I purchased land in Pa 17 years ago for 175 acres, I have confirmed my survey, and own 175 acres. The County of Susquehanna put online a new GIS map. (parcel data). I noticed my parcel to be larger by 13 acres. I was wondering why the western boundary had three driven rods. The second pin just 400 ft from the first .(Property goes west 400 feet) Total is approx 1300 feet.
I checked back and found a old oil and gas lease with a corresponding map showing total of 188 acres. (1985). After both the original property owner, and neighboring owner died the land was surveyed by the estates. Survey done 1986.
I doubt anything can be done now. Both properties have the right acreage and boundary matches the new deeds. To be honest I knew something was wrong with that property line all the time. I looked all over for the north pin and never seen any sign of a corner. All the corners had a bunch of stacked rock with a pin set six inches away from the rock wall.
A lease is much different from property boundaries in many cases. GIS maps are notoriously incorrect. 13 acres is a tremendous amount of error relative to 175 or 188. Something is rotten in Denmark.
Just to give you an idea of how bad tax maps/gis maps and even property cards are at the auditor etc.. I just surveyed a property that was supposed to be 65 acres according to the powers that be (even though my deed did not mention how many acres it was supposed to be). I found that they only had 44 acres. It is very probable that the GIS department has it wrong. and as Holy Cow stated leases are a much different animal than actual deeds.
Where there is a difference between a GIS and a survey, the survey is going to be the more correct 99 times out of 100. Still, it sounds like there might be something going on here. Have you contacted the surveyor for a sit down explanation of what is going on?
Are they taxing you on 188 acres?
Are mineral rights excepted from your deed?
It is possible that the gas easement was a lease exception on older deeds, and the last surveyor took it as a deed exception.
It is possible the prior owner intended to keep the underlying land under the easement.
If you shared some parcel information someone may be able to check it out.
Paul in PA
Holy Cow, post: 438834, member: 50 wrote: 13 acres is a tremendous amount of error relative to 175 or 188.
Not sure if I agree with that. A lot of the time the acreage listed on larger lots is just the result of subtracting the acreage of all of the out-lots over the years. Sometimes the original number was just approximate. So, 13 acres off in 175 isn't abnormal.
Hire a surveyor to straighten this mess out. That could be 13 acres of timber or 13 acres of corn.
mattharnett, post: 438858, member: 6458 wrote: Hire a surveyor to straighten this mess out. That could be 13 acres of timber or 13 acres of corn.
Actually it was the surveyor that made the error. IMO. What happened ! The property owner in 1942 purchased 25 acres from the same neighbors property, that ended up with 13 acres back on his deed after the first every(known) survey. The neighbors property stated it had 128 acres, more or less. Excepting and reserving 25 acres out, to his eastern neighbor, from the northwestern part of his property. Than it described as 25 acres , with no measurements, just the name of surrounding property owners. My property has a separate deed from 1942 with the same description, Than all stayed the same in both deeds ,with the same description. However when the neighbor died in 1980 he was never married. He left all to a brother and sister. The deceased never placed any documents in the courthouse, just one oil & gas lease. So, after finding the deed papers, they were advised to have a survey. Remarkably , after the survey, the property now contained 116 acres. (128 -25 = 103)
Of course the survey was never presented to the rightful owners of the 13 acre parcel. They both husband and wife had subdivided 14 acres and the house from the farm (202 acres- 14 = 188) in 1970 due to health reasons and moved into a town twenty miles away. In 1982, they transferred ownership of the property (188)to their son and daughter in-law . They lived in Horseheads NY. Parents died in 1986.
In 1988 the son and daughter-in-law sold the property to (guess who ?). The same people that bought the neighbors 116 acres. After that property was sold, the owner hired the same surveyor to survey it. He found the property contained 175 acres.
Most of the deeds (before mine) stated "being the same premises as the Jones farm and intended to include all of its encumbrances and same lands. My deed does not say that. It only list the landowner I purchased it from. My deed did come with a separate ROW deed 1000 ft long across the neighbors property.
When I found it to have six inch trees growing on it . I clear cut the entire ROW again, and mow it every year. Lets just say he threatened to kill me for doing that. I informed him I have more rights to that ROW than you do and was granted the right of improvements up to fifty feet wide and just might do that.
He later apologized and ask if I would be so kind as not to use a second granted ROW, because he wants to build a house their. I gave him my word, if he stopped harassing me over the other ROW, I would not use the second one.
I certainly do not want , to rock the boat, unless I had 100% chance of getting the land back. We both have title insurance.
The fact that there was common ownership more than 21 years ago may negate any prior surveying errors. At the least you should get a thorough deed search and survey/description analysis.
