I'm doing a 2.5 acre parcel out in the country side. Family land. Feeling are tense. My client is selling. They were given the property by the wife's mother and step father. Mother died. Step dad hooks up with his ex wife and moves her in to the family home over looking my clients property and house. I find a pipe at the 1/4 corner that fits good. I run the courses from the legal that goes West 237.5', thence North 1410'to the POB, thence continue North 765' to a point on the South ROW line of a country road. Thence run West meandering along said road ROW 287'. Thence South 500'. Thence East 200' to the POB. The property comes out of the North part of a 200' wide strip of property. Being the course along the road has a distance, but no direction, I cogo backward from the POB to the NW corner of the property on the South side of the road. I find the point falls short of the road by 57.8'. OPPS! If I extend the West N/S line to the South side of the road I indeed have 287' of road frontage. But then running South 500' I then place a point 57.8' North of a East bearing line to the POB. Giving me a closing line of S 73°52'48" E-208.19'.
The question is,
would you hold the calls along the road and force the closing line?
or
would you back the calls from the POB to the road calling it 57.8' short.
Talking to one member of family, seems like great grand daddy was a surveyor, giving them knowledge of self surveying.
I need to make a decision on the boundary in order to answer the problem of the last 100' of the drive being West over the line. Like I said feeling are tense between the clients and step dad.
Another wonderful day in the surveying world.
Jules J.
Tough one. I'm sure there's a lot to consider.
Just from a knee-jerk opinion, I would probably hold with the 200' width (and course) backwards from the POB, and let the course from there 'north' intersect the road r/w. The only reason I'm saying that is it seems as though the tract has been construed as rectangular.
How old is the deed?
Has the road moved?
Are there any occupation lines evident or visible?
ps - the terse atmosphere is just like traffic noise when working by the highway...merely a distraction that has no bearing on your survey...other than a "safety" issue.
"Just from a knee-jerk opinion, I would probably hold with the 200' width (and course) backwards from the POB, and let the course from there 'north' intersect the road r/w. The only reason I'm saying that is it seems as though the tract has been construed as rectangular."
I have to hold the 200' width. That is from what the width of the parent was.
"How old is the deed?"
The deed is from 2003, from a deed of 1999, from a deed of 1994 (estate partition).
"Has the road moved?"
No!
"Are there any occupation lines evident or visible?"
No! Open grass land with no fences.
Maybe a couple numbers got mixed up. 1410 should be 1465, 765 should be 700, and 500 is still 500. Gets ya within a couple feet, better than 58.
Obviously a head scratcher, but at least it's an estate and they'll probably go with whatever you present to them. Good luck
I know that area is way down on the list in the dignity of calls but it is still there. Which one gives you the acres. That could also be construed as intent if it was self-surveyed years ago.
Just a thought.
James
The NE corner fits the road. It's the NW corner that has problems. That's where the 57.8' error is. I did look at that.
My guess is that the 765 should be 705. Either a transciption error brought forward or something similar. That would produce the correct numbers assuming a straight line along the roadway. Note that this would require the 1410 to actually be 1470, another very common transcription error. This produces about 2.7 acres +/- depending on the road
If you want a single transcription error, claim the 500 was actually 560, but misread.
Yea! The deed area is 2.5 acres.
Both solutions are 2.9 acres. The big solution holding the road, and the closing line as East 200' is 3.04 acres.
I figured the area would be wrong.
Thanks!
Ok, so the deed goes back to '94. What has the assessor been doing all these years?
This seems like the classic job where you get to be the hero. Just draw up the best fit, explain the obvious deed goof up to everybody, and fix it. It would seem the 200' width lying South of the road, to a cardinal line from the POB makes the most sense. Or shift the line North to fit the area.
Ain't it fun fixing things....;-)
Put the error where it most likely occurred.
Be prepared to answer tough questions in the Deposition.
I think I agree with Paden.
Go backwards from the POB. The intention is most likely to go all the way to the road. So extend the west line to the road. Make the south east-west.
I'm assuming the distance on the east line from the POB fits.
When deed information is in question, you wonder what is right and what is wrong. Evidently, you cannot use the wrong information when it can be proven otherwise.
There are 4 key elements to satisfy.
Seniority - which tract came first and in what order it fell
Intent - acres or distance creation of the tract
Evidence - what is found on the ground
Harmony - boundaries are placed by practical and legal solution
these can be seen in a different light in different places
Well right now I still just the messenger! 😛
Here's the update. The client called. I explained the situation. He understood he had control of more land then that was deeded to him. So he's going to approach the step dad in law about a trade. He's got 0.4 to 0.54 acres to deal with. So far I'm still just the messenger.
Life Is Good! 😉
Jules J.
Mr. Harris, I like your list and will add it to my list of lists. I of course know the gist of the list, but I'd never seen it in that light. Thank you.
