1. What a legal description is

A legal description is a set of words that identifies one piece of land (or space) so precisely that it cannot describe any other. It is called “legal” because it has to hold up in a deed, a title policy, a lawsuit or a court order. A street address is not a legal description: addresses change, get reassigned, and say nothing about where the lines are.

A good description is locatable: a competent surveyor who has never seen the property can take the words, go to the ground, and put the corners back where they belong. Every rule in this guide serves that one goal.

The parts of a description

2. How U.S. land got described: a short history

Why one county reads “Lot 4, Block 12” and the next reads “beginning at a stake by a white oak” comes down to who controlled the land first.

A few states also offered land registration (the Torrens system), where a court decrees the title and boundary and issues a certificate. It survives in parts of Minnesota, Hawaii, Massachusetts and a few other places. Everywhere else, title runs through recorded deeds in the county recorder’s office.

Public vs. private land and how it moves

• Public land passes from the government to the first private owner by a patent (federal or state). The patent and the original government survey plat are the root of title.
• Private land passes by deed, will, court order or foreclosure. Each transfer should repeat or refer to a description that traces back to the patent or a recorded plat.
• The paper trail lives in the recorder / register of deeds (deeds, plats, easements), the assessor (tax parcel maps, which are useful but not authoritative), the county surveyor (records of survey, corner records) and the BLM / state land office (original government plats and field notes).

3. The main types of descriptions

Most real deeds combine types: a caption in lot-and-block or PLSS terms, then a metes-and-bounds body inside it.

4. Units, words and phrases

Distance and area units you will run into

Words that change the meaning

5. Bearings, azimuths and the basis of bearings

Quadrant bearings

A bearing starts from north or south and turns toward east or west, never more than 90°. N 35°15'20" E means: face north, turn 35 degrees, 15 minutes, 20 seconds toward east. 60 seconds = 1 minute, 60 minutes = 1 degree.

Reverse a bearing by swapping both letters: the reverse of N 35°15'20" E is S 35°15'20" W. A deed walking the other way around the parcel will show every bearing reversed.

Azimuths

An azimuth is measured clockwise from north, 0° to 360°. Conversions:

Some older and some government work measured azimuths from south. Check the document’s convention before converting.

Basis of bearings

Bearings are only meaningful relative to a reference. Modern descriptions should say what that is: “Bearings are based on the east line of the NW¼ of Section 14 being N 0°12’33” W” or “Bearings are grid bearings of the Colorado State Plane Coordinate System, Central Zone, NAD 83.” Old deeds often used magnetic north, which wanders over time (declination), so a bearing from 1880 and one from 1990 along the same fence can differ by several degrees.

6. Reading the Public Land Survey System

The grid

• Each survey region starts from an initial point where a principal meridian (north-south) crosses a baseline (east-west). There are 37 principal meridians in the lower 48 states and Alaska.
• Townships are numbered north or south of the baseline (T3N, T7S). Ranges are numbered east or west of the meridian (R2E, R14W). Each township is about 6 miles square.
• Because meridians converge toward the pole, standard parallels (correction lines) every 24 miles reset the width. That is why roads jog at correction lines.
• Each township has 36 sections, numbered back and forth starting in the northeast corner:

Survey error and convergence are pushed into the north and west sides of a township. Sections along those edges (1–7, 18, 19, 30, 31) often have irregular government lots instead of clean quarter-quarters. Government lots also appear along lakes, rivers and grant boundaries.

Reading an aliquot description: read it backwards

Commas and semicolons matter. “The NE¼ and the N½ of the SE¼” is two tracts (240 acres). “The N½ of the NE¼ and SE¼” can be read as one tract or two. Writers should repeat each fraction in full.

Where the corners really are

In the PLSS, the corners set by the original government survey control, even if the section is not a perfect square. Quarter corners are found or rebuilt by government rules (in most states, the BLM’s Manual of Surveying Instructions). The center of a section is where lines between opposite quarter corners cross. “Halves” and “quarters” are measured between those found corners, not by assuming 2,640 feet.

