Any disease that has to string a whole sentence together into one word as a descriptive name is definitely something to avoid.
Adam, post: 380119, member: 8900 wrote: I haven't ever seen the "as it existed in year" before. Calling for the meanders of the branch is pretty common. Maybe it's in steep country and it has solid banks, usually the creeks in the lower flatter areas will change course a lot over the years. Mountain streams no so much.
I have seen several "as it existed" calls over the years. One was to "State Highway XX, as it existed on May 1, 1940." I don't remember having to ascertain that location, but for some reason I think about it every May Day...
I do not know if the riparian laws for the State of Washington are being sidestepped in this description or not.
Anytime you are relying upon a property description that describes something that is not where it was when last surveyed, you are relying upon some other surveyor and making that survey yours.
Research well beyond that description and find the original that makes the waterway a boundary.
My take is that someone is attempting to continue ownership to a boundary that is dependent upon the location of a waterway that may or may not have been relocated naturally. It may in fact have been rerouted by man. Look for any witness that can give reason of how and why the course of the waterway changed.
I have had clients come to me and want a certain description to be placed on the ground after natural events caused a change in course of a waterway.
By law the boundary went with the new course.
I have also had clients want the same where a neighbor had come in and with equipment physically altered the course of waterway to gain land illegally.
The whole story in these instances was a learning experience in that some judges, attorneys and people could care less what the law is and who they consider the actual experts to discern the difference between natural and man made occurrence.
Find yourself a specialist in watershed rights.
😎
A Harris, post: 380216, member: 81 wrote: I do not know if the riparian laws for the State of Washington are being sidestepped in this description or not.
Anytime you are relying upon a property description that describes something that is not where it was when last surveyed, you are relying upon some other surveyor and making that survey yours.
Research well beyond that description and find the original that makes the waterway a boundary.
My take is that someone is attempting to continue ownership to a boundary that is dependent upon the location of a waterway that may or may not have been relocated naturally. It may in fact have been rerouted by man. Look for any witness that can give reason of how and why the course of the waterway changed.
I have had clients come to me and want a certain description to be placed on the ground after natural events caused a change in course of a waterway.
By law the boundary went with the new course.
I have also had clients want the same where a neighbor had come in and with equipment physically altered the course of waterway to gain land illegally.
The whole story in these instances was a learning experience in that some judges, attorneys and people could care less what the law is and who they consider the actual experts to discern the difference between natural and man made occurrence.
Find yourself a specialist in watershed rights.
😎
They moved the creek and the courts upheld the new location? Sounds like old fashioned cattle rustling to me.
Warren Smith, post: 380202, member: 9900 wrote: I was scheduled to perform a survey on the Green River just prior to Mt. St. Helens erupting in 1980. It's a good thing I postponed it. The watercourse was certainly avulsed shortly thereafter.
BTW, the disease one gets from breathing volcanic ash is known as pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicavolcanoconiosis. You don't want that ...
You certainly don't ever want to have to say that as well...
The clap is far shorter but no one wants to get it either.
As to the base question, it seems to me that they made a serious attempt to document the location on the date specified and then stated such in the deed. It stays where they said it was unless some silly judge feels that he needs to rule otherwise, just for gits and shiggles.
If the calls to "The Creek as it Existed" are for parcels on both side of the creek, then the boundary is fixed. That could occur if the parcel encompassing the creek was subdivided. If you have that call and the parcel on the other side of the creek does not, you may be SOL.
Paul in PA
Kent McMillan, post: 380120, member: 3 wrote: A boundary of a tract that calls for a creek or other waterway is ordinarily a riparian boundary that follows the waterway as it moves by the natural processes of accretion and erosion. When meanders are recited along a riparian boundary, they are ordinarily for the purposes of area calculation, not to fix the location of the boundary for all time. In tha context, I'd think that the natural meaning of "as it existed in 1960" would be to qualify the area calculation unless there is some other intention plainly evident from examining the conveyance in the chain of title that originally created the boundary along the creek.
Unless the scrivener was aware of an avulsive change of the waterway, in which case, the 1960 holds.
Kris Morgan, post: 380269, member: 29 wrote: Unless the scrivener was aware of an avulsive change of the waterway, in which case, the 1960 holds.
The interesting thing about "as it existed in 1960" is that if it were an "updated" call from a deed given in 1960, the call presumably originally would have been "along the centerline of the creek as exists in 1960", which is a call that is identical in effect to "along the present centerline of the creek" or "along the centerline of the creek" which makes the boundary riparian.
Kent McMillan, post: 380271, member: 3 wrote: The interesting thing about "as it existed in 1960" is that if it were an "updated" call from a deed given in 1960, the call presumably originally would have been "along the centerline of the creek as exists in 1960", which is a call that is identical in effect to "along the present centerline of the creek" or "along the centerline of the creek" which makes the boundary riparian.
All of which is true, unless since 1960 (since we are just speculating), the creek jumped the banks in an avulsive manner, thereby negating the riparian status of that creek but still maintaining it as the boundary line (in 1960).
Where a deed conveys land ÛÏbounded and described according toÛ a certain survey, does not call for a river, but calls for a line between certain points, designated by the surveyor as on the bank of a navigable river, and it appears that the lines of such survey exclude flats between high and low water marks, evidence aliunde is admissible that the bank referred to was an artificial dike; that the grantee had notice that the grantors reserved the flats; that the grantors refused to execute a deed expressly conveying the flats; and that the sale was expressly subject to the survey, as tending to show that the flats were excluded, whatever may be the presumption from the deed. ÛÒ Palmer v. Farrell, (Pa.) 18 A. 761
Copied from page 262, A Manual of Land Surveying ÛÒ Fifth Edition - 1891, Francis Hodgman.
ÛÏLet things that have to be done be learned by doing themÛ
