Kent McMillan, post: 395458, member: 3 wrote: As the assessed value of our house has jumped up, each year I've contested the valuation before the appraisal review board who rely upon an inherently flawed methodology for valuing valuable lots with old houses that have a nearly 100% chance of being gutted to the framing or partially torn down to add square feet. The only success I had was one year when we actually had the house listed with MLS, actively offered for sale on January 1, and had no offers at that price. That did establish that it's market value was less than the offering price.
I read on the internet that you can apply for a land patent then you won't have to pay property taxes or your mortgage!
Dave Karoly, post: 395467, member: 94 wrote: I read on the internet that you can apply for a land patent then you won't have to pay property taxes or your mortgage!
Well, if you read it on the internet, it must be true.
A Harris, post: 395466, member: 81 wrote: I left high tax bracket property in 1987 and returned to rural NE Texas outside the bounds of city hands to complicate for a couple acres with an excellent water well.
The advantages of city life are certainly worth no small amount of money as far as I'm concerned. I wouldn't want to live anywhere that there wasn't an HEB grocery within less than about fifteen minutes drive, for example, and it's even better to be five minutes from a Trader Joe's.
Being about fourteen minutes away from the GLO is also a considerable luxury. Once all the files are digitized and on line, that won't be quite the drawing card that it is now, but that's years away and some holdings, such as the correspondence files, are unlikely to be digitized any time in the next couple of decades.
Dave Karoly, post: 395467, member: 94 wrote: I read on the internet that you can apply for a land patent then you won't have to pay property taxes or your mortgage!
Yeah, and you don't have to pay taxes or traffic tickets because Federal Reserve Notes are not backed by gold..and if a court room has an American flag that has gold fringe, it means the judge is a member of the illuminati too.
[USER=3]@Kent McMillan[/USER]
There are none of those within several hours drive in any direction.
We have always had an excellent supply of all the counties original Field Notes of the Headright Surveys in the Clerk's office and there are no section land here.
Mom and Pop suppliers are everywere and one of Texas top 10 BBQ cooks in Jefferson and the best tasting fish I've eaten on several continents comes from Wright Patman Lake and back up the Sulfur and White Oak.
Most of Texas along the upper I45 and beyond are trying to use Congress to steal all that fresh water supply.
There are less people livin' in this county than can be seen while driving thru Austin.
Nope, you would never like it up here.........;)
A Harris, post: 395492, member: 81 wrote: [USER=3]There are none of those [good grocerty stores or other services] within several hours drive in any direction.
We have always had an excellent supply of all the counties original Field Notes of the Headright Surveys in the Clerk's office and there are no section land here.[/USER]
If you don't deal with any land grants that were originally sold as School Land, you won't miss the fact that the School files at the GLO are not available on line, that's true. If your county was organized out of another and all you have in the way of field notes in the County Surveyor's records are transcriptions, that would make me nervous to treat them as reliable. However, if the patent files for the entire county have been scanned and are available for download on line, it's easy enough to read the originals on file at the GLO. It's easy, that is, if you have high-speed internet available; but that isn't the case in many rural areas.
As for grocery stores, I'm pretty sure that if you want to buy organic Sumatra coffee beans, you won't find them at most rural grocery stores, and if you do they will cost at least twice what they do in the city. Same thing with most other food and drink that city life offers, particularly products of the vine or barley malt.
[USER=3]@Kent McMillan[/USER]
My many conversations with the GLO has not been enough to interest any LSLS of the errors I've found here.
That will probably remain until a discovery well hits in county and they would have something of value for them to investigate.
We have many trees and fresh spring water above the pollution level which remains our most valuable asset.
DSL is available to most and a big brown truck will bring near anything to our doorsteps.
The drivers in brown shorts simply have to walk farther to get there than he does in most other areas.
A Harris, post: 395525, member: 81 wrote: [USER=3]My many conversations with the GLO has not been enough to interest any LSLS of the errors I've found here.[/USER]
I was thinking more about Archives & Records and not so much about Surveying Division which is a separate world entirely. I'm sure I'm spoiled, but being able to just pop over to the GLO and pull a hundred files when I want to, is hard to beat. In your case, where most of the surveys you deal with are (I assume) probably from Red River Land District, they will have already been scanned and would be available on line for download. So you don't miss much by not handling the actual documents.
A quick look at the county map shows zero School Land in your county and any Scrap Files will have already been scanned and are also available on line. Much of the rest of Texas (i.e. Central, North, and West Texas) is an entirely different story.
