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Deed description: North 2640 feet of the E 1/2 of Section A, TWP B, Range C etc.?ÿ All 9 corners monumented, parent parcel, entire section, owned by one entity.
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Surveyor X: Survey's a line 2640' South of, perpendicular to and parallel with the North line and intersects lines in the SE 1/4 to achieve the 2640' and provides a survey drawing.
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Surveyor Y: Disagrees and issues a survey of the NE ?¬.
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Which Surveyor is correct? 😈 ?ÿ
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going out for some popcorn, anybody wanna ride along?
First thing to keep in mind is that this has clearly left government interest.?ÿ Once that happens, the single owner of the entire section can pretty much do whatever they want.?ÿ The so-called center corner no longer applies, so can be ignored, unless called for, which in the above description it is not.?ÿ The quarter corners no longer are of concern to this section unless the single owner wishes to deed something out by specifically referencing them, which in the above description they are not.?ÿ The rules from the "cookbook" no longer apply.?ÿ I can think of center corners that bend over 100 feet from a straight line connecting the north and south quarter corners, for example.?ÿ?ÿ To do what the above deed description says would also ignore previously determined locations of the north and south quarter corners.?ÿ
Draw a straight line from southwest corner to southeast corner.?ÿ Do the same from the northwest corner to the northeast corner.?ÿ Temporarily ignore the true north and south section lines.?ÿ Draw a line from the midpoint of the new north to the midpoint of the new south.?ÿ Trim/extend that line to the true north and south section lines.?ÿ That will be the west boundary of the called for east half.?ÿ Now draw a line from the northeast corner of the section to the southeast corner of the section, while ignoring the true section lines.?ÿ Measure south 2640 feet along that line.?ÿ Go to the new center line and measure south 2640 feet from the north end of that line.?ÿ Connect those two points with a line.?ÿ Trim/extend the east end of that line to be on the true section line.?ÿ You are done, once you write a very carefully worded metes and bounds description to confirm your boundaries.?ÿ The biggest argument will come from those concerned because the south line of your tract is not perfectly parallel with the true north section line.?ÿ The thing to remember is that the portion of the true north section line may not be a single, straight line if the new corner constructed falls to the west of the original north quarter corner.?ÿ The same thing happens with the new east boundary if the distance falls to the south of the true east quarter corner.?ÿ It is very possible this tract may have six sides or five sides.?ÿ It could be four-sided, depending on the relative lengths and internal angles of the original section.
You must reference the true quarter corners and section corners but you are no longer bound to the aliquot rules.?ÿ To start, assume this is in a Section 7 where the northwest quarter is much larger/smaller in both north/south and east/west dimensions compared to a standard section.
Area is not to be a factor in determining east half/west half of the section as you have no method of determining such a line without arbitrarily making one side of the section controlling over the others.
Prepare to defend your methodology in court at some time in the future.
I'll go out on a limb...Surveyor X is correct (given the information provided by the OP).
X
Also, he was there first.?ÿ
Neither surveyor is wrong. Working with only the information given I would go with X. While I strongly suspect that the parties may have intended Y, that is not what they said. Failing to get someone knowledgeable to write your legal description has consequences. Or maybe they did and got exactly what they wanted. Who knows? Any sort of collateral evidence could tip me in the other direction.?ÿ?ÿ
This type of foolishness is a major reason for the existence of the surveying profession.?ÿ Lay people do not know how to communicate exactly what they want to do in a small number of words.?ÿ It is our job to help them achieve that goal and then document fully for the whole world to see.?ÿ Note:?ÿ another reason to insist on filing of surveys in public records.
We need to work to eliminate the possibility of anyone other than a licensed professional surveyor writing descriptions to go on deeds.
A lawyer I have known very?ÿ well for decades is prone to writing deeds for his clients.?ÿ He actually does a pretty good job at it as he has nearly 50 years of experience which has honed those skills.?ÿ However, just like surveyors, he can make mistakes as well.?ÿ A client called a few days ago about the need to set monuments at the corners of a tract where this lawyer had prepared the description for a deed to get filed quickly a couple of months ago.?ÿ In this case, no big deal, simply survey to match the description, except for one tiny error.?ÿ The number of acres did not agree with my calculation.?ÿ I finally decided to work backwards on the acreage and discovered that there are 43065 square feet in an acre.?ÿ I knew the lawyer was colorblind but I had no idea he was dyslexic, as well.
The quarter corners no longer are of concern to this section unless the single owner wishes to deed something out by specifically referencing them, which in the above description they are not.
I'm going to be surprised if many agree that the north quarter corner and center don't control, given that the description uses what appears to be an aliquot type of description "E 1/2".?ÿ The main argument would be whether the intention was 2640 or N 1/2.
Must disagree.?ÿ I have seen far too many cases where something like the east half of the northwest quarter of a Section 7 means half and half, not Lot 3 and the southeast quarter of the northwest quarter to one buyer and Lots 4 & 5 to the other buyer.?ÿ The aliquots CAN disappear once they are all owned by the same entity.?ÿ It comes down to exactly what the client wants to achieve (perhaps nearly identical area).?ÿ Sometimes we can explain the problem up front and sometimes we have to do most of the surveying to show the client their options to determine true intent.
Some clients need a great deal of explaining before it starts to sink in.
In my part of the world many of the old aliquot lines would closely agree with fences and large tree rows.?ÿ The client surely would prefer to honor those as closely as possible.?ÿ But, in the Great Plains regions, for example, there may be absolutely nothing other than the nine monuments the OP mentioned to identify where the subject section is.?ÿ In that case, four straight lines would probably be what the client was thinking would happen.
