-you are commissioned to plat roughly an acre.
-you recognize that this is an area that has heretofore been the hinterland but will likely be rapidly and intensely developed in the coming years.
-the deed says "tract 71"... period.
-you look at adjoiner deeds.
-they say "tract 69" and so forth. period.
-there is no recorded subdivision.
-you search.
-you search tracts 1-71 and find exactly three metes and bounds.
-you find the deed for a 305 acre parent tract conveyed in 1946.
-you find the nearest subdivision, platted out of the parent tract in 1948.
-the three metes and bounds you find are contained in deeds in 1951 and you suspect were written by the same surveyor who platted the nearest subdivision, but you have no way of being sure.
-your tract is bounded by two rights-of-way, neither of which was apparently dedicated in any way, only one of which has ever been paved and minimally maintained.
-you visit the city and find that they have working files and tax office-based maps that indicate a certain uniformity to the tract lines and sizes. they also indicate uniform right-of-way width for the aforementioned undedicated rights-of-way.
-you spend 4 days in the field retracing and recovering what remains of the entire western half of the original 305 acres.
-you spend another 2 days locating 60ish rods, pipes, and fence posts that comprise the approximate western half of "tracts 1-71", and realize that the vast majority of them have been set in recent years by the same surveyor.
-you look for lines indicating extended occupation, of which there are few.
-you retrace and locate the east line of the 1948 subdivision and find two angle points that fall within .4' of record over 1200', as well as multiple lot corners on that line that are within a reasonable tolerance.
-you reconstruct the 3 metes and bounds deeds, 2 of which are bounded by the east line of the 1948 subdivision.
-you hold the east line of the platted subdivision and project the calls of the other metes and bounds along your rights-of-way, as you assume- based upon a preponderance of unrecorded and "unofficial" evidence- that this was the original intent.
-you calc and stake out a bunch of points based upon the distances and areas shown on aforementioned unofficial city records.
-you find some stuff, but it's not much.
-you analyze what you found, and it matches the unofficial city files quite well.
-you look at the 60+ monuments you found and, based upon the reconstruction of the parent deed and the platted subdivision, you see that most are scattershot, within a couple of feet generally, a handful within a few tenths, but with no consistent bearing.
-you find that the further you venture from the platted subdivision, the larger and more random the found capped rods fall from your calculations.
-you call the guy whose caps you keep finding, and he lives up to his sterling reputation and disposition by basically telling you to pound sand.
-you spend several days pondering whether to honor a pile of rods in the ground set by a guy not known for the quality of his work. you also wonder if it's time to rectify the situation by essentially complicating it further.
-you consider that this former hog farm and subdivision of castaways, squatters, outlaws, brothels, and handshake deeds will soon be much less amenable to any of that sort of thing.
-you revisit with the city surveyor.
-you visit the district clerk again, the county clerk again, and the title company again pleading to find a copy of this unrecorded subdivision.
-you look at probably 200 deeds.
so, what do you do?
-you lose money on this one- that's what you do.
All that for $200 ?
> All that for $200 ?
LOL! Good one. The next time, what you do is you quote a fee for doing the research with the idea that until you have that in hand you really don't have an adequate basis to quote a fee for the actual survey. If Mr. or Ms. Client can't afford to complete the work, you give them copies of the deeds you've dug out and, having already banked a retainer, are at most out a couple of hundred instead of a few thousand.
Ordinarily yes. Client, in this case, happens to be a good friend. I'll take this (and the occasional other one) on the chin. The work's been enjoyable, anyways, and I'm pretty sure my losses with be partially offset by brisket and beer.
Well, if the question then is how do you go about locating an unrecorded plat of a subdivision, the serious answer would be this:
a) Who was in practice in the county at the time who probably did the work, and who has their records?
b) What does the chief appraiser of the CAD have in his files?
c) What does the oldest real estate broker in the county have in his or her files?
d) What does the oldest abstract company in the county have in their files that no more than $40/hr. buys access to?
I'm assuming this is either in Bastrop County or Williamson. What did I win?
If it's in Hays, the records of the usual suspects are in fairly well known locations.
Make him your former friend when you send him a bill for $21,936.41.
Seriously, on these pig in a poke surveys, the smartest stategy is to bill the research as a separate item at the start of the work before quoting any sort of even a range for the final scope of services. The advantages are two-fold. On the one hand, few clients count research time as part of the cost of making a survey, so none of it counts against the total cost of the "actual" survey. The other is that it is usually possible to discover from a relatively minor amount of research that the project has much more work to be done than appeared from a distance. If you can get paid to determine that a survey is one that you would lose money on, that is what winning looks like.
In Oklahoma...
...that's what we call an "unrecorded plat".
No plat filed of record, no survey, no nuthin'...just tract numbers.
In recent (like twenty) years, the county has stopped recording conveyances on these that aren't described as meets and bounds. That still doesn't rectify much. There are still thousands of trailer houses with bull dogs growling from the driveway waiting to be explored....
To answer you question "what do you do?"....you answered it, loose money. :pinch:
On a serious note:
If I find conveyances of lot or tract numbers and no record instrument of platting at the court house, I try the abstractors. Generally someone has a grainy pre-digital Xerox copy of a map or plat stuffed inside some folder somewhere. And finally coming up with a copy can be a lot less help than expected. Most don't have any bearings and are crude at best.
But you have to look...or give up. Those are your choices. :bored:
ps - Giving up will cut your losses. I don't especially suggest it, but I have quit a few. Too much liability based on too many guesses.
> so, what do you do?
As others have said, you've answered your own question. But perhaps not in the way others have perceived.
> -you recognize that this is an area that has heretofore been the hinterland but will likely be rapidly and intensely developed in the coming years.
You should now be the go-to guy for the survey work on this development.
:good:
What do you do? Move to a recording state!
Amen to that...
Move to A recording State
I've heard Id and Wy are nice....:-D