Unit 5 Flashcards
Legal description
A detailed way of describing a parcel of land in a document that will be accepted in a court of law. The description is based on information collected through a survey.
Survey
The process by which boundaries are measured and land area are determined; the in-site measurement if lot lines, dimensions, and position of a house on a lot, including the determination of any existing encroachments or easements
3 methods used to describe real esatate
Metes and bounds
Rectangular (or government) survey
Lot snd block (recorded plat)
Metes-and-bound method (oldest in the book)
Metes- means to measure, and bounds- means linear directions.
The method relies on a property’s physical features to determine the boundaries and measurements of the parcel. A metes-and-bounds description starts at s designated place on the parcel called the point of beginning (POB).
Point of beginning (POB)
In a metes-and-bounds legal description, the starting point if the survey, situated in one corner if the parcel; all metes-and-bounds descriptions must follow the boundaries if the parcel back to the point of beginning.
Boundaries
The boundaries are recorded by referring to linear measurements, natural and artificial landmarks (called monuments), and directions. A metes-and-bounds description always ends back at the POB so that the tract being described is completely enclosed.
Monuments
A fixed natural or artificial object used to establish real estate boundaries for a metes-and-bounds description. In colonial times a monument may be a stone, big tree, pond, lake, fence, street, or other marker. Today, monuments are iron pins or concrete posts placed by the US army corps of engineers, other gov departments, or trained private surveyors.
Rectangular survey system (government survey system)
A system established in 1785 by the federal government, providing for surveying and describing land by reference to principal meridians and base lines. By dividing the land into rectangles, the survey provided land descriptions by describing the rectangle(s) in which the land was located. System is based on two sets of intersecting lines: principal meridians and base lines.
Principal meridians
The main imaginary line running north and south and crossing a base like at a definite point; used by surveyors for reference in locating and describing land under the rectangular(government) survey system of legal description.
Township lines
All the lines in a rectangular survey system that run east and west, parallel to the base line and six miles apart.
Tiers
Strips of land that are 6 miles wide, extending east and west and numbered north and south according ti their distance from the base line in the rectangular survey system of legal description.
The land that is on either side if a principal meridian is divided into 6 mile wide strips by lines that run north and south, parallel to the meridian. These North-South strips of land are called…
Ranges
The lines that run north and south
Principal meridians
The lines that run east and west
Base lines
Quick note
Townships are subdivided into sections and subsections called halves and quarters, which are further divided. Each township contains 36 sections. Each section is one square mile (640 acres) (43560 sq. ft. per acre) section 1 is always in the northeast or upper right hand corner. The numbering proceeds from right to left, then down a tier, then left to right, then down, then right to left( like mowing a lawn).
