East Half vs. Six Chains: Senior Rights on Lot 9
Lot 9 of the old Perkins subdivision is 8.00 chains wide by 15.00 chains deep, 12.00 acres on the 1897 plat. In 1902 the common owner conveyed to Hale 'the east half of Lot 9, containing 6 acres, more or less, together with the barn at the north end.' In 1911 the same grantor conveyed to Ordway a parcel 'beginning at the NE corner of Lot 9; thence S 89 30 W 6.00 chains to an oak; thence S 0 20 W to the south line; thence E to the SE corner; thence N to the beginning.' Your 2019 retracement finds the NE corner monument, measures the lot's north line at 8.14 chains, and finds the oak called for in Ordway's deed at 5.60 chains from that corner. A fence has never divided the two parcels.
1. Who owns the disputed ground, and how wide is each party's frontage on the north line?
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Both parcels come from one grantor, so the senior conveyance controls: Hale (1902) takes the east half, and Ordway (1911) can receive only what the grantor still owned.
- Hale's line: 'east half' is a boundary call dividing the lot as it exists on the ground. With the north line measuring 8.14 ch between found monuments, the half line lies 8.14 / 2 = 4.07 ch west of the east line (not 4.00 ch from the record plat - the found monuments defining the lot control over the plat's record width).
- Ordway's line: the call to the oak controls over the 6.00-chain distance, placing his west line at 5.60 ch from the NE corner.
- Result: the 4.07-to-5.60 ch strip (1.53 ch wide) is the only land the grantor retained and could convey to Ordway. The overlap from 0 to 4.07 ch belongs to Hale as senior grantee.
If the parties have long treated the 5.60 line as the division, that is evidence supporting a boundary agreement or reformation, not a survey decision.
2. Hale's deed says '6 acres, more or less' and Ordway's deed says 6.00 chains. Which calls control, and in what order?
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Apply the hierarchy: natural monuments, then artificial monuments, then courses and distances, then area.
- Oak over 6.00 chains. The call to a specific, identified monument - the oak - prevails over the stated distance. Ordway's west line is measured to the oak at 5.60 ch.
- Boundary call over '6 acres, more or less.' 'East half' is a call for a boundary; the area recital is qualified by 'more or less' and yields to it. Area is the weakest call and is used only when nothing better exists.
- Seniority outranks all of the above as between the two deeds. Even after the oak pulls Ordway's line 0.40 ch farther west, the senior grant still takes its full east half; the junior grant is reduced, never the senior one.
Note the practical consequence: the 6-acre recital is no evidence that Hale was shorted, and the surveyor should not 'balance' the two deeds by splitting the difference.
3. The parties ask you to simply set the line down the middle of the overlap. How do you respond?
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Decline. A surveyor maps boundaries; only the owners (by written boundary line agreement, often recorded, and sometimes with a local agency's approval) or a court can create a new line. Setting a monument in the middle of a disputed strip would perpetuate an unrecorded agreement that binds neither party's successors and misstates the record.
Show on the map the senior and junior record positions, the found oak, the measured lot line, and any lines of occupation. Advise the owners in writing that the record answer favors the senior grantee, that an agreement is available to them if they prefer the 5.60 line, and that they should consult counsel before signing anything. Do not act as drafter of the agreement while also being the surveyor who certifies its line without disclosing the dual role.