Researching Land

It's all magic 🙂

Actually, if it was that easy to explain how to place a "bounding" deed there would be a lot less books on land surveying! You have to dig deeper, check for recorded survey plans, and look for a ton of evidence before the deeds become slightly clearer.

Many deed descriptions contain no apparent dimensions. Those are usually my favorite surveys, but I digress.
Just because you don't see such and such direction for so much distance doesn't mean the dimensions cannot be found. If you post an image here we may be able to help a bit. If you are concerned about privacy perhaps some excerpts would give us a clue. ..

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Here is a copy of what I have so far. Our property is highlighted in page 3 old deed is page 9 and former cautcher property the deed refers to is on page 4 an also a copy of the former pasco property next to us on page 7. And our neighbor behing us on page 6. Any help is appreciated.

http://www.rollestonelectric.com/pdf/property2.pdf

The last deed found in the research of a property I am at a final stage of was found today and it has a bounded description.

Ironically, the other adjoining property descriptions result in two different monuments for the same northwest corner of the property I am surveying. Add the COE survey and another previous description of the COE land, makes two more monuments for a total of 4 different monuments for the same corner.

BTW, I found all four monuments in place
Rock pile
4x4 CM
1in Iron Pipe
60d in base of Sweetgum

Big surprise is that the three fences, one from east, one from west and one from south make corner at two different locations than all the monuments.

The folder of this project is getting thicker every day, lol...........

The thing that would worry me. Is there ever a property that boundaries can't be determined?

Robert Rolleston, post: 336409, member: 10403 wrote: The thing that would worry me. Is there ever a property that boundaries can't be determined?

Actually, with some of the most meager descriptions that contain little information and few words, there exists "intent" that makes it possible to survey and locate on the ground.

Robert Rolleston, post: 336409, member: 10403 wrote: The thing that would worry me. Is there ever a property that boundaries can't be determined?

As dark as it looks, there always light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes the key is to look at the adjoining properties. As bad as it sounds, you might have the leftovers.

Jules J., post: 336430, member: 444 wrote: As dark as it looks, there always light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes the key is to look at the adjoining properties. As bad as it sounds, you might have the leftovers.

I don't mind leftovers. Did not buy it for a building lot. Wanted something I could just clean up and use for camping. Checked all properties around that came from the same deed and nothing only a few of them had a good description of the self but not close enough to our property to help. I am having fun looking though. The map we need is probably sitting in someone's office or in a drawer in the county clerks office. May just go there searching through maps to see what I can find.

The deed points you to the assessment office. Look at old tax maps and find your block and lot. You do have some information there. You have a section of town on a certain block and you even have a parcel number. I'm going to assume the lots are all similar and venture that I could survey that property. I mean, not really because you're in NY, but I could.

It's more difficult when your deed reads "Bounded on the north by some guy who's been dead for 40 years and bounded on the south by a mining company that's been out of business for 10 years and on the east and west by a bunch of other people you've never heard of before. Containing about 149 acres less 6% for roads." And let's just say that deed was (and still is) hand-written and dates back to 1921.

I recently did a subdivision for a club that bought ground from a mining company. Their parcel (35 acres) was part of larger parcel that was in a hand-written deed which contained 35 different tracts of land. That deed was the current deed and it dated back to the early 20th century. THAT was a challenge.

Sounds like fun. Thank you I will see if they have any old tax maps that is also a good idea. I have our old tax id. I researched ours back to 1930s where it seems to have been first separated. Very rural area. I don't think there is a single lot that looks the same. Then they butchered them all to straighten the road and did not leave a record of it other than some road maps and a deed plot that I got from the county. Did not clean up any properties. If you look at one of the surveys in the PDF. There is one they took a chunk out for the new road and left the unused chunk where the old road was. Seems they didn't want to spend the money to get stuff surveyed and straightened out.

mattharnett, post: 336443, member: 6458 wrote: The deed points you to the assessment office. Look at old tax maps and find your block and lot. You do have some information there. You have a section of town on a certain block and you even have a parcel number. I'm going to assume the lots are all similar and venture that I could survey that property. I mean, not really because you're in NY, but I could.

It's more difficult when your deed reads "Bounded on the north by some guy who's been dead for 40 years and bounded on the south by a mining company that's been out of business for 10 years and on the east and west by a bunch of other people you've never heard of before. Containing about 149 acres less 6% for roads." And let's just say that deed was (and still is) hand-written and dates back to 1921.

I recently did a subdivision for a club that bought ground from a mining company. Their parcel (35 acres) was part of larger parcel that was in a hand-written deed which contained 35 different tracts of land. That deed was the current deed and it dated back to the early 20th century. THAT was a challenge.

Robert Rolleston, post: 336409, member: 10403 wrote: The thing that would worry me. Is there ever a property that boundaries can't be determined?

I know what A Harris is saying. And as surveyors we are looking for the intent of the old deeds. But there are many times that two different surveyors can't agree on the intent of the deed. The better written the legal description the better chances that different experts will agree. But these poorly-written Impossible descriptions sometimes must go through a legal process where a judge finally decides the outcome of the location of the boundary.

And, as with all legal cases, sometimes they can be appealed and earlier decisions overruled. If a boundary is ambiguous, and different surveyors can't agree on their(or its) location, often times a boundary line agreement is the wisest and least-expensive solution. If that is the final solution, it would be best to have a competent land surveyor write the description of the new line based on the BLA so that a new and well-written description follows that property in the future.

I have successfully researched several bounds only parcels. The first was the hardest, not because I was inexperienced but because two of the four bounds had very common names such as Smith and Brown. That meant many more deeds had to be researched.

You may need to go no farther than all the adjoining parcels and trace them back. In some states it would be prudent to be held by every well established lines. What also needs to be done is to trace back and find any and all exceptions.

Do not expect such a survey to be at the normal price.

Paul in PA

The only exception I can't find is the one where they moved the road. It would be easier if it was like the power transmission line and had its own parcel id and I could research it. I see a parcel id in an old road map but nothing turns up with it yet.