1.3 Legal Descriptions and Surveys

Three Methods of Legal Description

A street address is never a legal description. Examiners test three accepted methods:

Metes and Bounds

A metes-and-bounds description starts at the Point of Beginning (POB), follows each call (distance and compass direction) around the perimeter, and must return to the POB. A monument is a fixed physical reference — a stake, an iron pin, a stream, or a road. If the final call does not close back at the POB, the description is defective.

Trap: the description must end where it started. A question that describes a route that never returns to the POB is testing whether you know the parcel does not close.

Rectangular (Government) Survey System

The rectangular survey uses principal meridians (north-south lines) and base lines (east-west lines). The land is divided into a grid:

• A township is 6 miles by 6 miles = 36 square miles, containing 36 sections.
• A section is 1 mile by 1 mile = 640 acres.
• Township lines run east-west; range lines run north-south.

Sections within a township are numbered 1 to 36 in a boustrophedonic (back-and-forth) order: Section 1 is the northeast corner, numbering runs west to Section 6, drops down, and runs east, snaking until Section 36 sits in the southeast corner.

The Essential Area Math

Lock in these conversions — most legal-description questions are just fraction multiplication:

Worked Fractional-Section Problems

Problem 1 — Read right to left. Find the acreage of: "the NE 1/4 of the SW 1/4 of Section 10." Multiply the fractions, then multiply by 640 acres:

1/4 × 1/4 = 1/16, then 640 ÷ 16 = 40 acres.

Problem 2 — Two-tract description. "The S 1/2 of the NW 1/4 (a) and the NE 1/4 of the SW 1/4 (b)":

• Tract (a): 1/2 × 1/4 = 1/8; 640 ÷ 8 = 80 acres.
• Tract (b): 1/4 × 1/4 = 1/16; 640 ÷ 16 = 40 acres.
• Total = 120 acres.

Problem 3 — Square footage to acres. A lot is 217,800 sq ft. Divide by 43,560: 217,800 ÷ 43,560 = 5 acres.

Datum, Benchmarks, and Air Lots

When elevation matters — condominiums, subsurface mineral rights, or air lots — surveyors use a datum (a defined reference plane of elevation, often the U.S. Geological Survey datum) and benchmarks (permanent monuments marking elevation). A condominium unit on the 14th floor is described as a three-dimensional space using elevations above and below a datum, plus its lot-and-block reference for the underlying land.

Trap: do not confuse a monument (horizontal physical marker in metes and bounds) with a benchmark (vertical elevation reference tied to a datum).

Choosing and Combining Methods

Many deeds combine systems. A subdivision deed may use lot-and-block for the platted lot while the plat itself was created from a rectangular-survey parent tract. A large rural deed may use the rectangular survey for the bulk of the land and then a short metes-and-bounds call to carve out an irregular exception. On the exam, identify the controlling method by the language: compass bearings and a Point of Beginning signal metes and bounds; township, range, and section numbers signal rectangular survey; a lot number with a recorded plat and book/page reference signals lot and block.

Whatever the method, the legal description must identify the parcel with enough certainty that a surveyor could locate its exact boundaries on the ground. A street address alone never satisfies that standard, which is why a sales contract and a deed both require the full legal description rather than the mailing address.

Correction Lines, Guide Meridians, and Why Sections Vary

Because the earth curves, range lines that run true north eventually converge. The rectangular survey corrects for this with guide meridians (every 24 miles east-west) and correction (standard parallel) lines (every 24 miles north-south). These create a 24-mile-square check or quadrangle. The corrections mean a "section" is only nominally 640 acres — the sections along the north and west edges of a township absorb the rounding error, so they may be slightly smaller. On the exam, treat a section as 640 acres unless a fractional-section problem tells you otherwise.

Remember that township lines run east-west and range lines run north-south, the opposite of what many candidates first assume.