DSL is available to most and a big brown truck will bring near anything to our doorsteps.
The drivers in brown shorts simply have to walk farther to get there than he does in most other areas.
Yes, if a person in the outlands is willing to wait a week and pay the freight costs, I'm sure that he can order just about anything from the cities. It's just more fun to pop over and in five minutes see the things, talk to actual humans, choose, and drive off with one. I see UPS and FedEx as just part of the overhead expense of rural life.
About a 45min drive away in Texarkana is Super One Foods, it is a place where things are bought by the case and houses one of the best meat markets around and prepare many of their own recipe fresh pork sausage and it is possible to special order your cuts of meat and get it shortly afterwards.
A lot of concrete and asphalt covered land and interstate cog works in play there.
An hour drive to the southwest is Longview and there is more of the same with a different name.
Shreveport area, "the big cluster of confusion", is no more than an hour away has many budget deal warehouse situations and the best seafood around and unfortunately is a place to get yourself dead by venturing out of sight of others.
It actually gets totally dark outside when I turn off all the lights.
I am not missing any of the city life at all.
What is Trader Joes? I seen the HEB in Abilene, and won't be caught dead in there. My office is barely inside the "loop", and I can hit the grocery store with a 3 minute drive from there. 25 minutes to the house, and if I turn off my guard light, I can see the glow that is Abilene off in the distance at night. My real shopping is done at the supermarket in clyde. I would guess the parking lot might have 60 parking spots. As far s I am concerned, if I "hit the big 6" (lottery joke) I am going to move somewhere between San Angelo and Del Rio down some caliche road and have the big brown truck bring my groceries once a week. I'll make lots of calls to the GLO asking for copies before I give in and drive down there to go through records myself. I still am in shock about parking meters that take debit cards. Honestly, I forget about streetlights sometimes LOL!
Monte, post: 395640, member: 11913 wrote: What is Trader Joes?...
It's where you get your "Two Buck Chuck".
paden cash, post: 395644, member: 20 wrote: It's where you get your "Two Buck Chuck".
It's an upscale Aldi for soccer moms
http://www.kiplinger.com/article/spending/T050-C011-S001-5-reasons-you-should-shop-at-aldi.html
Monte, post: 395640, member: 11913 wrote: What is Trader Joes? I seen the HEB in Abilene, and won't be caught dead in there. My office is barely inside the "loop", and I can hit the grocery store with a 3 minute drive from there. 25 minutes to the house, and if I turn off my guard light, I can see the glow that is Abilene off in the distance at night. My real shopping is done at the supermarket in clyde. I would guess the parking lot might have 60 parking spots. As far s I am concerned, if I "hit the big 6" (lottery joke) I am going to move somewhere between San Angelo and Del Rio down some caliche road and have the big brown truck bring my groceries once a week. I'll make lots of calls to the GLO asking for copies before I give in and drive down there to go through records myself. I still am in shock about parking meters that take debit cards. Honestly, I forget about streetlights sometimes LOL!
I am with you on this. I lived in Austin for several years and I can count on one hand the number of times I needed anything from the GLO. The first time I made the drive downtown to pick it up myself (mostly because I wanted to see the GLO), but after the parking nightmare, I decided to have them mail/email everything from then on....I think the most they have ever charged me was about 7 dollars....well worth not driving downtown.
Now I am like you, in a town smaller than Abilene, living 20 miles out of town, and if I turn out the lights...it goes dark.
BrandonA, post: 395701, member: 11837 wrote: I am with you on this. I lived in Austin for several years and I can count on one hand the number of times I needed anything from the GLO..
Most surveyors don't realize how much information exists in the GLO holdings that can't be accessed just by remote control. I do a considerable amount of work in which the original surveys are involved and the reality I have found is that the only efficient way to really get into many problems is to examine a whole bunch of files. If they're scanned and on line, you're in fairly good shape, but if they are not scanned, which remained true of nearly all the School Files when I last checked, you're at a major disadvantage.
The correspondence files are a gold mine of information that can only be accessed in person at the microfilm reader. I spent days there a couple of years ago when I was helping a client defeat the claim that about 400 acres of a survey he owned was not actually a part of a School survey to which the State held superior title. It turned out that the problem had been dealt with in the 1880s and there was a long exchange of letters on the subject.
Monte, post: 395640, member: 11913 wrote: What is Trader Joes? I seen the HEB in Abilene, and won't be caught dead in there.
I'm pretty sure that HEB doesn't do funerals, but I may be wrong. In Abilene, the grocery stores may not need to stock much more than corn meal, salt pork, and pinto beans, but some of us like to buy other stuff of good quality for reasonable prices, which HEB has in abundance.
