[TheForge] OT: Screwed up deeds...

[Andrew Vida]

On 4/20/2012 9:14 PM, dann at wctatel.net wrote:
>
> Andy,
>
> The new GPS  software that surveyors use  will continue to find "messed
> up" heritage surveys.  I would guess that  "Meets and Bounds" legal
> descriptions would be predominate kind of survey boundaries in WV.

My one neighbor, Dave, had a GPS survey done.  Supposed to be precise to 
something like 10 cm.
>
> Traditionally when a surveyor did his work, he buried a metal monument in
> the ground at specific locations, and then tied those with multiple
> monuments together, and specific survey measurements, so that they could
> not easily be messed with. If your land was flat, like my part of Iowa,
> people here  can simply use a metal detector and a long tape measure to
> resolve a lot of problems with a handshake.

All mountain here. :)  The bounds in question are all in wooded areas, 
so this is not going to be so simple.  At least the calls are all 
straight lines without any curves to screw up the works further.
>
> However, I remember when a major portion of a local city was found to be
> mis-surveyed, so that parts one person's home&  garage was actually on the
> neighbors land, and so on down the street: block after block.
>
>
> Tools to try out for free,  before spending big dollars on a new survey:
>
> There will be a County USDA office for Farm Service Agency (FSA) that will
> have, scale aerial photos of your farm / rural site, and may have fields
> delineated on it. They have a computer program that can give you a very
> good estimate of acreage, but that is rated "good" only for federal
> program purposes. The land owner or farm operator gets their copy for
> free.
> http://offices.sc.egov.usda.gov/locator/app?state=wv&agency=fsa

Thanks.
>
> At the County Court House, the County Auditor ( at least in Iowa ) keeps a
> different set of giant (larger than coffee table) books with large scale
> photos with pen and ink declinations / plots of ownership tracts. Using
> old school onion skin paper, we used to  trace out the tracts that we
> needed.

We only have the tax maps here AFAIK.  They are not to scale and are 
worth next to nothing except that each deed call seems to be represented 
by a line.
>
> Fixing the problem ?  Is is it really worth fixing, and at what price is
> it worth fixing ?
> A complex survey could cost some real dollars.  Worse, if your new
> surveyor conflicts with your neighbor's survey, it could fall on a court
> of law to resolve it.

Least costly survey quote was $1500.  We're pretty broke so no thanks. 
The sleeping dogs shall be let lie.
>
> In Iowa, and many States, if the owner of the land has had uncontested use
> of the land, without paying rent for a 10 year period,( something like
> squatter's rights)  they can file an affidavit of possession, and even if
> the title was wrong, if the affidavit is not contested / not over turned
> in court, that affidavit will gain the ownership weight of a land deed.

Seven years here for adverse possession and you can deed the property to 
yours.