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Interpreting Land Records
The difficult task of boundary retracement begins with three substantial steps: recovering land records, determining the significance of those records, and applying the findings to conditions on the ground. Interpreting Land Records thoroughly details everything surveyors need to know to formulate sound, defendable opinions, including how courts interpret ambiguous words and conflicts between words in documents, and between those words and items outside the documents.
Packed with illustrative case examples accompanied by descriptions of how a retracement was performed, what the problems were, and how the surveyor resolved them, Interpreting Land Records features:
* Practical information on records research
* Surveying methods used in the United States over the past several hundred years--including the English system, Napoleonic Code, Mexican and Spanish land grant systems, and more
* Two appendices providing definitions for historical words and phrases as well as how to interpret them
* Guidance for confirming a land record with physical evidence on-site
* Advice on using historic maps, photographs, and written documents in establishing a boundary for which official records are lost or corrupted
Packed with illustrative case examples accompanied by descriptions of how a retracement was performed, what the problems were, and how the surveyor resolved them, Interpreting Land Records features:
* Practical information on records research
* Surveying methods used in the United States over the past several hundred years--including the English system, Napoleonic Code, Mexican and Spanish land grant systems, and more
* Two appendices providing definitions for historical words and phrases as well as how to interpret them
* Guidance for confirming a land record with physical evidence on-site
* Advice on using historic maps, photographs, and written documents in establishing a boundary for which official records are lost or corrupted
- GenresTextbooks
440 pages, Hardcover
First published March 1, 2006
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
July 23, 2018
This one took me a while to get through. In general, it is a good book to go through once and retain for future reference. It isn't exactly a gripping read but what do you expect? The author is a lawyer, so you get quite a bit of lawyer talk. Here is a good example:
"In re Brookfield, where the instrument included formal phrases in ordinary use and apt words for the conveyance of the land in fee, with all the hereditaments and appurtenances therunto belonging, as well as the rents, issues, and profits, but then referred to the subject of conveyance as 'being all the land on both sides of Byram River and Byram Pond that will be overflowed' by the waters of the river and pond in consequence of the erection of a dam across the river 'southerly of land hereby conveyed of sufficient height to raise the waters' of the pond eight feet above the existing level, 'and the above-described land is conveyed by the party of the first part to the party of the second part only for the purpose of being flowed by said pond,' the court noted that it was apparent that but for the provision last above noted the title to the grantor's whole farm would have passed by the conveyance, but the court observed that the provision limiting the grant to lands to be overflowed by water was inconsistent with the provision describing the whole farm as that conveyed, and likewise that the provision that the lands were conveyed 'only for the purpose of being flowed by said pond' was inconsistent with the other provisions of the deed, which were of such a character as would ordinarily be construed as passing a fee, but that the inserted clauses were 'the prominent and noticeable provisions of the deed,' and were 'its essential features, the real essence of the contracts, and evidently...the result of the deliberate though and agreement of the parties,' and expressed their intention, and accordingly the court concluded that the inserted provisions 'should be given force and effect in preference to the usual format provisions' and that the result was that the instrument could not be regarded as conveying the fee nor even the right of possession but at most a mere easement, leaving the title, possession, and use in the grantor, subject only to a right of flowage." Page 119. That is a 343 word sentence with 22 commas. Ridiculous. This kind of thing kills me and I realize that 50 words in I'm getting none of this. This was an extreme example from the book, but there are tons of run-on sentences that were hard for me to focus on.
A few parts were pretty out of date, particularly the part regarding photography. For example, it says that the majority of imagery collected is black and white film which hasn't been true for a decent amount of time. Not a big deal.
I didn't understand why there were so many pictures of old hand-written deeds/descriptions. The point seemed to be how hard it is to read them and showing one was enough to illustrate this, but there were so many of them that it just felt like wasted space.
"In re Brookfield, where the instrument included formal phrases in ordinary use and apt words for the conveyance of the land in fee, with all the hereditaments and appurtenances therunto belonging, as well as the rents, issues, and profits, but then referred to the subject of conveyance as 'being all the land on both sides of Byram River and Byram Pond that will be overflowed' by the waters of the river and pond in consequence of the erection of a dam across the river 'southerly of land hereby conveyed of sufficient height to raise the waters' of the pond eight feet above the existing level, 'and the above-described land is conveyed by the party of the first part to the party of the second part only for the purpose of being flowed by said pond,' the court noted that it was apparent that but for the provision last above noted the title to the grantor's whole farm would have passed by the conveyance, but the court observed that the provision limiting the grant to lands to be overflowed by water was inconsistent with the provision describing the whole farm as that conveyed, and likewise that the provision that the lands were conveyed 'only for the purpose of being flowed by said pond' was inconsistent with the other provisions of the deed, which were of such a character as would ordinarily be construed as passing a fee, but that the inserted clauses were 'the prominent and noticeable provisions of the deed,' and were 'its essential features, the real essence of the contracts, and evidently...the result of the deliberate though and agreement of the parties,' and expressed their intention, and accordingly the court concluded that the inserted provisions 'should be given force and effect in preference to the usual format provisions' and that the result was that the instrument could not be regarded as conveying the fee nor even the right of possession but at most a mere easement, leaving the title, possession, and use in the grantor, subject only to a right of flowage." Page 119. That is a 343 word sentence with 22 commas. Ridiculous. This kind of thing kills me and I realize that 50 words in I'm getting none of this. This was an extreme example from the book, but there are tons of run-on sentences that were hard for me to focus on.
A few parts were pretty out of date, particularly the part regarding photography. For example, it says that the majority of imagery collected is black and white film which hasn't been true for a decent amount of time. Not a big deal.
I didn't understand why there were so many pictures of old hand-written deeds/descriptions. The point seemed to be how hard it is to read them and showing one was enough to illustrate this, but there were so many of them that it just felt like wasted space.
February 28, 2016
Interesting book, I'm slowing down a bit on Chapter 4 as the legal terms are a bit heady.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews