How to Read a Land Survey Description
If you've ever bought property before, you've probably glanced at your human action and noticed its legal clarification.
Did you lot read it?
If not, you should.
This is because the legal description identifies your property legally.
Information technology tin can also allow you to pinpoint where a particular piece of belongings is located.
In essence, it defines the real estate that yous're buying or selling.
Typically, the legal description comes into play with your act.
Your deed needs to have an accurate legal description of your property, so if you're looking for the legal description after yous already own a parcel of state, and so this is the all-time place to expect.
As one of the most critical pieces of information that's involved in state transactions, legal descriptions are important to empathize before ownership property.
In this weblog, we'll talk most everything you need to know, including how to read the legal description of your property.
What is the legal description of a property?
A legal description is a description of real belongings by a regime survey, a metes and bounds survey, or by lot numbers of a recorded plat.
The clarification must be complete enough that a parcel of land can be located and identified based on what is written.
The legal description is kept with the deed and filed with the county clerk or county tax accessor.
Y'all'll need the legal description for any sales contracts, deeds, and mortgages.
Here is an example of what a legal description of a property may look like if you're looking for yours…
Commence at the NE Corner of the East ½ of West ½ of NE ¼ of SW ¼ of Section 17, Township 1 N, Range 12 West and run S – degrees 03'08" E, 28 anxiety to the Southward correct of way line of Silver Lake Road and the Point of Beginning; thence keep S 0 degrees 03'08" E, 409.67 anxiety; thence Due north 89 degrees 54'41" W, 314.69 anxiety to the East line of a 20 foot easement; thence run N 0 degrees 04'27' Westward forth said line, 409.50 feet to the South right of way line of Silverish Lake Road; thence run South 89 degrees 56'41" E along said line 314.86 feet to the Betoken of Outset.
A professional state surveyor creates the legal descriptionof a belongings.
They human activity equally an unbiased 3rd-political party fact-checker.
While the legal description of a holding tin can exist disputed, the resolution is often to hire however some other land surveyor that both parties agree on to behave an additional version of a state survey.
If i party feels shorted past the result, then budgetary compensation for the perceived loss is typically the best style to ensure there are no hard feelings.
Why does the legal description matter?
Nosotros said it to a higher place, and we'll say information technology over again.
The legal clarification of a property is one of the most disquisitional pieces of information that's involved in a land transaction.
Why?
Because having an incorrect legal description means you may not receive the correct parcel of land.
At the stop of the twenty-four hours, you own what is written in the legal description of your deed.
If this is wrong, then you don't legally own what y'all remember you practice.
Legal descriptions are essential to the land buying process, and thus knowing how to read the legal description of a property is as as of import.
Even long-time existent estate investors don't give much idea to these alphabetic character-number combinations.
They get copied and pasted from document to document without thought.
Don't keep passing the buck!
Get the legal description of your holding checked through a country survey and so that you lot know y'all have everything aligned and ready to become.
What types of legal descriptions exist?
Equally y'all begin learning about reading legal descriptions, yous'll realize that there are different types of legal descriptions.
Understanding the difference tin can help you as you delve into this part of landowning and country buying.
Lot and cake: The simplest of the nigh common survey types to understand.
The lot and block system is almost often associated with a planned subdivision.
Surveys for lot and block will depend on the age of the property and if the corners and other landmarks mentioned are still present.
This type of description will oft incorporate individual lots, block locations, place of official recording, and reference to cited plat map.
Every lot and block survey is part of a larger plat map which has a permanent reference monument or control point.
Metes and bounds: This blazon of legal clarification dates back hundreds of years.
It uses bearings and distances to measure out the circumference of the property described in the legal description and is based on physical features of its geography as well as directions and distances.
Information technology describes the holding'south boundaries in terms of north and south.
This method is best used when land survey areas are irregularly sized and/or shaped.
This makes the boundaries of the holding more conspicuously defined, and information technology's ideal for undeveloped country in rural areas.
Metes: property'due south boundary line determined by measuring the altitude between ii points; can also determine the plot of country's direction
Bounds: describes a property's boundary line; typically used to define properties with more acreage
Monuments: also known every bit survey markers or geodetic markers; objects placed on the property to mark of import surveys on the land's surface; typically metal rods or concrete pieces lodged into the basis although sometimes they may be more than unique objects like liquor bottles, clay pots, rock cairns
In the U.Due south., information technology is a misdemeanor to intentionally destroy, remove, or deface permanent survey markers.
The metes and bounds description has a point of commencement and a point of beginning.
The point of kickoff helps direct the surveyor to the signal of beginning where the property really begins.
Fractional: This blazon of legal description describes a belongings past breaking it down into sections.
In general, they're considered the easiest to write merely the hardest to survey.
Certified corner records are used to calculate measurements and figure out distances, which takes additional time and costs more than coin.
The surveyor must find iii of the section'southward certified corners – which are a mile apart – and walk there with their equipment following the instructions on the legal description.
How does a legal description differ from other types of descriptions?
Sometimes landowners will confuse the legal descriptions with other descriptions of the property, like their street address or the description shown in the property revenue enhancement records.
It'south important to remember that the legal clarification is the only one that is legally sufficient to transfer the described holding.
When the legal description (and the information that is supposed to exist independent in it) is incorrectly stated on the deed, the incorrect piece of real estate will be transferred from the previous owner to the new owner.
When preparing a legal clarification, you lot'll want to use the verbal legal description that appeared on the almost recent act to the belongings.
Avert using the property tax record clarification, which is often cursory and inadequate when information technology comes to legally describing the property.
Your street address is also far brusque of a legal clarification considering these are unreliable and can change.
In brusque, never substitute another description for the true legal description.
But whip out the most recent deed to the property and utilise the legal description found on that deed.
How to read the legal description of the holding
In this department, we'll try to decode how to read the legal clarification of belongings using the grid organization which was adopted by the Usa in 1785.
However, go along in heed that some legal descriptions are incredibly complicated, and as noted above, there are unlike types of legal descriptions, which means it can get complicated if you don't know exactly what y'all're looking for.
If you're having problem, don't be afraid to seek out an experienced middle, so you lot get all of the information you need from the description.
For nearly states – Texas and the east declension are exceptions – the Public State Survey Organisation or Township System is used to organize and describe land.
The Township System is essential to understand when you're attempting to locate land.
A township is a specific box of land that is six miles wide and vi miles tall.
States will have an east-westward axis and a due north-southward centrality drawn through their heart like a Cartesian graph.
The township's location in relation to the state's parallel line is where townships get their proper noun.
For example, a township that is located ii miles south of the state's parallel line and 2 miles east of the vertical line would be T2S-R2E, or Township 2 S, Range 2 Eastward.
Because each township is six miles wide by six miles tall, in that location are a total of 36 miles in each.
These square miles are called sections and are numbered.
Typically section #1 starts in the NE corner and snakes through the township, catastrophe with #36 at the SE corner.
Each square mile is i department which is 640 acres.
These 640 acres would describe a perfect section, although near aren't.
If you're attempting to draw your land in terms of section, then you could do so past taking the department number (say Section #twenty) and adding it to the beginning of the township as Section twenty, Township 2 South, Range 2 East (S20, T2S-R2E).
Land can as well be further divided past 640 acres.
A surveyor may describe land by dividing the sections into fractions, usually starting with quarter sections.
For example, the north one-half is referred to every bit Due north/2 (320 acres) or the northwest quarter is referred to as NW/2 (160 acres).
This is why 40 acres is a common land size for state in the U.S. – a section of country has 16 blocks of 40-acre tracts.
Your property description may as well say a block and a lot number, which refers to a specific developed expanse of town, city, or housing project.
If this is the instance, then your land still has a section, township, and range designation; it's probably just not listed on the deed.
If you lot're looking for your block or lot, discover the survey of the evolution (the plat).
Information technology will bear witness blocks and lots, which are unlike from both street addresses and regime lot descriptions.
How tin can you avoid problems with the legal clarification?
Are you confused?
You wouldn't be the first landowner!
Fortunately, championship insurance can help protect you and your property rights confronting whatever defoliation, forgery, or unclear recorded documents.
When you accept championship insurance, you (or any of your neighbors) have the resources to fix an effect you notice with a legal clarification.
All you accept to do is file a title claim in order to resolve the issue with an experienced championship professional person.
So, in that location are two things to note…
Make sure yous accept title insurance. Lenders require title insurance because it protects their involvement in the holding.
Remember that information technology does the same for you as the homeowner.
Ask your title company about a new survey. Non all underwriters will require a new survey for closing.
If yous accept an outdated survey, yous may accept an outdated legal clarification.
Getting a new survey for every existent estate transaction can aid y'all avoid any unnecessary issues.
While there will be a fee for that new title, it will ensure that you're in the clear.
The championship amanuensis and surveyor will take hold of any problems with the legal description and move to clear the cloud on the title before the endmost.
Terminal thoughts
Knowing how to read the legal description of a property is a skill many landowners and property buyers overlook.
That said, before yous move frontward with any auction, you lot should ensure you and your real manor agent have verified how old the legal description is.
If the legal clarification has been copied and pasted from an outdated survey, it'south worth your time and money to rent a state surveyor that tin can update this data for you.
While your title insurance will comprehend you in a worst-case scenario, it's always better to handle a legal description of a belongings before it becomes an result.
Additional Resource
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Disclaimer: we are non lawyers, accountants or financial advisors and the information in this article is for advisory purposes just. This article is based on our own research and feel and we do our best to keep information technology accurate and up-to-engagement, merely information technology may contain errors. Delight exist sure to consult a legal or fiscal professional before making whatever investment decisions.
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Erika is a erstwhile Affordable Housing Director for the City of New York turned full-time Land Investor. She used to help New Yorkers find affordable housing, now she helps people detect affordable land around the US.
Prior to starting Gokce Upper-case letter, Erika received a Bachelor of Architecture from the University of Southern California and a graduate degree in Urban Policy from Columbia University. She worked equally both an architectural designer and engineer in New York earlier joining the New York Metropolis Section of Housing Preservation and Evolution.
Erika currently lives in the New York Metropolitan area with her spouse, girl and cat. She is originally from Chicago and still considers herself a midwesterner at heart.
Erika also loves to read, write and travel (fun fact, she has visited all 50 states and more than 30 countries!). Her new book, Land Investing Mistakes: xi True Stories You Demand To Know Earlier Buying Land, is now bachelor on Amazon.
Source: https://gokcecapital.com/how-to-read-legal-description-of-property/
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