Surveyors are so obsessed with numbers, I think there should be a portion of the take home test for the surveyor's license where a legal has to be written correctly numberless.......
Maybe that would help alleviate many issues I see,,,,,,like what I'm looking at today, gezzzz...................
Take Home Test? No!
they should be able to whip one out on the spot in less than five minutes.
the exams are already dumbed down enough.
How's this?
The southwest quarter of Section 15, Township X North, Range Y West, ABC Meridian, ____ County, State of Confusion.
Hmm, now that I look at it I see it still has numbers in it...
Jim in AZ, post: 380283, member: 249 wrote: How's this?
The southwest quarter of Section 15, Township X North, Range Y West, ABC Meridian, ____ County, State of Confusion.
Hmm, now that I look at it I see it still has numbers in it...
Looks like there is a flaw in my plan
Some surveyors are certainly obsessed with numbers, but, in my opinion, it is the non-surveyor who are more obsessed. All of these guys who are telling us they need a "legal description" when they clearly mean a metes-and-bounds descriptions.....and they only really care about a "metes" description. GIS guys, real estate specialists, lawyers, County agents, etc.
Of course on your test you can't just give the surveyor free reign to make up his own bounds, or you'll get similar to what Jim points out or similar to "bounded on the north by smith, and the south by the county road...etc.
Show them what the boundary looks like and have them write a description that bounds it.
Totally numberless would be mighty tough to pull off in PLSSia or even in attempting to divide a lot in some block somewhere.
"Starting at the tree which little Billy hit with his bb gun Christmas morning....thence to the east to the axe stuck in the ground when old Mr hooper decided to quit logging the road... to spot near the lake where Johnny shot the brown bear....and along the stone wall back to the beginning."
There. Finished. And boy I've seen a couple like this before...
Only in Colonial states, I bet.
one, two, three, ... does that help?
2 acres more or less bounded on the north by Jones, bounded on the east by Smith, bounded on the south by Johnson, and on the west by Robinson, in "x" county, Va.
Seen a many of descriptions like that in the Old Dominion.
Ron Lang, post: 380389, member: 6445 wrote: 2 acres more or less bounded on the north by Jones, bounded on the east by Smith, bounded on the south by Johnson, and on the west by Robinson, in "x" county, Va.
Seen a many of descriptions like that in the Old Dominion.
IMHO that is not a valid description. I don't find it to describe a unique, definatively locatable parcel...
Jim in AZ, post: 380422, member: 249 wrote: IMHO that is not a valid description. I don't find it to describe a unique, definatively locatable parcel...
Unless, of course the actual descriptions give the book and page of the parcels that are abutting, and the example is more of a generic example. I have seen descriptions that call to abutters like that, but it might leave a part of the parcel open-ended (ie: it doesn't give all of the abutting parcels in its description.
From what I have gathered through the years, courts are hard-pressed to deem a bad description inadequate. I am assuming if one were to be found not adequate, they might rule that the transfer was not valid.
Anyway, just a couple of thoughts.
A tract of land situated in the southwest quarter of Section twenty-four, Township twenty-four North, Range twenty-four West, of the tenth Principal Meridian, Smith County; said tract being that part of said Section twenty-four lying south of the Jones Subdivision, west of the Smith Subdivision and north of the James Parcel, described as follows:
Commencing at the southwest corner of said Section twenty-four (monumented with a three inch GLO brass cap set in nineteen hundred and fourteen and recorded in the Smith County Courthouse);
Thence north along the west line of said Section twenty four to a two inch iron pipe monumenting the northwest corner of the said James Parcel, being the POINT OF BEGINNING of said tract;
Thence east along the north line of the James Parcel to the southwest corner of said Smith Subdivision monumented with a two inch iron pipe as described on the Smith Subdivision Plat;
Thence north along the west line of said Smith subdivision to the two inch iron pipe monumenting the northwest corner of said Smith Subdivision and the Southeast corner of said Jones Subdivision, said monument described on the Jones Plat;
Thence west along the south line of said Jones Subdivision to a two inch iron pipe monumenting the southwest corner of said Jones Subdivision and lying on the west line of said Section twenty-four;
Thence south along said west line of Section twenty-four to the POINT OF BEGINNING.
