Okay . . . When you, or someone makes an Error in the property description, strange things can happen to the plot.  For instance, the plot to the left shows a counterclockwise course sequence returning to the vicinity of the Point of Beginning but it missed it by 60 or 70 feet.  Sometimes, it is possible to rationalize where the error is if it is in only one of the courses.  Other times, it is next to impossible because there are multiple errors or there is so much erroneous or missing information one just can't map the property.

So here are some things that we found as typical errors in deed descriptions: One Course Bearing Not Given - LandPrints can actually continue the analysis and manage to force the last Course to point toward the Point of Beginning.  If the lengths are accurate, the return will be pretty good and your map will appear to close.  But if the last Course is too short or too long, you probably have additional errors in the deed description.   Sometimes when curved Courses are part of your boundaries, the Cord Bearings are Omitted and/or the "IN" or "OUT" Curvature is Not Given (sometimes the description refers to "Right" or "Left" and this is okay as long as you know whether the sequence is clockwise or not).  The designation of curved Courses sometimes incorporates tangency.  We have chosen to define three types of tangency . . . "SMOOTH", "TANGENT", or "JUNCTION".   These mean that the Course you are defining is either tangent to the last Course, tangent to the next Course, or tangent to both last and next Courses respectively.   It is a real problem when Tangency is Not Specified and no other information is given about Course direction.  If  "North" should have been "South", or visa versa, or if wrong lengths or bearings are specified in the text description, it can be almost impossible to rationalize the property map when such Erroneous information is given.

Several years ago, LandPrints studied deed descriptions of land which are available to the public from the files of a local County Recorder of Deeds.  The place is usually busy since it is where title searches are conducted for land and property transactions within the county.  A sample of 46 deed descriptions were analyzed by LandPrints and the results were astonishing!  74% of the plots returned to the Point of Beginning within 6 inches.  Most of the remaining 26% of the plots were over 3 feet off and some of the  properties when mapped did not even resemble a plot of land!  A few errors could be identified and corrected to make the plots close, but of course, these were just educated guesses.  Here is an example of a plot that we were able to correct.  It turned out that the first Course (green) was tangent to the last course (blue) and not tangent to the second course as shown.  Further, if the deed record reports property acreage that is equal to that of the corrected plot, we feel pretty confident that the correction was valid.

Some of the deed records that we reviewed could not be deciphered and there was just no way we could rationalize a correction that made sense.   For example, look at this plot . . .

Land descriptions contain technical notation and are, tedious to verify without a substantial time investment (or help from LandPrints, or other such computer programs).  Data collection, proof reading and transcribing errors can be made by everyone involved, and there are a lot of people and opportunities to record erroneous land descriptions into the public record.  Just look at the number of people that could handle your deed description in the list to the right!  In addition, visual inspection of the land description in a deed by a homeowner at settlement or even a professional title searcher for that matter will usually not confirm closure of property boundaries.  And further, if this is not found by audit and corrected, errors tend to be perpetuated because deed descriptions are used over and over again if new surveys are not obtained.

We are not pointing the finger at anyone in particular, but just trying to explain that mistakes are easy to make, just a small analysis exercise that we completed proved it!  And it usually takes a disciplined calculation to verify closure.  LandPrints makes calculations based on well known trigonometric functions and will provide accurate calculations for  planar land surfaces.  However, the output can only be as good as the input data you provide.

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