I had two easement descriptions returned today for corrections from the same utility company. I had said the easements were 5 feet each side of and parallel with the following described centerline. Nope, it has to be 5.00 feet, and besides that I didn't specify the total width of 10.00 feet.
I'll be so glad when I'm retired and won't have to put up with this dumbness.
If there were no specs on the job it's dumb, unless you got paid extra for the extra precision. If it's an Alta it's dumb because they got you to write a description beyond the specs.. Isn't it still 0.07'? I would want to write the description to 0.0' in that case. These kind of things should be all about the specs. and the money, not what one party or the other wants it to read (especially after the fact).
MWidth of an easement
I write mine very similar to yours; hope a bunch of utility guys didn't go to a seminar somewhere :-@
MWidth of an easement
Who cares? It only makes a difference to the surveyor...I've done them both ways and sideways. As long as I don't have to sign my name to it I'm not going to be anal about it.
Pablo
Have you seen one like this
Read through an easement from 1952 for a major power line running mile after mile. The easement crossing the quarter section that is the subject of my current survey read something like: Being no less than 610 feet nor more than 710 feet from the east line of said quarter section. Where lateral stabilization is required, the guy cables may extend no more than 75 feet outward from the pole to be stabilized.
Here's the deal. First, there is no specific width of the easement, simply that it will be somewhere between the 610 and 710 limits. Second it appears that the guys could be as much as 75 feet outside of, and on either side of , the 100 foot swath of potential use. So, does this suggest a 250-foot wide strip is burdened across the property? Or does it mean the approximately 20-foot width of the actual "H" pole system, wherever that may be (within the 610 to 710 limits), plus any actual location of a lateral guy system?
About 25yrs ago I started writing only metes and bounds descriptions for everything.
There was so much confusion coming out of describing a r/w from centerline calls and the lack of adjoiner and witness references, I simply refused to write them any other way than metes and bounds.
0.02
I had two easement descriptions returned today for corrections from the same utility company.
For starters I will always ask who is actually returning it. I want to know who in the organization is acting in the surveying review function.
Frequently it's a cad tech, an engineering tech, a gis tech, etc. who thinks their two years of training and their software needs to be honored in descriptions for conveyance.
More than once I have had to let them and their supervisors know that legally their difference of opinion with me is not a difference of opinion. Legally, they have no opinion.
I kinda agree with the utility company, 5' could mean anywhere between 4.51 to 5.49 then double that for a total width makes quite a difference.
MWidth of an easement
"Who cares?"
I do! I'm sick of having to operate at the level of a moron in order to deal with people/agencies. This morning I had to deliver two sets of Mylar as-builts of a road median project to our City. No underground utilities, just a curb and landscaped median in an existing roadway. The plan set had to include the Landscape Architects sealed as-builts of the plants in the median. I asked the City planner what these would ever be used for and he was dumbstruck. He finally admitted they were just a checklist requirement. The checklist was created in the 1980's. It is this kind of moronic behavior that is pushing me to retire sooner rather than later. I just wish Scotty would beam me up!
Our preamble says "BEING the centerline of a 10 (ten) feet wide easement, being 5 (five) feet on each side of the herein-below described line".
Never had one kicked back because of significant digits.
> I kinda agree with the utility company, 5' could mean anywhere between 4.51 to 5.49 then double that for a total width makes quite a difference.
I'd agree with that if you were stating a distance between two monuments; if someone came through after and found the distance to be 5.41', then it would be reasonable to say that they were found as being within the stated precision.
In the case of a description though, a width of 5' is the same as a width of 5.00', but is not the same as a width of 5.41'. If the document reads 5', then that is what was conveyed, no more and no less, barring reference to a monument or adjoiner.
That all said, I generally write out the 5.00 feet because it's my habit to do so. I wouldn't red line someone else's description who doesn't do it like that, however.