnotes under Westlaw 59 Boundaries key 55 Apportionment of excess or deficiency.
Paul in PA, post: 419571, member: 236 wrote: Paul is saying there is reason to ignore the out of place monument. There is no supporting evidence that this misplacement should affect any lot.
Let's keep in mind that this is an exam question.
Sure, in real life we would all do a lot more searching and checking of occupation lines and of monuments further south. It might be a 1' offset stake on line. Is there a big tree or something 1' north of monument #5? And so on.
For the exam, prorate between monuments 4 and 5 and get on to the next question. The clock is ticking.
BrandonA, post: 419369, member: 11837 wrote: I am studying to take my exam and I am not clear on one thing regarding apportionment of a subdivision.
Given the situation below, all corners found are original, set when the subdivision was created.
Do you prorate the 1' excess on the North South line through all lots (1-7), holding only block corners or prorate only between lots 3-7? Thanks for your input.
Is the exam multiple choice?
the exams like this that I have taken start with something like "from the facts presented"
in that case: proportion between found original monuments... (or something similar)
if it is Essay, start with the simple as above, than expound on other less viable theories ("from the facts presented")
good luck!
(first get clear on any controlling statutes or regulations in TEXAS)
I just took an exam with a very unique instruction. If a question did not appear complete or a simple fact would change the answer we were encouraged to make a note in the book. I wrote one note but did not protest the question. Never throw the replay flag when you already won the game...
Duane Frymire, post: 419457, member: 110 wrote: Except the evidence suggests it is actually point #5 at the southern block corner that has all the error. All of the other four have less than a foot of error, while point 5 is a foot off, so it doesn't fit the error of the original work per the preponderance of the best available evidence. Point 5 may be original, but may have been disturbed; at any rate it's the only one that's suspicious as far as error budget goes. I'd be tempted to start at 4 and give them all 50 feet to the south, rejecting 5 as disturbed. But I know that's not the answer the test taker (sorry, test giver) is looking for.
Hope we've cleared this up for you Brandon:)
Logical, but without investigation on the opposing block corners who knows, dont get me started on improvement review. For an exam, I'd prorate it, thats all they are asking, in an everyday circumstance, well... we got some fieldwork to do gals and boys.
This is an example of why so many people struggle with the licensure exam. The "real surveyor", by his very nature, knows that there must be more information, and the question, as presented, would not allow a prudent surveyor to make a decision one way or another, without further research. But we force surveying students to learn these overly simplistic solutions, so they can pass the test, and then when they get out in the real world, their brains explode, because everything is so much more complex than anything they've encountered in school.
jakethebuilder, post: 423434, member: 9380 wrote: This is an example of why so many people struggle with the licensure exam. The "real surveyor", by his very nature, knows that there must be more information, and the question, as presented, would not allow a prudent surveyor to make a decision one way or another, without further research. But we force surveying students to learn these overly simplistic solutions, so they can pass the test, and then when they get out in the real world, their brains explode, because everything is so much more complex than anything they've encountered in school.
The reason tests are this way is to determine minimum knowledge level using objective measures. You cant expect a candidate to make a weeks worth of decisions in 2 to 4 hours.
The cause of exploding newbie heads isnt bad testing. It's the one man crew model and education where case law research and establishment doctrines aren't generally taught. We have met the enemy and he is us.
My .02, Tom
It seems like a perfectly valid question to me. Finding a scenario in the field like this seems entirely legitimate and sometimes finding a handful of original monuments is all you have. You can keep looking over and digging the same ground but that won't make original monuments magically materialize. There is a matrix, an order to how we re-establish missing monuments and much of the "it depends" comments in this thread have obscured that order.
Ultimately you must work with what you have, not what you think you could have or what you wish you had. This fellow has exactly what the problem gives him and nothing more or less. He must find the orderly solution to that problem alone. The solution is to prorate between 3 and 7. On the other side of the street he holds the called distances.
Another reason many examinees fail is because they have it in their head that "there's the exam/textbook way, and then there's the real world way", having the implication that the "exam way" has no real-world application, and the very different "real-world way" is the correct way. They end up convincing themselves that they have to provide an answer that is wrong in the real world in order to pass the exam.
