How are Land Descriptions Used in Surveys

The Survey For thousands of years, the land survey has been a crucial element of nearly all real estate law and real estate litigation. Incorporating nearly every element of mathematics, hard science, and property law, surveying is often oversimplified by some as a means of ascertaining the the boundaries of a property.

Incorporating also soil constitution, building measurement, and constitution of terrain, land surveys are crucial in many forms of legal litigation, not only in property disputes, but also in civil actions and criminal proceedings, and its scope varies in breadth from the studio apartment to the average neighborhood, all the way up to our largest cities. When the result of scrupulous data collection, the land survey forms the basis by which any legal judgment on property is based and determined.

Land Descriptions

A land description is an accurate representation of a land parcel or piece of property. This property may be owned publicly or privately, and can be represented in various forms. The process of obtaining an accurate land description is known as Surveying. A survey is conducted by a licensed surveyor on behalf of either the government of the locality, or the private owner of the property.

This survey then takes the form of either a written prose description, or a visual representation known as a plat. Throughout history, surveying has shifted through varying methodologies depending upon the region. Early American surveys derived from the traditional English measurements of Metes and Bounds, but later shifted toward the Public Land Survey System used by the United States Government today.

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