This is basically the situation I'm dealing with, if the description would have just been written this way, it would have been completely acceptable and defensible. Of course it wasn't written this way, the only bounds mentioned in the legal was the west line of section 24. No monuments are mentioned, no subdivision lines, only bearings and distances, a completely metes description. So a surveyor retraces it and sets monuments based on the metes, and now it's a mess........could have been so easily avoided, just with a little typing.
Jim in AZ, post: 380422, member: 249 wrote: IMHO that is not a valid description. I don't find it to describe a unique, definatively locatable parcel...
I'd say that 80% of deeds around here are written in such a way. Usually have to research back to before property values plummeted after the Civil War in order to find better descriptions. We enjoy our research in the colonial states.
MightyMoe, post: 380435, member: 700 wrote:
This is basically the situation I'm dealing with, if the description would have just been written this way, it would have been completely acceptable and defensible. Of course it wasn't written this way, the only bounds mentioned in the legal was the west line of section 24. No monuments are mentioned, no subdivision lines, only bearings and distances, a completely metes description. So a surveyor retraces it and sets monuments based on the metes, and now it's a mess........could have been so easily avoided, just with a little typing.
I'm thinking that the description wasn't the problem (yes, it could have been better), the major problem was "so a surveyor retraces it and sets monuments based on the metes".
When is this nonsense going to stop?
Oh, oh, oh, oh - I know how to fix it!!!!!! Lets lower the requirements for licensure, we are all getting to old!!
Brian Allen, post: 380453, member: 1333 wrote: I'm thinking that the description wasn't the problem (yes, it could have been better), the major problem was "so a surveyor retraces it and sets monuments based on the metes".
When is this nonsense going to stop?
Oh, oh, oh, oh - I know how to fix it!!!!!! Lets lower the requirements for licensure, we are all getting to old!!
yes, a little bit of both, the description is "off", the second surveyor finds the "error", to his credit he went further looking and sees that it "corrects" as you go outside the legal we are talking about,,,,,,
anyhow, there are two set of monuments now and it's left to me to explain why to attorneys, realtors, buyers,,,,,
When I finish I intend there to be only one set of monuments.........
Jim in AZ, post: 380422, member: 249 wrote: IMHO that is not a valid description. I don't find it to describe a unique, definatively locatable parcel...
Yet here in Va there are many bounded by descriptions, and when they were written they made perfect sense. Were unique and locatable. I find most of these descriptions are describing divisions of family lands. Retracing is almost impossible, unless there is evidence of occupation.
I recently did a survey of two 2 acre lots with a bounded description only. Luckily one adjacent parcel had a survey and one line that was able to be retraced. The adjacent owners on the other three sides all had bounded deeds as well. This was family land split several times by bounded only deeds. No surveys, nothing but a tax map.
I met with an older gentleman who resided on an adjacent parcel two or three parcels from mine but part of the original family farm. He did his best to give me a general idea of where he thought the lines might be and gave me some history on the property.
When the deeds were written it was farm/pasture land and there were tree lines that defined the property, however since then the property had grown over with hardwoods and was timbered. Replanted with pines and timbered again. The entirety of the old farm had been timbered twice since the original descriptions in the early 1900's. There was absolutely no evidence of occupation other than the one abutter that had a survey.
That survey had an old private road shown which ran through one of the 2 ac parcels and showed graphical adjacent lines of my parcels.
I ended up holding the adjacent survey and creating two 2 acre parcels that had a general shape of the tax map.
However in order to maintain the deeded 2 ac I did have adjust one line which was a drastic difference to the tax map.
The gentleman I was surveying for wasn't happy and wanted me to plat and survey like the tax map shows. I told him couldn't because it would have made that parcel about 4 ac. And he was only deeded 2 ac.
I let him know my process in setting his lines and told him he needed to record the plat.
The way I see it is there was only one adjacent description which could be retraced. Which I held. All the others for several adjacent parcels of the original tract had not been surveyed and were bounded by deeds. Let some other surveyor try to prove me wrong.