learning to read land descriptions

where on the web is there a how to read land location descriptions like section 21, SE 20 acres of W 1/2 except nothtwest 200 feet etc. Would be good if the site had examples.

If you dont find anything on it call your township supervisor and ask him,Your paying him for the service

Here is a 101 course.

Remember each township consists of 36 Sections of land, each 1 mile square (640 Acres)

So a 40 Acre parcel description could read:
The SE 1/4 of the SW 1/4 of Section 14 in the given township.

Your 20 Acre parcel could be the W 1/2 of the SE 1/4 of the SW 1/4 of Section 14 in the given township.

Tim
Example

All descripitions (unless described by meets and bounds) are referenced off of a Principal Meridian. Here in Iowa, land descriptions are from the 5th Prime Meridian so my farm is township 92 range 8 west of the fifth prime meridian.
Principal Meridian Map

Trust me,supervisors have no clue about that kind of thing unless they are certified assessors. Most townships hire an assessor for that very reason. Our supervisor has been supervisor for longer than I've been on board of review,and that's a long time. He has NO clue when it comes to anything to do with real estate.

A metes and bounds legal description in a County can be based upon:

SECTION NUMBER: If you look at a plat map you will see how each Section (one mile square = 640 acres) is numbered

TOWNSHIP These ARE NOT Political Townships such as Clear Creek or Indian Creek where I live butttttttt they are numbered however many (Townships) North or South of the base. Example the 7th Township North is T7N

RANGE These are similar buttttttt they are however many East or West from the base. Example the 5th Range West is R5W

For example my farm is a part of the ... NW 1/4 of Section 23, Township 7 North, Range 5 West of the Second Principal Meridian located in Indian Creek Township of Monroe County, Indiana bounded and described as follows to-wit:: (Then it has a legal description laid out as below)

NEXT a Section, a mile square, is 640 acres so a Quarter Section is 160 and a Quarter Quarter Section would be 40 acres.......then you may own the East One Half of a Quarter Quarter Section so thats 20 acres while the West One Half of an entire Section would be 320 acres.

When a surVeyor writes a legal description he starts with where it COMMENCES which is often say a Section corner such as the Northwest Corner of Section 23......Then it may be like 500 feet thence South to THE TRUE POINT OF BEGINNINGand thats where your lot begins, it may then run x feet east, x feet South x feet West, x feet North BACK TO THE POINT OF BEGINNING and equals x acres more or less

Go buy a Plat Map and it will be very easy to figure this out

John T BSEE, JD Attorney at Law

On my farm the surveyor notes on one of the section corner locations reads " 22 feet East from the black cherry tree and 16 feet South of the Red Oak tree...

Tim
Original surveyors field notes

I guess mine dont either come to think about it,but the guy that rents my land is a Supervisor for the township a mile away and he knows,He stops in for a beer now and then and has helped quite a lot.

John,you made it sound too simple or else you never dealt with old deeds.The last farm I bought has your SectionX,Twp.X,RangeXX and from there on its Creeks, So en Sos fence line,Trees and stones in so many chains to each,Plus it is in 3 Vol.and 5 Pages.in the Plat books.I know it's maybe not smart,but of 5 farms plus rental properties owned,none of them have a survey later then 1900.

As a real estate appraiser, I read legal descriptions on a daily basis. They are usually easiest to comprehend if read backwards. Start at the Section, Township & Range. Spin your chair around so that you are facing north. Draw a square on a piece of paper. That square represents 5,280 feet by 5,280 feet or 640 acres. Then sketch out the preceding call (say NE/4), divide the square on your paper into four equal smaller squares, each one being 160 acres. Then move on to the preceding call and so on. When you get to the beginning, your done.

Metes & bounds descriptions are a bit more complicated.

Yeah, I purposely over simplified it, its just hard to put in words what lookin at a plat map and a legal description can explain better. Ive owned several farms and like you the legals get wayyyyyy more complex lol. And then there are the "meanderings" along a creek and to an oak tree etc etc

Take care now

John T

My farm has 7 tax statements i don't think anyone can figure out,i know the county tax people can't.They outsource all the tax stuff so you can't blame them when your real estate taxes go up.They tell you to arrange a meeting with the appraiser when he comes around,

You folks up north , ILL, IND. OHIO, are just so lucky, your land was laid out in sections or squares as you say. Come to Tenn and try and read old land grant deeds. Have several 200 acre farms that may have as many as 7 or 8 deeds or tract that might follow the center of the creek or so & so tree. With the advent of gps maping if the entire state were to be remapped and deeds corrected we probably would have an uprising. Lots of lines are just thst where the two adjoining land owners agree this is the line.

In Clayton County, Iowa -Clayton township, we have two sections each. 18-19-20-21. If that doesn't scream RED NECK, what does?

You would think someone would have caught that in the last two hundred years, even with only a little school housin.

I guess we are lucky- can"t imagine what you describe- my first reaction was like Devon"s- just read it backwards. Even our free county books from the mapmakers describe how to read the legal descriptions, just like how we learned in high school ag. That was in the day before rural housing, and everything was squares and rectangles, or maybe a meandering lakeshore/river. Basing a line on an old tree is really comical, until it gets personal!

Ahhhh...if sections only WERE actually square and DID actually contain 640 acres, how much simpler life would be for surveyors, owners, etc...
Now, I can't comment on the midwest plains or the east, but out here (Calif, OR) things aren't that regular, and I'm NOT talking about the adjustments made for laying out squares on a round surface (always along the north and west section lines, if I remember correctly) NOR the allowances made for public lake areas etc ("Gov't Lots"), which're separate situations.
Out here, some of the old GLO (Gov't Land Office Offical Surveys) that the Township/Sections are laid out from, were then made by what's mre kindly called "reconnaissance methods" (ie, guessed at because the country was rough and the surveyor was the low bidder), so we have Offical GLO Plats with lots of section lines off true with consequent variations in acreage...
As John T said, reading legal desc's is a highly complex field, which has its own rules and backgrounds, which sometimes (often?) leaves you with less (or more) than is apparent to the inexperienced...
As John T said, Township, in sectionland lingo is NOT a POLITICAL Township but a square grid of 36 sections...well, relatively square...mostly...

Our county's website has something similar. I get such a kick out of the "nailed a bottle cap into a fencepost 12' SW of section corner." and "Two 6" Linden trees mark the corner..."

Amazing... And we wonder why there are property line disputes nowadays.