Topic 2:Land and its Legal DescriptionDefinitions:1) Real estate: Land and improvements permanently attached.2) Land: Surface of the earth and natural resources; also areas above and below the surface.3) Real property: Technically it relates to rights in real estate, but informally the term is used interchangeably with “real estate.”4) Legal description: A description of a parcel of land that would be acceptable in a court or a legal proceeding. It should unquestionably differentiate the subject parcel from all other parcels. Why is a system of legal descriptions needed? Among the reasons:* Transactions: What exactly are you getting?* Taxation: How big is the parcel?* Boundary disputes: Where does my property begin and end?Why not just use street addresses or refer to adjoining owners? Problems would be that:* Street names can change, as can the numbering on some or all properties on a street* Owners of neighboring properties can change* We need a method based on permanent reference pointsThere are three primary methods of legal description:1) U.S. Government Rectangular Survey System2) Metes and Bounds3) Subdivision PlatAn acceptable legal description can be based on one or more (used in combination) of these methods.I. U.S. Government Rectangular Survey SystemInstituted by Congress in 1785 for use in “western” lands that were largely unsurveyed. It is used today in 30 states(primarily states other than those along eastern seaboard and Texas, which started out as a separate country).Government policy is to rely on the survey even if it is found to be erroneous (it is not surprising that there are some errors; the early surveyors had to deal with sometimes-hostile native tribes, wild animals, primitive equipment, and unfriendly terrain).The system is based on “square” parcels of land:Quadrangles (24 miles by 24 miles)Townships (6 miles by 6 miles)Sections (1 mile by 1 mile) [Section 16 was originally to be set aside for schools]Sections are further broken into square/rectangular fractions, such as:Half section (320 acres)Quarter section (160 acres)Quarter of quarter section (40 acres)Quarter of quarter of quarter section (10 acres)[These divisions of land are not really square. One reason is that, as you go farther north and approach the North Pole, the northerly-running boundary lines get closer together. Another is that early surveyors may have faced physical barriers (e.g., rivers), made errors, or ended up with unusually sized plots when they came to end of their surveying jurisdictions.] How do the various “square” divisions relate to each other? A quadrangle contains 16 townshipsA township contains 36 sectionsA section contains 640 acresAn acre contains 43,560 square feetFIL 260/TrefzgerA parcel of land is identified as part of a township (we ignore quadrangles in legal descriptions), which is located acertain distance: * East or west (“ranges”) of a Principal Meridian, and* North or south (“tiers”) of the Principal Meridian’s Base Line[In the US, there are 35 principal meridians and 32 base lines.] “Guide Meridians” and “Standard Parallels” every24 miles mark off the quadrangles, but again, we do not refer to these in legal descriptions.At ISU, we are in Township (tier) 24 North, Range 2 East of the Third Principal Meridian. Downtown Chicago is something like Township (tier) 40North, Range 8 East of the Third Principal Meridian.The Third Principal Meridian runs north/south near Carlock. It intersects its base line near Centralia (east and a little south of St. Louis). The First Principal Meridian runs north/south through the middle of Ohio, and the Second Principal Meridian runs north/south through the middle of Indiana. Much of the land around Peoria is described with reference to the Fourth Principal Meridian, which runs through the western part of our state. There is a small problem in our laying out quadrangles that are 24 miles “square” or townships that are 6 miles “square.” As noted above, if the lines forming the east and west boundaries were all unbroken lines heading due north/south, they would converge as we went farther north. Possible solutions:1) Have townships get smaller as we move farther north (not a very good idea) 2) Provide for a periodic break in the north-running lines to keep all townships essentially the same size, but prorate the lost ground over selected townships in each quadrangle (a better idea) This adjustment generally is made along the north and west. Townships on the north and west boundaries of a quadrangle are made slightly smaller to accommodate the need to adjust to the earth’s curvature. “Correction lines” are the broken lines that mark the eastern (western) boundaries of quadrangles east (west) of the Principal Meridian.Example of a rectangular survey description: the north half of the north-west quarter of the south-west quarter of Section 22 in Township 24 north, Range 2 east of the Third Principal Meridian.In working from a map or diagram, start with the last item (in the example above, the south-west quarter) and work backwards.II. Metes and BoundsMetes and bounds is the oldest method of describing property (other than simply naming a parcel, e.g., “the William Davis farm”). Metes are distances, bounds are directions. A metes and bounds description directs you to go so many feet in a particular direction, then so many feet in another direction, and so forth until you have described the parcel by tracing around all of its boundaries. Areas settled before 1785 (the original 13 states, and states later carved out of them) and a few others (notably Texas) utilize metes and bounds as their primary method of legal description. Metes and bounds is also used extensively for small parcels in areas covered by the Rectangular Survey System, but not yet platted (e.g., an old farm that has been broken into several home sites).To describe a parcel with metes & bounds, you need a point of beginning [POB] (you may have to go through a fewmetes and bounds steps to get there). The POB should not be subject to decay or easily moved (the intersection of 2 public roads can be good). Start at POB, and then move clockwise around the property, working back to the POB.Distances in directions not true north or south are measured in degrees of deviation from north or south.If a metes and bounds description is ambiguous, the disagreement is settled based