> I have seen a number of definitions for legal descriptions, but one common theme is that a legal description is adequate if it can be identified on the ground.
Actually, in my opinion a written description from a survey should set forth the rationale for the location of the property described, not merely identify some quantity of land somewhere.
> I might question whether the precision warrants three places behind the decimal place in the coordinate values. If it does, shouldn't the acreage also be written to a common precision?
Why? The coordinates have standard errors of +/-0.020 or less in relation to NAD83 (CORS96), but in relation to each other are much tighter. You'll note that most of the corners have reference marks about 20 ft. away, for example. Those have much smaller relative errors.
90.00 acres is to a precision of ± 200 square feet.
Yes, at $5,000 an acre, that means the uncertainty is +/-0.005 acres or $25. What's the problem?
> Regardless, having coordinates might be an extremely supportive element in a legal description. It can help the retracing surveyor confirm the other calls, isolate errors, help the retracer easily find a search-area for the monuments, and/or provide a precise location to replace an obliterated monument. Whining about too much information seems to be the silly stance in my humble opinion.
Those are all uses for coordinates, but the even more valuable use is to help some surveyor working on an adjoining parcel reconstruct the boundaries of some other tract in a real world system. For example, giving the coordinates of the 1961 surveyor's pipes on the adjoining tract means that I could sit in the office and calculate NAD83 positions for the rest of that tracts corners and go out and find them with high efficiency.
> What will happen 75 years from now after 5 land transactions when 2 or 3 paragraphs of the written description have been left off?
Through the miracle of photocopying, that has about a 0% probability of happening in my area of practice. That would be like an attorney having his legal assistant redraw a map.
Kent
> > Actually, I don't think I've ever had a metes and bounds description rewritten by an attorney or his assistant. They all just use the document I provide as an exhibit.
>
>
> You've lived a charmed life then.
No, Central Texas attorneys just like to do things the easy way. They don't redraw maps and they don't rewrite metes and bounds descriptions. It shocks me that somewhere else there is an attorney dumb enough to want to do that.
Of course, I'm never so stupid as to give them the description in some editable digital format.
> The key to communication is brevity.
I would have said that the key to written descriptions is actually telling all the important details about the work that I would want to know myself from another surveyor.
How Does Someone Use A Tie To An Unmarked Point?
"? an Unmarked Point No.152 in Graef Road at the Northwest corner of Lot 17 on the
Westerly prolongation of the line of the remains of a Wire Fence formerly in place
along the North line of that lot bears N27?49’21”E, 2381.07 ft. (= 857.185 vrs.)
(Record call between original West corners of Lot 17 per resurvey described in 1893
deed recorded Volume 118 Page 315 TCDR: 857 vrs.);"
Are not ties to physical points so that they can easily be found?
Kent has several of these.
He then follows the above up with;
"? a 3/8 in. Spike No.138 set in an old Post Hole of said Fence remains bears
N27?49’21”E, 2381.07 ft. and S62?17’01”E, 22.38 ft.;"
Which is the useful tie. The above two could have been merged into a single tie description.
Paul in PA
Actually from experience, the map will have been long gone or in someone's safety deposit box that they have forgotten about. At least in my area, the written description usually is the only thing available 75 years later.
One disturbing trend I have been seeing, is that some of these deeds call for attached Exhibit A and then someone forgets to attach it when it gets recorded, I have also seen lately the practice of cutting all the information off of the document after the last paragraph of the description, which usually contains the metadata and surveyor's name.
I do the same as Kent in that I provide any bearing basis, coordinates, etc. in the beginning of the description.
How Does Someone Use A Tie To An Unmarked Point?
> Are not ties to physical points so that they can easily be found?
No, the purpose of those ties is to demonstrate the construction of the boundaries. The most important tie is to the position of the corner of Lot 17 (which happens to fall in a public road). The tie to the spike in the post hole merely supports the position of the corner.
The way that I structured the sequence of reference ties from the POB is to attempt to lead the surveyor/reader through the rationale by which the boundary was determined.
Umm, I don't get it. Could you elaborate on that?
