Remaining Land

Is the client asking to create a new lot line (ANR or Def. Subdivision)? Or are they asking you to draw a Conservation Restriction (Easement) Plan?

Either way, I agree with you. A proper perimeter survey is needed.

It's going to be a state specific thing. In Oregon you would have to go through a land use review (ie/subdivision platting), as any of those other exceptions would have had to (if they were done after 1973).  Which means you wouldn't likely have to deal with such a convoluted deed description. 

@peter-lothian it's an ANR (approval not required under the subdivision control law). There is a house on a fifty acre parcel. The plan is to exclude the house from the remaining land and make that a conservation area.

@norman-oklahoma it was 1953 in Massachusetts, however this land is a very old family estate. There was a time when boundaries made by deeds were understood by the parties making the conveyance. I don't think they gave thought to how confusing that might become as generations pass.

Would they have to have a survey done in order to declare the entire parcel subject to the conservation restrictions? If not then they only need to define the area not subject to the conservation restrictions. If the deed with all of its exceptions was satisfactory to transfer the land in the last sale, then it is also satisfactory to define the conservation area. The only need left is to define the area not subject to the conservation, i.e. some area that includes the house in this instance.

While I agree that the whole parcel should be surveyed and resolved, and will no doubt need to be someday, it seems to me that a 21st exception to the parent parcel doesn't materially increase the degree of complexity.  One former boss would say "We are not here to solve the world's problems". We recommend our best solutions, we try not to make things worse, but if the client won't pay for it we can't force them to do the right thing. 

@lurker if they had one deed that described the parcel intended to be conserved then a survey would not be necessary. Currently there is a house on the parcel and that needs to be excluded. Beside that the deed describes land on both sides of the road which was once contiguous until the road was dedicated. With the road going through it and the parcels that were deeded out it is just one big mess.

@norman-oklahoma that is correct. I advised them that if they wanted to just have a survey that shows a parcel for the building they can possibly find someone else to do that.

@not-my-real-name 

I get what you are saying, but if you do the little job for them you will be the first one they call when they need the big job done. Maybe. Then again, maybe they are just shopping for the bottom feeding lowest cost provider. I guess that you just have to make a judgement call on which it is. 

I did one several years ago and surveyed just the house and the access to it.  I don’t see anything wrong with that.  No approval needed in rural area it was at.  If it’s a conservation easement like most of them I’m familiar with nothing can happen on the land again, no logging or much else.

@david-livingstone it can be used for timber harvesting provided a forester is employed to make the plan. Loggers will be involved but not in control. The plan will allow for proper forest succession so trees that are "high grade" must remain. I also think that is why the boundary of the conservation land is important.