7. Lots, blocks and recorded maps

A subdivision plat is a recorded map that splits a tract into numbered lots and blocks, dedicates streets, and shows dimensions, curves and monuments. Once recorded, “Lot 12, Block 4, Oak Terrace, per Plat Book 22, Page 15” carries the whole map into the deed by reference.

• Always cite the book and page (or instrument number) and the county. Two subdivisions can share a name.
• Read the plat’s notes: basis of bearings, monuments set, easements, setback lines, “NAP” areas and any later amended or vacated plats.
• When a lot is sold by number, the buyer usually takes title to the center of an adjoining public street (subject to the public’s easement) if the subdivider owned the street land, unless the deed or local law says otherwise.
• When the plat’s dimensions and the monuments set for the plat disagree, the original monuments generally control.

8. Reading metes and bounds step by step

1. Find the frame. The caption limits the parcel to the SE¼ NW¼ of Section 30. Nothing outside that 40-acre square passes.
2. Find the starting point. The center of section is the POC, a tie point. The first call is a tie, not a boundary.
3. List every call as bearing + distance + what it runs to or along (the “bound”).
4. Sketch it. West 250, north 180, east 250, south 180: a 250 × 180 ft four-sided parcel against the center line.
5. Check closure. The bearings and distances should return to the POB. Here they close exactly.
6. Check area. Roughly 250 × 180 = 45,000 sq ft ÷ 43,560 = 1.033 ac, which matches the stated area. (The exact figure is 44,997 sq ft, because the corners are 89°46′, not a perfect 90°.)
7. Check the bounds. Two calls say “said center line.” That is a record boundary and outranks the measured distance if they ever disagree.

Closure: the math

For each line, latitude (north-south change) = distance × cos(azimuth) and departure (east-west change) = distance × sin(azimuth). Add all latitudes and all departures. In a perfect closed figure both sums are zero. The leftover distance is the error of closure, and dividing the total perimeter by it gives the precision ratio (e.g., 1:15,000). Modern boundary work usually closes better than 1:10,000. A big misclosure usually means a typo, a reversed bearing or a missing call.

Area comes from the coordinates by the “shoelace” (double meridian distance) method: area = ½ |Σ (xᵢ·yᵢ₊₁ − xᵢ₊₁·yᵢ)|.

9. “Northerly 50 feet” style descriptions

Short-form descriptions slice a known parcel with measured strips. They are clean when written carefully.

• “North 50 feet” is measured at right angles to the north line unless stated otherwise. If the lot’s side lines are not perpendicular, the strip is still bounded by a line parallel with the north line, 50 feet away.
• “North half” divides by area or by distance depending on local law and how the parcel was created. Spell it out: “the north half, by area” or “the northerly 66.00 feet.”
• When a street was widened and the lot lost land, “the south 30 feet of Lot 5” measures from the lot’s original line on the plat unless the deed says “the south 30 feet of the remainder.”

10. Curves

A curve in a description is an arc of a circle. Its parts:

Any two of R, Δ, L, T or C define the curve. Good descriptions give three so a reader can catch errors.

• Non-tangent curves need a radial bearing: “…the beginning of a non-tangent curve, concave northerly, a radial line to said point bears N 14°02’31” W…” The center is 400 feet from the point along that radial.
• Compound curves turn the same way with different radii. Reverse curves turn the opposite way. Each joins at a common tangent point.
• Railroad and old highway curves were often defined by degree of curve (the central angle that subtends a 100-ft chord or arc): R ≈ 5,729.58 / D (arc definition). Convert before using modern formulas.
• If a curve’s stated length and delta disagree with its radius, check whether a digit was transposed, and compare against the plat and the adjoining calls before deciding which element is wrong.

11. What controls when the calls disagree

Descriptions often contain more information than needed, and the pieces do not always agree. Courts look for the intent of the parties, and over time they have settled on a general order of reliability. It is a guide, not a formula; a lower item can win when it clearly shows intent.

• A caption controls over the body where the body strays outside it.
• Specific beats general: “N 41°10′ E 300 feet to the iron pin” beats a later “thence northeasterly” in conflict.
• A call to a monument carries the distance to that monument, even if the stated distance is short or long, as long as the monument is the one intended and is undisturbed.
• A mistake obvious from the face of the deed (reversed bearing, transposed digits, “east” written for “west” when the parcel cannot close otherwise) may be corrected by reading the document as a whole.
• Where a deed is ambiguous, many courts resolve doubt against the person who wrote it (usually the grantor).