Duplicate, Confusing and Wasted Ties
Other ties to the POB:
"? a Standard Rod and Cap No. 196 set for witness bears S27?51’10”W, 31.60 ft.;"
"? an old 1-1/4 in. Iron Pipe No. 102 found (leaning about 1.7 ft. off plumb, reset Pipe plumb in position of the center of its base) bears S25?40’29”W, 30.16 ft., said Pipe being taken for the “large iron stake in the edge of a field” placed by O.E. Metcalfe, Surveyor, in January, 1938 to mark a Point on the West line of Lot 19 as determined by him as described in the Deed from Mrs. Lucy Burleson Grimes et vir to W.R. Bingham recorded in Volume 727 at Page 584 TCDR (the undersigned having
carefully examined Mr. Metcalfe’s 1938 survey and finding various corrections to his
determination of the boundaries of Lot 19 to be both necessary and proper);"
Kent has set a tie abot 1 foot from a tie that he reset. This will lead to great confusion in the future if a surveyor finds one and not the other.
I addition the tie (196) that Kent set should have been place on line of Course 7 at the right of way line of Graef Road.
Paul in PA
> Actually from experience, the map will have been long gone or in someone's safety deposit box that they have forgotten about. At least in my area, the written description usually is the only thing available 75 years later.
Yes, that's absolutely right. The most valuable descriptions written 75 years ago are those the provide enough ties to show the rationale of the boundary construction instead of leaving posterity to wonder.
Duplicate, Confusing and Wasted Ties
> Other ties to the POB:
>
> "? a Standard Rod and Cap No. 196 set for witness bears S27?51’10”W, 31.60 ft.;"
>
> "? an old 1-1/4 in. Iron Pipe No. 102 found (leaning about 1.7 ft. off plumb, reset Pipe plumb in position of the center of its base) bears S25?40’29”W, 30.16 ft., said Pipe being taken for the “large iron stake in the edge of a field” placed by O.E. Metcalfe, Surveyor, in January, 1938 to mark a Point on the West line of Lot 19 as determined by him as described in the Deed from Mrs. Lucy Burleson Grimes et vir to W.R. Bingham recorded in Volume 727 at Page 584 TCDR (the undersigned having
> carefully examined Mr. Metcalfe’s 1938 survey and finding various corrections to his
> determination of the boundaries of Lot 19 to be both necessary and proper);"
>
> Kent has set a tie abot 1 foot from a tie that he reset. This will lead to great confusion in the future if a surveyor finds one and not the other.
Any surveyor who confuses my Rod and Cap witness stake with a 1-1/4 in. Iron Pipe set in 1938 is going to be confused by quite a few other things, including most likely traffic signs and the little marks on tapes. The purpose of giving that tie is to mention the fact that there are two things close to each other.
I think Leon has hit the gist of the extent of the scrivener's application that you use.
Here, I will refer to the plat as the basis of the survey and all relevant information.
I will describe monuments and other accessories of the survey in the title description but the plat is the basis.
For the sake discussion ... if there is any discussion left here.
It seems that by your extreme attention to detail that you may develop a pitfall by an omission, typo, etc. in the written description by the wordsmith.
Remember,all is not perfect. What would resolve the conflict? the plat.
I salute the attention of detail provided. Like others have posted, it is all valuable info and it would appear to be bullet proof in a future legal case.
I would assume any surveyor coming after me to be capable and competent and not need a long soliloquy describing every piece of evidence I found and its exact location on the earth. What can’t be written into the description is the evidence overlooked or not accepted by the author. I am not suggesting that this particular work is in anyway deficient, but sometimes the phrase “if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullcrap” does apply.
> It seems that by your extreme attention to detail that you may develop a pitfall by an omission, typo, etc. in the written description by the wordsmith.
Why wouldn't that be much more of a problem in a very sparely written description? When there is a surplus of information, the typos are usually more easily identified and resolved.
You may want to look up the word brevity. I think you have it confused with ambiguity.
> I would assume any surveyor coming after me to be capable and competent and not need a long soliloquy describing every piece of evidence I found and its exact location on the earth.
