Evidence and Boundary Law Principles
Evidence and Boundary Law Principles
This domain tests the legal rules that decide what evidence a Minnesota surveyor may rely on and how ambiguity is resolved. Expect questions on intent, monument control, adverse possession, acquiescence, and the burden of proof.
Core rules
- The deed is interpreted to carry out the grantor's intent at delivery. Extrinsic evidence may clarify an ambiguity but may not contradict a clear description.
- Monuments generally control over courses and distances; distances control over area. A call to an adjoining owner's line can control over a stated distance if it identifies the intended line.
- Adverse possession in Minnesota requires actual, open, notorious, continuous, hostile possession for 15 years under Minn. Stat. § 541.02, with payment of taxes where required by statute.
- Boundary by acquiescence requires a dispute or uncertainty, a practical location by the parties, and acquiescence for a period sufficient to bar an action; it is not a shortcut for a surveyor's guess.
- Practical location and estoppel can fix a boundary when owners have treated a line as the boundary and relied on it to their detriment.
Worked example
A deed conveys "the east 100 feet of Lot 7, containing about one acre." The plat shows Lot 7 is only 80 feet wide east-west. The stated distance exceeds the lot. The call to Lot 7 is a monument call to a platted boundary; the east 80 feet is the conveyable land, and "about one acre" yields to the plat. If the deed instead said "to the fence line," evidence of the fence's location and the parties' intent could control over both distance and area.
Traps that cost marks
Treating "more or less" as meaningless; using area to defeat a monument call; confusing acquiescence with adverse possession; assuming a surveyor can declare a boundary by opinion without evidence; ignoring the tax-payment element in adverse-possession questions.