Did the wife's dad ever attempt a DIY survey of this parcel? If so, what were his methods and did he set anything? If he even jabbed sticks in the ground in contemplation of the conveyance, that would be pretty good evidence of the true intent. Since you have a latent defect in the deed, you need to look to extrinsic evidence to resolve it, if such evidence exists.
Do the dimensions in the original deed read 500' and 200', or did they read 500.00' and 200.00'? Were the directions written as "South" and "East", "due South" and "due East", or "South parallel with..."
My point about dimensions being that you should not ascribe precision to them that was not expressed in the original deed unless you find extrinsic evidence that one or any of these dimensions were intended to be more precise than indicated in the writing. It may be that the distances and directions were just estimated.
I would experiment some by creating a few potential search positions to see if there might be any indication of the actual lines in the field. Hold 500.00 from the point on the RW and 200' from the POB, search at the intersection of the distances. Hold South parallel to the nearest section line from the point on the RW and West from the POB. Question whether the POB is correct.
Consider whether the 1410' should have been 1470', whether the 500' should have been 550', whether the 765' should have been 705'.
From what I read, you should be using math to aid your investigation of where the boundaries are rather than resorting to math to redefine where they will be from now on. You may have to eventually resort to a solution that is largely mathematical, but that's premature without first trying to understand the source of the latent error in the description.
Naw! The step dad married into the family. I was talking to uncle in the family who was born and raised on the property. He's in his late 60's. He said his grand father was a surveyor. He had his 10 inch compass and chains. I asked if there were any corners set? Naw! Just the pipe I found at the 1/4 corner the grand father set. There are only 3 parcels with metes and bounds descriptions. All have the same flaw along the road. The rest of the parcels are strips of land 190 feet wide being 10 acres. To him the most important part of the deed descriptions are all being 10 acres. All the parcels with metes and bounds descriptions are North South East or West to the foot except along the section line being 0.5 of a foot. Grand dad must had been the real deal. The way I found that pipe was running a gps baseline. I then used a digital quad to get lat and lon of the section corner. I converted that to state plane. I then got the 1822 GLO plat. Broke that section down. Loaded that lat lon into my little Garmin eTrex. Headed out across country, crossed a creek. Put my SubSurface mt to work. And what do you know. I was standing on that pipe.
I've gone and done more than 1 or 2 like you are saying. If there were something out there to be found, I wouldn't be here entertaining myself and Ya'll.
OK, I got a little confused among the family and was thinking wife's dad instead of step-dad. So did granddad do any measuring in the field for this conveyance? Did anyone? If he did, using a compass & chain, is it possible that he may not have properly accounted for magnetic declination? Might he have dropped a chain on one line or inadvertently added one to another?
If this parcel is the N end of a longer 200' wide strip, do you have any means of identifying the East & West lines of that strip along any other portion of the lines?
500' and 200' dimensions aren't necessarily precise to the nearest foot. Might be +/-10', +/-50'...
Just a thought.
Other thought, assuming that you have exhausted all the investigative ideas given in this thread: If the dimensions running up to the road RW get you to the RW, and all the other courses of the parent parcel follow patterns as to what is N & S and what is E & W, then the error is most likely in the 500' course. If the parent parcel is 200' wide, then the side lines of that parcel define the sidelines of your client's parcel. However you are able to re-establish them fixes them. The road RW fixes the N line. Hold the S line parallel to the nearest E-W line of the parent parcel as you were able to determine it and fix the E end of your client's S line to the POB. The length of the W line ends up being whatever that results in (somewhere in the neighborhood of 557.8').
It always bothers me a little to resort to a mathmatical solution because I'm left with the feeling that there is some evidence existing that I was unable to find. But if I were to resort to one given the facts you've presented, this one would be near the top of the list to consider.
If granddad had done some measuring for this parcel, it strikes me odd that he would not have set anything, not even nails or wood hubs.
Grand Paws dying was the reason the land was divided amongst the children in 1974. I too tend to think Grand Paw would have set something. I started thinking that maybe the road location was changed since 1974. But the deed call along the South ROW of the road is 287. If I extend the West line North to the offset center line to match the NE parcel corner distance from the center line it measures 287 flat. If I measure a chord distance from the NE corner to the NW corner being 500' from the SW corner it measures 332 feet. Who ever came up with the West line measurement dropped the ball.
To me being in colonial the acreage doesn't matter at all in determining this boundary. It could be 10 Acres and still be spot on dead right. I wouldn't say the owner has anything to play with as a bargaining chip that might give the wrong idea and if you do have to survey out 3 acres then the step dad might blow a gasket.
I would look for the line that is the most likely candidate for not having been measured or if it is a big field look for a 90 that isn't. If they did it by themselves how did they turn 90 on such a long distance with any accuracy would be my question.
I would take into account that measuring along the road would have been easy and important to the land as road frontage goes.
It may not be the closing line it may very well be the line furthest from the road if they did measure by hand and without proper tools to get a halfway accurate angles.
The first thing I tell my clients when asked about the acreage is that it is the last thing I look at when determining the boundary.