Actually, evidence disappears. So it is hardly a stretch to think that some future surveyor will not actually have the same evidence available that I set forth, complete with its exact position on the land. While it may not be obvious, every reference tie among the many recited from the POB serves a definite purpose of elucidating the boundary resolution.
I am trying not to be combative, but somehow the description posted insults my intelligence. It vary well may be that I find my own work insufficient now that I have seen a superior work, but I doubt it. I have been surveying for quite sometime and I have never encounter a description such as this. It comes across as arrogant and posted to get exactly this type of response. I would not want to disappoint the proud author.
> > I have seen a number of definitions for legal descriptions, but one common theme is that a legal description is adequate if it can be identified on the ground.
>
> Actually, in my opinion a written description from a survey should set forth the rationale for the location of the property described, not merely identify some quantity of land somewhere.
Okay....I guess. I was merely mentioning the common theme I have seen for definitions I have read for "Legal Description". I was not trying to set my own definition. Wouldn't "setting forth" the rationale for the location of the property mainly be to help identify the location of the property? In my view, the description is to simply support the deed to identify the property in the transaction the survey. (but perhaps I misunderstand).
> > I might question whether the precision warrants three places behind the decimal place in the coordinate values. If it does, shouldn't the acreage also be written to a common precision?
>
> Why? The coordinates have standard errors of +/-0.020 or less in relation to NAD83 (CORS96), but in relation to each other are much tighter. You'll note that most of the corners have reference marks about 20 ft. away, for example. Those have much smaller relative errors.
>
Perhaps I misunderstand again, but your point-to-point distances in the metes-and-bounds calls are to a precision of only 0.01. Regardless, that is not a real point of contention, because, as I stated, adding another unit of precision does no real harm in my opinion.
> 90.00 acres is to a precision of ± 200 square feet.
>
> Yes, at $5,000 an acre, that means the uncertainty is +/-0.005 acres or $25. What's the problem?
>
No problem, really, it just is a conflict in relative reporting precisions. If the only purpose of reporting an area is for cost value, then so be it. That is probably the main use of the area. So....what, again, is the purpose of reporting the coordinates to the 1/1000 of a foot?
> > Regardless, having coordinates might be an extremely supportive element in a legal description. It can help the retracing surveyor confirm the other calls, isolate errors, help the retracer easily find a search-area for the monuments, and/or provide a precise location to replace an obliterated monument. Whining about too much information seems to be the silly stance in my humble opinion.
>
> Those are all uses for coordinates, but the even more valuable use is to help some surveyor working on an adjoining parcel reconstruct the boundaries of some other tract in a real world system. For example, giving the coordinates of the 1961 surveyor's pipes on the adjoining tract means that I could sit in the office and calculate NAD83 positions for the rest of that tracts corners and go out and find them with high efficiency.
Yes that is of value, but....is that more important than my reasons? I would think the primary goal of the legal description would be to specifically and accurately report the location of the property being surveyed at the time. Is the main reason it is "more important" because I didn't mention it? 😉
Okay...I can't match wits with the great McMillan.....but I kind of thought I made a good case for the accurate and redundancy in the description and against "brevity".
Duplicate, Confusing and Wasted Ties
Any surveyor who confuses my Rod and Cap witness stake with a 1-1/4 in. Iron Pipe set in 1938 is going to be confused by quite a few other things, including most likely traffic signs and the little marks on tapes. The purpose of giving that tie is to mention the fact that there are two things close to each other.
Not jumping in but the traffic signs and the little marks on tapes was very witty. LOL
> You may want to look up the word brevity. I think you have it confused with ambiguity.
Perhaps so. I do see your point. (What is ambiguous about "90.00 acres? Well it is ambiguous only if you are doing it under a definition of a "legal description". "90 acres" is not ambiguous in and of itself unless you are trying to find out where that 90 acres lies)
I see a value for redundancy in descriptions as pointed out above. A "concise" description in the way you describe it is all well and fine, if there is no error in the description and all the monuments are in.
As a matter fact, I could have a complete and concise description with only bounds calls and the retracing surveyor could go through piles of paperwork and extra surveying to even get close to what I am describing.