12. Water boundaries

• Riparian land touches a river or stream. Littoral land touches a lake or sea.
• On navigable waters, the state usually owns the bed up to the ordinary high water mark (inland) or the mean high tide line (coast), and private ownership stops there. On non-navigable streams, owners on each side usually own to the thread (center) unless the deed stops at the bank. State rules vary a lot.
• Meander lines in government surveys traced the shore to compute acreage. They are generally not the boundary; the water is.
• Accretion (gradual deposit of soil) and reliction (gradual retreat of water) add land to the shore owner. Erosion (gradual loss) takes it away. Avulsion (sudden change, like a flood cutting a new channel) does not move the boundary; it stays where the old channel was.
• When accreted land is divided among several shore owners, the usual approach gives each a share of the new shoreline in proportion to their share of the old one, with lines run from the old shore to the new.
• Describe water lines by the natural feature (“thence along the ordinary high water line of the Platte River”) rather than by bearings and distances alone, which freeze a line the law treats as moving.

13. Streets, easements and strips

Fee vs. easement

A road can be owned outright by the public (fee) or crossed only by a public right to use it (easement) while the abutting owners own the land underneath. The deed or dedication that created the road decides which. When a street easement is vacated (abandoned), the land usually reverts to the abutting owners, often to the center line, but a fee street that is vacated may stay with the public body or go elsewhere.

Easements

Writing and reading strip easements

The last sentence matters: without it the strip has square ends and leaves slivers or overlaps where it meets lot lines at an angle. Pipelines and highways also use stationing: “Station 12+50” means 1,250 feet along the centerline from Station 0+00.

14. Fences, occupation and title

Where people live and farm is not always where the paper says the line is. Several doctrines can move a boundary to match long occupation:

• Acquiescence: neighbors treat a line (often a fence) as the boundary for a long time, and the law treats it as the line.
• Agreed boundary: neighbors uncertain of the true line agree on one and occupy to it.
• Adverse possession: someone occupies land openly, continuously, exclusively and hostilely for the statutory period (and in some states pays the taxes), and gains title.
• Estoppel: one owner’s conduct leads another to rely on a line, and the first owner cannot later deny it.

These rights are usually unwritten until a court or a boundary-line agreement records them. A surveyor should show occupation that disagrees with the record line on the map; a description writer should describe the record line unless an agreement or judgment establishes another.

15. Common problems and how to resolve them

16. Writing a description that holds up

Before writing

1. Pull the vesting deed, the adjoining deeds, the recorded plat or government plat, and any record of survey.
2. Know what is being conveyed and why (sale, split, easement, lease) and what must be excepted or reserved.
3. Get a survey, or at least confirm the monuments and the basis of bearings.

The framework

1. Caption: state, county, and the lot, section or recorded parcel the land lies in.
2. Basis of bearings and datum if any bearings or coordinates follow.
3. Commencement: a found, recoverable monument or recorded corner.
4. Tie calls to the true point of beginning.
5. Boundary calls in one direction around the parcel (most writers go clockwise), each with bearing, distance, curve data where needed, and what it runs to or along.
6. Return to the true point of beginning.
7. Area, “more or less.”
8. Exceptions, reservations and appurtenances, each fully described.

Do

• Aim for short and unmistakable. Add words when they remove doubt.
• Call for monuments and adjoiners at each corner when they exist (“to an iron pipe set at the southeast corner of the land described in Instrument 2019-044512”).
• Use “described in” when you mean the paper line and “conveyed to” only when you intend the real ownership.
• Repeat full bearings, distances and fractions; avoid “same,” “aforesaid” chains a reader has to unwind.
• Check closure and area mathematically before recording.
• For strips, say how sidelines begin and end.
• When splitting one parcel into several, describe them so they share common lines exactly (“the northerly line of Parcel B is coincident with the southerly line of Parcel A”).

