When dealing with the original states' metes and bounds boundary descriptions, it requires surveyors to go back to the original intent "day of creation" of each conveyance and sometimes even to the original land patent. This usually takes an enormous amount of time and can/should/will be costly. However property disputes are costly on many levels and many various modern surveyor's opinions can result without doing the due diligence needed to explain the impossible torture of the property lines to make original tract's parcels fit together. If there are three or more subdivisions in sequence, if one of the earlier ones has a number reversal in the length of a line, it changes the area of all the other subdivisions that follow it. So what happens in the modern era of surveyors, the most senior property that came first gets reapportioned to give up land due to the unseen error by creatively changing the interpretation of the metes and bounds typical metes and bounds "stone to tree" straight line description. Have seen everything from a "missing leg" theory to a "must have been" riparian boundary to both the tree and the stone being the intended middle point in a stream. The original senior parcel boundary from which the others were subdivided closes at a 0.0 %. The others have lots of error and an error in the length of one line due to a number reversal in the middle of a multi number sequence. Simple understanding of mathematics to the rescue. Fix the number reversal and the original intent length becomes possible, clear and evident. What is sad is how many properties and people are negatively affected 100 or 200 years later as the ability to precisely measure any line does zero justice to finding where the line is / was originally and then measuring it. Complete and accurate research doesn't cost as much as the same thousands of dollars cumulatively wasted on later strings of misaligned surveyor opinions, bitter neighbors, lawsuits, and something that never seems to add up right....
The original senior parcel boundary from which the others were subdivided closes at a 0.0 %.
Your post is confusing me, and I've done sequential subdivisions involving 2,000+ lots & several years work.?ÿ But in particular what do you mean by the above sentence?
You appear to be under the misunderstanding that surveyors don't have to go back to the creation of the boundary in PLSS states??ÿ
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Meaning that when you do the geometry and how the angles and lines add up of the senior parcel the closing error is zero on the first but from a later one and onward if there is a mistake, it will show a closure error that is a flag that something is not adding up.
The metes and bounds states have a lot of surveyors who do "deed stake outs" based on the near in time deed or deeds. They don't go back to the creation or walk in the footsteps of the first subdivision surveyor.... the legal concept is that you can not sell the same land twice from what i understand however in the way that they practice surveying, it gets to be a mess....
"Ultimately, area or quantity remains at the bottom of the list for a very legitimate reason—despite the disappointment it will cause for many landowners. As the calculation of area depends on the accuracy of all measurements of the perimeter of a given tract, a significant error in any bearing or distance will virtually guarantee an erroneous result for the calculated area."
That's a pretty big net. In my experience working and being licenced in PLSS States, and colonial states, deed staking in just as prevalent in colonial states as PLSS states.
Fence line surveys, however are more common in the colonial states.
Any scrivener's error after the first document can be repaired by stepping back to the creating document. Even a scrivener error in a Patent could be repaired by looking at what the subsequent adjoining Patent took the bearing/distance to be. Mathematical closure and area can be very controlling when other ancient data agrees with the correction.
I will not speak for other States but in Pennsylvania one first sought a Warrant for a certain acreage, then had that acreage surveyed, the map was returned for review and approval before the Patent was granted. It was not a slipshod process, but still errors crept in. Fifty years ago I was involved with a survey of two adjoining parcels that shared? a line that was diagonal on one Patent Map and a stair step on the other Patent Map, two overlaps and one gore. My father sought a warrant for the gore and got it. The State ruled that the senior Patent, not Warrant received any overlapping area but the other could not claim the gore, since my father's Warrant was senior even though it was 200 years younger, since until the Warrant was requested it was Commonwealth Land. I have that Patent and it is quite impressive with the Governor's signature and the Commonwealth's embossed gold seal.
Paul in PA
What is legal is not always equitable. Sounds like there were two angry landowners after that.
@aliquot "Fence line surveys, however are more common in the colonial states."
Probably because in the colonial states, without an underlying framework like the PLSS, it's more common for fence lines to be be the best surviving evidence of the intent of the original grantor. 🙂
Not angry, the one that wanted it bought it, but it took a third party to get it accomplished. My dad did it to prove a point. The adjoining landowners could in no way divvy up the parcel between them because it was Sovereign land. My dad found it by research, we surveyed it and proved the parcel by looking for a large Bull Pine called for as a corner, not to be found, but there was a mostly buried burned out stump, a sample was sent to a dendrologist proving the species and it was accepted by the State. Then the State had to first offer it to State Game lands, too small and far enough away from the game lands abutting the two parcels. Then it was evaluated for purchase price by the State, my dad paid for it, then hired a surveyor to map it. He then negotiated a fair but profitable sale price, much less than any legal wrangling would have cost and most likely to no avail.
Paul in PA
@paul-in-pa
What a great account of how important research and property rights are when taken back correctly to the very beginning! Your father proved a point that most would have totally ignored and wasted thousands of dollars fighting needlessly over when neither actually had an ownership claim to! Would you be able to take a scan of that patent document from the governor of PA and share it as a post here? That would really prove the point to others who ignore errors and hope that some other legal construction principle can just gloss over errors and logical impossibilities... Thank you.
I wouldn't call using a fence line as the best availble evidence of the original line a "fence line survey", that's just a survey, and is as often appropriate in the eastern portion of the PLSS as it is in the colonial states.
A fence line survey is when a surveyor is too lazy to do any research, or is to cowardly to point out mistakes and just claims the fence is the line.
A survey that uses the fences as the best available evidence needs to explain why that is the case to avoid being indistinguishable from a fence line survey.
Another thing to remember is that the majority of boundaries in many PLSS statws today only use the PLSS for indexing purposes and not as a controlling element. Many boundaries in the PLSS are determined exactly as they are in Colonial states, although the time period required to research may be shorter.
I don't really disagree, but I would phrase it differently. Boundary law is usually equitable on the large scale, but may seem inequitable when looking at only one example.
I smell the work of the Texas Stretch-a-Fence Company here.