Paul in PA
Fredy, post: 438880, member: 12909 wrote: The neighbors property stated it had 128 acres, more or less.
Area of land is very low on the dignity (priority) of calls. If you want free survey advice, post the documents.
http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.njspls.org/resource/resmgr/imported/Priority2013_Handout.pdf
2) When retracing parcels that were previously created in written descriptions (from you pdf)
Apparently when the land had its first survey. Monuments were already in place. His survey states (starting point from driven rod found). Than approx 400 feet on same border. (rock wall and driven rod found ) last point approx 1300 feet. (no mention of a rod found just a point on the survey.) At the time this survey was done, their were two different owners. Most if not all of this entire property was fenced. Was a dairy farm. Old wire can be found along with fence post.
For the sake of discussion I would post the survey, with names & like crossed out. Is that something people normally do on this forum ?
If you are being taxed for more land than you purchased, the taxing entity would have to have surveyed your land to know that.
They do not have the right to draw numbers out of thin air, they must have evidence to change anything.
That evidence would be an actual survey conducted by a licensed surveyor.
Fredy, post: 438894, member: 12909 wrote: 2) When retracing parcels that were previously created in written descriptions (from you pdf)
Apparently when the land had its first survey. Monuments were already in place. His survey states (starting point from driven rod found). Than approx 400 feet on same border. (rock wall and driven rod found ) last point approx 1300 feet. (no mention of a rod found just a point on the survey.) At the time this survey was done, their were two different owners. Most if not all of this entire property was fenced. Was a dairy farm. Old wire can be found along with fence post.
For the sake of discussion I would post the survey, with names & like crossed out. Is that something people normally do on this forum ?
Once you post your name, street address or parcel number anyone who wants to can find the public records and know every name on every transaction involved. If you want knowledgeable opinions, that is one of your options. For the simple sake that many on this board love to argue, many will jump into the discussion. Your other choice is hire both a good surveyor and title attorney.
Paul in PA
Yes, it would be polite to redact the name of the surveyor and the adjoiners if you like.
Paul in PA, post: 438896, member: 236 wrote: Once you post your name, street address or parcel number anyone who wants to can find the public records and know every name on every transaction involved. If you want knowledgeable opinions, that is one of your options. For the simple sake that many on this board love to argue, many will jump into the discussion. Your other choice is hire both a good surveyor and title attorney.
Paul in PA
I have send what I found ,to a survey company, that had purchased all the original documents, from the retired or deceased original surveyor. I have ask him to send me a quote, to go over the records, and what the likely outcome would be, if a mistake was made ? That was 4-days ago and no response.
This is more of a historical thing. Once this surveyor cut the piece off, all the documents , reflect the error. As for the GIS mapping. I installed a program on my smartphone called GPS Waypoints. Put three points Lat- Lon from the corners on the GIS and directed me within 3-feet of first inside corner (IMO). I wanted to find the next two, but fear of being shot stopped me.:worried:
Like you said its public knowledge.
This is the gas lease, and the IMO inside corner pic. Less than 400 feet from first pin near field. The iron pin is several inches from the rock wall
The surveyor who has the old original surveyors documents responded.
He said : Unfortunately this is a very common problem in your township and surrounding towns. We have solved many of these problems in your township. We can start a thorough search, initialize a digital map showing what the property should look like (acre count) and overhead photos. (reasonable fee). However at that point, you will need to decide if we do a new survey. ( can be more than, the actual value of the additional property).
Today I went to see, if I could find anything on the ground, at the furthest point. Northwest corner. Needless to say I was shocked. I found a recent history, barbed wire fence, on steel well painted fence post. As well as old barbed wire fence inbreed in trees. It is the same kind of work the neighbor done around his entire property. He has no indication of a property line, at all, where it is shown on both our surveys. I am beginning to believe, he knows their is a serious problem with the survey and description of property. He was friends with a old time farmer, who shares a common border, at that same corner. He recently died but lived to be 99. I took the gps reading and pictures of what I found. I am going to hire the survey company, to do the document searches, and send them all I have. Regardless of what I found, much still needs to be straightened out. Tax map be correct but shows less acres and likewise neighbors shows more acres than what is indicated.
It actually get crazier. I pulled the neighbors deed today. Just to give a summary. It reads on the first page the name of the former owner and +- 125 acres.
The very next line says "excepting and reserving therefrom" 25 Acres to former owner of our land. Than it says to read the property description by surveyor and says the property contains, 116 acres , more or less.
116 -25 = 91.
It appears, he does know what we own, but why would a survey be done, and not separate the right amount of land ? and after all is said and done, the 25 acres is still in the neighbors deed description.
Anybody can tell me why