In most instances, that's horse crap that will serve the examinee poorly in the exam and later in practice. In a relatively few instances, where the exam writers get to the upper limits of what might be considered minimal competence, will there be a difference in the principles applied between exam and real-world. I've seen it a couple times on exams in CA where the exam problem writer applied their own misunderstanding of a principle stated in BCLP or EPBL and elevated that misunderstanding above statutory or settled case law in the State. That's the unfortunate result of a problem author writing a problem that is just outside of their own level of competence and inadequate checks within the exam development/grading system.
Those instances where the "exam way" is counter to the "real-world way" are so rare that the examinee should generally not consider it as a factor. More often, when there's any difference, the "real-world way" the examinee understands is the wrong way.
The reason exam questions are often so simplistic compared to most real world scenarios is that the examiners are looking to test knowledge of specific principles and limit the given information only to that which is relevant to recognize and apply those principles. If they added all of the info that one would likely be able to obtain for a real-world survey, it would unfairly distract the examinee from the principles they are required to show competence with. Conversely, there will not be hidden facts in an exam problem which must be correctly assumed (guessed) by the examinee in order to correctly answer the questions.
Remember, although most surveys will present more complex problems, and diligent research and field work will usually yield much more info to consider, in practice, we are not limited to a few minutes to identify the correct applicable principle and work the problem through to a final answer. On an LS exam, the examinee who is properly budgeting their time may have, at most, 10 minutes to answer this particular question. To keep it fair for the examinee working under those time constraints and the pressures of an exam situation, the problem set ups must remain fairly simple.
The problem posted by the OP stated that all monuments found are original monuments. It does not state that any appear to have been disturbed, so to infer that is adding facts that were not given. Blocks 1 & 2 appear to be bordered by some manner of streets or alleys, but the title nature of those lands is immaterial to the question asked. First, I know of no jurisdiction where the terms in the document control over undisturbed original monuments. However, I have heard the lore that many surveyors believe that the government gets its full width on publicly dedicated streets. Nonsense likely originated by transactional real estate attorneys (as opposed to those actually familiar with boundary related case law) and perpetuated by engineers improperly teaching the last 3 or 4 generations of surveyors.
Streets are usually dedicated by a statement on the face of subdivision maps and sometimes by separate document that refers to the map. Occasionally, they are dedicated by document which does not refer to a map. If in reference to a map, it is the case that in all jurisdictions I'm aware of that a call for a map is a call for the survey it depicts and that the undisturbed original monuments placed during that survey are conclusive evidence of how and where that survey established lines & corners. where undisturbed original monuments exist, all dimensions are merely informational. That rule doesn't change because of what entity may own land or hold an easement on one side or the other of the originally marked line. The physical streets are the best evidence when undisturbed original monuments at block or lot corners cannot be found, and when it appears that the streets were placed according to the original survey, and where there is no reason to believe that the streets were not built according to the original survey and no reason to believe that the street locations have been altered since their original construction.
Ran off on a tangent discussion there for a few sentences... back to our regularly scheduled programming...
There are instances where, in the real-world, a diligent surveyor may find as little monumentation as shown in the OP's diagram, and no occupation that gives indication of having been established according to original monuments. In that respect, it is realistic of some potential circumstances.
If you, as an examinee have trouble getting past the "this doesn't reflect real-world" attitude and your knee-jerk answer of "I'd do more research/field work, etc.", imagine that the blocks are in a subdivision where the developer got as far as having done enough clearing activity to knock out most of the monumentation then abandoned the project, leaving it otherwise undeveloped. No streets, no occupation. Only a scattering of undisturbed monuments as shown.
When reading and answering exam questions, assume no facts that are not expressly given. Answer the question actually asked, not the question you might feel would be the most logical question to ask. Don't answer more than what is asked. In grading exams, I've seen many examples of an examinee turning a correct answer into a wrong one by providing explanations and justifications that weren't asked for and showing that they stumbled on a correct answer by luck while demonstrating a complete lack of knowledge of the topic or principle targeted by the question.
Evan,
That depiction holds validity to the Bar exam as well - perhaps even more so.