Don’t

• Don’t describe by fences, buildings or pavement unless you mean those things as the boundary.
• Don’t use street addresses, tax parcel numbers or “more or less” as the only identification.
• Don’t add “afterthought” calls that conflict with the main calls.
• Don’t use “along the easterly line” for a line made of many segments when one segment matters.
• Don’t leave the units, datum or basis of bearings to guesswork.

A clean template

17. Condos, air space and other 3-D parcels

• Condominium units are described by the recorded condominium plan or declaration (“Unit 4B as shown on the Condominium Plan recorded as Instrument…”), plus an undivided interest in the common elements.
• Air-space parcels add vertical limits: a horizontal outline plus upper and lower elevations on a named vertical datum (NAVD 88, NGVD 29 or a local datum).
• Subsurface parcels and mineral estates describe a depth range or a geologic formation; reservations often say “below a depth of 500 feet, without right of surface entry.”
• Avigation easements describe sloping planes above the ground around airports.

18. Tools for mapping and decoding

19. AI reference: a decoding procedure

This section is written so an AI assistant (or a person working methodically) can turn description text into structured data and check it.

Step-by-step procedure

1. Normalize the text: fix OCR errors (° vs o, ‘ vs ′, ” vs ″, “l” vs “1”), expand abbreviations (N, S, E, W, Sec., Twp., Rng., Blk., P.O.B., T.P.O.B., R/W, C/L, ft., ch., lks.), and split into sentences at “thence.”
2. Identify the jurisdiction: state, county, and system (PLSS, lot and block, metes and bounds, Texas survey and abstract, colonial).
3. Extract the caption as the limiting parent parcel.
4. Classify each part as caption, basis of bearings, commencement, tie call, boundary call, closing call, area statement, exception, reservation or appurtenance.
5. Parse each call into: direction (bearing or azimuth), distance and unit, curve data, the monument or line it runs to or along, and qualifiers (“more or less,” “parallel with,” “at right angles”).
6. Convert units to feet (chains × 66, rods × 16.5, links × 0.66, varas by local value).
7. Compute coordinates from the POB; compute closure, precision and area.
8. Cross-check: stated area vs. computed area; curve elements vs. each other; each “to the ___ line” against the referenced document; tie calls against found monuments.
9. Flag issues by type (misclosure, reversed bearing candidate, transposed digits candidate, ambiguous word, missing basis of bearings, call outside caption, conflict between monument and distance) and rank them by the order of control in section 11.
10. Report in plain language: what the parcel is, where it is, its size, its shape, what it touches, and what needs a surveyor’s attention.

A structured format for one parcel

{
  "jurisdiction": {"state": "AZ", "county": "Yavapai"},
  "system": "PLSS + metes and bounds",
  "caption": "NE1/4 SE1/4 Sec 11, T8N, R2E, G&SRM",
  "basis_of_bearings": {"line": "east line of SE1/4", "bearing": "N 0-09-44 W"},
  "commencement": {"point": "east quarter corner Sec 11", "monument": "found brass cap"},
  "ties": [
    {"bearing": "S 0-09-44 E", "dist_ft": 330.00, "along": "east line of SE1/4"},
    {"bearing": "S 89-50-16 W", "dist_ft": 40.00, "to": "W R/W line Ranch Road"}
  ],
  "calls": [
    {"bearing": "S 89-50-16 W", "dist_ft": 300.00},
    {"bearing": "S 0-09-44 E",  "dist_ft": 290.40},
    {"bearing": "N 89-50-16 E", "dist_ft": 300.00, "to": "W R/W line Ranch Road"},
    {"bearing": "N 0-09-44 W",  "dist_ft": 290.40, "along": "W R/W line Ranch Road"}
  ],
  "curve_example": {"type": "tangent", "concave": "SE", "radius_ft": 400.00,
                    "delta": "22-30-00", "arc_ft": 157.08},
  "stated_area_ac": 2.000,
  "exceptions": [], "reservations": [], "appurtenances": []
}

Patterns to recognize

20. Free deed plotter

This guide is general education, not legal or surveying advice. Rules vary by state; confirm anything you rely on with a licensed land surveyor and a real estate attorney or title company.