A big problem with the OP is what happens when the northeast quarter is far smaller than the southeast quarter as can easily happen in Sections 1-6.?ÿ Do you keep measuring along the west line of the original southeast quarter, which is probably not at the same bearing as the west line of the original northeast quarter??ÿ Do you also introduce a similar kink along the two portions of the east section line?
E1/2 is used by the layman frequently but they have no idea what that means to surveyors.?ÿ I have seen them try to do this with a tract that has no single definition of what would be an east half or a west half.?ÿ Many weirdly shaped lots in a subdivision with curvy streets are an example of where the client doesn't have a clue as to why saying "East Half" is a problem.
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BTW, the north half of the east half is not necessarily the northeast quarter.
The quarter corners no longer are of concern to this section unless the single owner wishes t
What about adjoiner section gaps and overlaps??ÿ
You are right, the owner can divide his section anyway he likes, and the C1/4 was not called for here, but...
The E1/2 has a very well established meaning in the PLSS, and although there are a few renowned exceptions, and local courts can be unpredictable, time after time the courts consider , absent any evidence to the contrary,?ÿ a call for an aliqout?ÿ part to be a call to all the known and published rules associated with the PLSS.
I do agree though, that assumption dosen't apply to the North 2640 feet. In?ÿ cases like this, where there is no use of PLSS terminology, it would be a stretch to assume the intent was anything other than what the words in the deed say. Of course the contrary can be proven in this case, and decisions can be found to the contrary.?ÿ
In other words absent any other information, I would survey a line parallel with and 2640 feet southerly, measured perpendicularly to, the north section line. This line would run from the east section line to the intersection with a line run between the south and north 1/4 corners.
Is that what X did? I don't know what, "intersects lines in the SE 1/4 " means.?ÿ
yeah, once an interpretation has been surveyed and established on the ground, it becomes harder to justify an alternative interpretation, unless the first interpretation is clearly wrong.
This is a simple Deed interpretation problem.
Objectively, does it literally mean 2640 feet or is it a hamfisted NE1/4? The first surveyor read it as 2640 feet and we can't say he is wrong, we can disagree which is a different thing. What they subjectively intended or should've written is not relevant.
I think the E1/2 can be properly interpreted in the context of the PLSS as being bounded on the west by the north-south centerline and on the east by the section line as established by the original monuments. Also east half has a technical meaning, technical meanings usually control over a common meanings.
Sure they should've hired competent professional help but they didn't.
The quarter corners no longer are of concern to this section unless the single owner wishes t
What about adjoiner section gaps and overlaps??ÿ
Can't sell what he doesn't own, so this can't be interpreted to cross the east section line.?ÿ Strips and gores doctrine says that since it does not explicitly leave a gap, there isn't one - it follows the section line.
The descriptions in the adjoiner sections are tied to the section corners and the quarter corners.?ÿ They are expected to follow PLSS practices.?ÿ Once you own the entire section, you get to play by your own rules.?ÿ The owner of the subject section is constrained by the outer boundary but is not required to use PLSS-type descriptions other than his point of commencement or point of beginning and any call that would run along a section line.?ÿ The owner does not have to mention aliquot parts at any time unless he chooses to do so?ÿ He owns an eight-sided shape that sort of resembles a square, but isn't.?ÿ Please note: In the longwinded solution provided above I said any construction lines needed to be trimmed or extended to the section line for the final solution.
Does changing the number in the OP from 2640 to 1800 or 3600 impact your decision making??ÿ Clearly, using 3600 feet in the description forces everyone to address the kink in the east section line that routinely occurs at the east section corner, even if it's just a number of seconds out of alignment.?ÿ The existing center corner comes into play only if that matches the intent of the conveyor, it is not a mandate.?ÿ The description is already of record.?ÿ The surveyor should work with the one who conveyed the land to determine intent and not simply make up their own interpretation as to what the intent was.?ÿ X had one interpretation.?ÿ Y had a different interpretation.?ÿ I offered an off-the-wall interpretation that COULD have been what the conveyor intended.?ÿ In case you have never noticed, grantors and grantees can be very strange thinkers.
Occasionally, surveyors are strange thinkers, also.?ÿ I am aware of a small tract for a cell tower that is only a couple hundred feet from the east section line.?ÿ The Timbuktu-based surveyor found corner records for the northwest section corner and the west quarter corner.?ÿ He used the west quarter corner as his point of commencement, then gave a bearing and distance call to the northwest corner of the cell tower tract and the point of beginning ( a distance of more than 5000 feet).?ÿ Had he spent less than an hour in the county courthouse he would have found records for section corner references for the southeast section corner and east quarter corner which would be the standard control points for the cell tower tract.
Side story of strange thinking:?ÿ A local Register of Deeds recently had a lady from another state drop by the office to attempt to locate the "road" some of her ancestors would have used to go from their home in the early 1870's (in the neighboring county to the west) to visit relatives in the neighboring county to the north.?ÿ The only thing she was rather certain of was where they crossed the one river along any path they took.?ÿ That crossing is a short distance from the north county line of this county.?ÿ Based on the topography of the area, they would have almost definitely turned north into the neighboring county shortly after making the river crossing before traveling the remaining 20 miles or so to their destination.?ÿ BTW, there were very few "roads" in the immediate area in 1870.?ÿ There were remnants of trails the Osage Indians had used prior to the pioneers arrival that tended to stick to high ground.?ÿ The lady could not understand that the only information available would be for this county, not the one to the north.?ÿ She could not grasp, no matter how many times she was told, that the end of the journey was in the neighboring county by quite a few miles.?ÿ She kept insisting that town was in this county, which it never was.?ÿ I really feel sorry for courthouse workers who put up with this kind of strange citizenry every day.