Trader Joe's, of course, is a great place to buy certain things which typically come thoughtfully packaged at very good prices. The better bargains there are right in time for Oktoberfest: German bratwurst und MÌ?rzen-style bier. While those folks who don't want to spend more than four dollars for a bottle of wine are welcome to load up on the Charles Shaw wines, Trader Joe's does sell some very good quality "Reserve" wines, the best of which is probably the Meritage blend at the moment with a couple of runners-up among the Petite Sirah and Zinfandels.
http://www.traderjoes.com/fearless-flyer/article/3216
Oh, the organic coffees are a deal, also
Trader Joe's is cool. We stop in when we're in a larger city. To go along with Mr. Harris's positives for living in East Texas, we also have three wineries within an hour drive or so of one another. Kent's mention of Meritage reminded me of my favorite from Los Pinos.
I prefer to live outside of town myself. I like to be able to go outside and urinate when I please, shoot firearms on occasion and burn my tree trimmings. I'm actually closer to town presently than I would prefer to be, but it is nice to be able to make a 10 minute drive to necessities.
I agree that a trip to the GLO can be rewarding in obtaining information not found anywhere else.
In the 1980s I made several trips there to search for information.
The sketch files have revealed some valuable gems that resolved cases headed into court and won others that did.
Locally there is much confusion in one area where Lone Star Steel Land Surveyors work gets mixed up with that of Licensed State Land Surveyors
(LSSLS v LSLS = mining engineers v surveyors).
In the early 1970s I did the double vision WTF when I first saw the difference on paper after the surveyor's signature and the revelation parted the clouds.
Nothing bad to say about mining engineers as a whole.
There was one who was using patent dates to decide senior rights and not the survey dates.:scream:
He was also a deed staker and would choose distance over monuments and called boundaries.:scream::scream:
The guy was doing his job, measuring out blocks of ore rights by dimension from a paper survey as he was taught.
Every COE lake boundary was surveyed much the same with the same resulting errors.
Every few decades there are a few of these boundaries that return to the table to be argued when rookie surveyor has discovered an erroneous survey description and have not done a complete research to reveal that the situation was decided in court long ago.
This is a good argument for demanding updated descriptions in deeds.
Back in the 80s it was a more economic to be able to call the GLO and describe what you were wanting to accomplish and make a search order and save money for them to do the search and send everything to you.
A Harris, post: 395727, member: 81 wrote: Back in the 80s it was a more economic to be able to call the GLO and describe what you were wanting to accomplish and make a search order and save money for them to do the search and send everything to you.
The main problem that I see with that approach of relying upon GLO staff to filter the contents of files is that you can miss valuable clues that the files contain. For example, at a minimum, a surveyor would order copies of all file jackets, both old and new, and all field notes, patented and canceled in a file of interest. That wouldn't necessarily include incidental correspondence including protests, or some other aspect of the file data that could be relevant.
I'm very glad not to have to deal with the black and white photostatic copies that the GLO made back in the 1980s and very seldom order anything other than the excellent color copies they can make now.
I actually can imagine myself getting lost in the archives at the GLO, chasing my own rabbit trails of letters, or maps and sketches, to diaries. I enjoy the researching part of surveying. Wait, I enjoy the historic part of the researching of surveying. I know I miss out by not getting to go through all the collections. But, the big city. Where are teleport machines??? I don't even know what most of Kent's second paragraph said. I think he was talking about wine and coffee. I pass on wine, my taste buds like bourbon and tequila, and I prefer my coffee to come from a peculator, with maybe some eggshell in it, but no need for a cup with my name on it or strange flavors poured in and whipped around. I certainly can do without thinking I found a parking space to look over and find a plastic sack over the meter saying I can't park there.
Monte, post: 395866, member: 11913 wrote: I pass on wine, my taste buds like bourbon and tequila, and I prefer my coffee to come from a peculator, with maybe some eggshell in it, but no need for a cup with my name on it or strange flavors poured in and whipped around.
Parking for a visit at the GLO is a snap. I usually park in the metered spaces a couple of blocks away near the Historical Commission offices. If you look carefully, you can often find a meter that isn't working, so there's no way for the State troopers who pass out tickets to know exactly how much money you put in or did not.
Now as for never having tasted really good coffee, that is easily remedied by purchasing a Yama vacuum pot with a stainless steel screen filter. They are about fifty bucks in Austin, so you'll pay more in Abilene.
