Legal Principles and Land Descriptions: Writing and Interpreting Deeds
Core Concepts
Land descriptions must be sufficient to locate the parcel unambiguously. Candidates should know the four principal description types: metes and bounds, lot and block (plat), section/township/range (PLSS), and monument-based descriptions. Understand rules of construction: a description is read as a whole; specific calls control general ones; natural monuments control artificial ones; monuments control distances. Know easements (appurtenant vs. in gross, prescriptive, by necessity), adverse possession elements, boundary by agreement/acquiescence, riparian and littoral rights, accretion, reliction, erosion, and avulsion, and senior/junior rights. Also understand ambiguity vs. latent ambiguity and the role of extrinsic evidence.
Common Traps
Questions test whether a description is void for vagueness (e.g., "my property on Main Street") versus merely ambiguous. Another trap: confusing easement with fee title or license; an easement is a nonpossessory interest. Watch for adverse possession elements - actual, open and notorious, exclusive, continuous, hostile - and the statutory period. Also distinguish boundary by acquiescence (a recognized doctrine) from mere neighborly permission. Riparian traps: avulsion does not move the boundary; accretion does.
Worked Example / Rule of Thumb
Rule of thumb: "Read the whole deed; specific beats general, and monuments beat numbers." Example: a deed says "the north 100 feet of Lot 4, together with the barn located at the northeast corner." If Lot 4 is only 95 feet deep, the specific call to the barn and the lot's actual depth control; the 100-foot call cannot extend beyond the lot. Always test a description by asking: could a competent surveyor, using only the deed and record evidence, retrace it?