Placement of excess and deficiency in older subdivisions

I think Brown’s Boundary Control and Legal Principles has some excellent info on this. I don’t remember if it deals with this specifically but I was always taught that the excess and deficiency was put in the last lot if the dimension was not included on the plat. As far as your situation I think it could go a couple different ways, since the distance is down to the tenth and the rest are to the foot than you could reason that excess and deficiency be applied to the last lot only if it does not change the foot distance. Any more like feet could reasonably be distributed between all lots. This should be last resort. The best bet would be that you do find some other evidence so that you do not have to do the entire block.
I also think that your way of applying it could fly as there is a plus minus on distance and it could be argued intent was for all error in this lot.
Good luck finding some evidence.

Thanks Bear Bait. Brown's is my go to but doesn't seem to address this particular set of circumstances with the +/- in the last lot on the block. I told the people that hired me that if they couldn't budget enough time for me to do it right I wouldn't be interested and I needed to do it before freeze up for obvious reasons. I should be able to narrow down the search to +/- a foot and scrape away the duff down to mineral soil and with luck, voila! No proration needed and I'm bullet proof. 🙂

> I was taught that in this type of situation, that would not be the correct approach as all of the excess or deficiency should go in that last lot with the +/- dimension, unless the original corners show to the contrary. I haven't had to deal with one of these in some time so I wanted to see if there was any agreement that this would be the correct approach under the circumstances. It's my hope to recover the original stakes which should be still intact below ground. Call me an optimist.
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Is it clear from the records that the subdivision was platted in the office from prior surveys by others? If that is so, the purpose of the +/- dimensions would be plain enough, i.e. to lay out regular lots of a fixed frontage and let the +/- be whatever was left. It's hard to imagine the lots being laid out on the ground before the plat was prepared because the +/- dimension would presumably have been measured in the course of the work and so would not be expressed as a "more or less" figure unless there was some uncertainty in the location of the West line of the tract subdivided that isn't otherwise apparent.

I doubt plats of that age typically intended to express significant figures. The 323 could be read as if it was 323.0 to the same precision as any other measurement on the plat, and certainly not as 323 +/- 0.5 ft.

Side question, why is it -/+ when +/- is much more common?

Before worrying about a tenth or two proportioning the lot corners, [sarcasm]you'd better go to the 1/4 & section corners and re-subdivide that sucker to be sure the GLO was precise enough on their section subdivision. As we all know, those interior 16th corners need to be within an acceptable "circle of error" to be correct.[/sarcasm]

> Before worrying about a tenth or two proportioning the lot corners, you'd better go to the 1/4 & section corners and re-subdivide that sucker to be sure the GLO was precise enough on their section subdivision. As we all know, those interior 16th corners need to be within an acceptable "circle of error" to be correct.

Actually, as I understand the portion of the plat that was posted, the corners shown as controlling the boundaries of the tract subdivided are specific monuments placed at specific times, not generic PLSS corners. So, the exercise is figuring out where those corners were monumented by the GLO on the ground at the time that the subdivision was platted and/or the lots staked.

You do understand what the [sarcasm]sarcasm font[/sarcasm] is typically used for, don't you?

> You do understand what the sarcasm font is typically used for, don't you?

Yes, it's something you edit out when quoting what another poster has written since the sarcasm font is for sissies, generally. :>

> Side question, why is it -/+ when +/- is much more common?

Well, the dimension it appears beside is significantly less than that of the regular lots. So the emphasis is on the LESS aspect of the tolerance, not the MORE.

You mentioned other surveyors had proportioned. It would be a jump for me if I was doing this to throw the slop in the last lots. In Alaska, there are plenty of old paper plats that were computed in the winter (I always thought one up there being Williwaw Subdivision in Wasilla, which is ironic to your handle on this site) I would think the intent was to show there might be some uncertainty on his precision to the subdivisional line. Here's to finding some evidence along one of these lines..it will help you solve it.

"scribed spruce stake" from 1952?

WOW! Down here pine lath fall over after about 6 weeks. Nothing left below ground line.

But I suppose the alternative is frost heaving iron pins out of the ground. Well, that and working year round.;-)

Completely up to the state regs. Here in PA, it all goes into the last lot sold from the original property, except in towns where it is prorated out.

The thinking behind it is that out of 110', person one bought 40', person 2 bought 40', and person 3 just thought they bought 40', but the landowner didn't have 40' to sell, so they bought 30'

This logic does not go over very well when the properties were sold 150 years ago, and everyone has just been using about 36' + or -, with the third owner suddenly having half their house off the property. I generally try to convince them to just let me document what they are using and get lot line adjustments for everyone.

The "more or less" calls are just the beginning of your quest. Wait til the neighbors come out and start with their "what's going on?" and their "is everything wrong" stuff. :excruciating:

It sounds like you are describing sequential creation of parcels. Do they treat plats as sequential creations in PA?

> Before worrying about a tenth or two proportioning the lot corners, [sarcasm]you'd better go to the 1/4 & section corners and re-subdivide that sucker to be sure the GLO was precise enough on their section subdivision. As we all know, those interior 16th corners need to be within an acceptable "circle of error" to be correct.[/sarcasm]

Brian is nailing it. If you find the original corners, the dimensions are irrelevant. If they have been fenced and occupied for this period of time, proration would be the last resort, more of a guide to general location than a notice to place a two-bit rebar in the preeeecisely computed position.

Exactly. I can recover the controlling corners and compute everything out to the nth. decimal place the theoretical location of a corner and if I'm lucky I'll be within a few feet of where the original corners were set. This is one of a few sections that was actually broken down by the GLO as part of the Governments resettlement program following the Great Depression. It's also funny that ken should mention Williwaw subdivision in Wasilla as it is by far one of the most gobbed up subdivisions I've ever worked in and this one was done by the same surveyor, Mr. Richard Demming. I've retraced enough of his work over the years to know that his love for Port wine sometimes led to some very creative but altogether fictitious plats, although I don't think this is one of them. My handle of Williwaw is derived from my love for back country skiing and my Tibetan Mastiff who goes by the same name. My reason for the post was to see if their was any dissent on how any slop would be apportioned in a subdivision where only one lot in a block is given the +/- dimension. I will need to recover the controlling corners and compute the whole sucker out whether I like it or not, which is why I chuckled a bit when this client asked why this wasn't going to be a $300 survey.

> It sounds like you are describing sequential creation of parcels. Do they treat plats as sequential creations in PA?

I agree - that seems pretty weird.

Also, if the end lot is supposed to get the slop, then it shouldn't be dimensioned as precisely as +- 0.1'.

I disagree Bill, I learned from an older surveyor that related to me that a common procedure when he was on gov. crews was to lay out lots at a given number most often in chains, or whole links and then have the final exact measurement in the remainder of the line. The intent being to have dimensions even throughout the subdivision and the last lot purposefully have more significant figures as it was a more precise measurement. I have seen many plats that list whole chains throughout and then chains to two decimal places on the last dimension. His and my interpretation on many of these was ease of field procedure.
Without any info on how close the measurements would be in this subdivision one cannot assume that the last lot wouldn’t be a few tenths out. I wouldn’t proportion that across all the lots and I wouldn’t ignore it and call it record if it was 3 tenths out either.

I can’t tell whether you are serious on this one or not Kent, are you saying that because it says -+ the intent is to say that the last measurement is measured to a less tolerance, and fact that it has more significant figures means nothing?

Would that mean that when you see a ± it is measured more precise and significant figures have no meaning?