What does the legal description of property mean?

Question

What exactly does the legal description of a property mean? Is it the Lot and Block survey system? I know it does not match the APN number, the lot number of the APN differs from the lot number of the legal description.

Howard Klahr · Answer

All legal descriptions are used to identify the parcel of real estate subject to the agreement related to the property.  There is a legal description in documents such as a deed, mortgage, lease etc and is what specifically describes the property.  An address, APN or any toher type of description does not consitute the legal descript and when there are conflict, the legal description rules.

There are basicly three types of legal descriptions used in the United States - Lot and Block, Government Survey and Metes and Bounds.

Lot and Block is based on a plat map or subdivsion filed with the offical records office in the county that the property is located and will identify parcels by naming the plat/subdivision, often including a reference to a book anmd page number, and the Bolck Number and Lot Number(s)

Governement Survey method is what most perople understand as Township, Range and Section.  Township lines run East/West and Ranges run North/South.  The distance between each Township line and each Range line is 6 miles.  The box resulting from two Townships and two Ranges is known as a Township (Iknow it can get a bit confusing).  In fact if you look at the rural areas of some states, such as Michigan, there are named areas known and Townships and these are six miles by six mile areas.  Each township is further brokendown into 36 sections.  These areas are one mile square.  A legal description using this form of description will say something like the Northeast quarter of the Northeast quarter of Section 5 of Township 51 South Range 48 East.

Metes and Bounds is a written description that uses physical features of local geography with distances and directions.  A metes and bounds description will go something like this:

At the Southwest corner of the intersection of Main Street with Orchard Road commence 150 feet South 0 degrees east to the Point of begining, then proceed 100 feet South 90 West, and then 50 feet North 0 degrees west, 100 feet North 90 degrees East and then 50 feet South 0 degrees East to the point of beginning.

An APN, or Assessors Parcel number, is an identification number assigned by the local assessors office and is only intended for use by the assessor with no other offical meaning.  This is due to issues like plottage, assemblage and subdivision which are not addressed by an Assessors Parcel Number.

I apologoze for the length of the post and I hope it helps.

Jon Holdman · Answer

The legal description in a city is usually the subdivision/block/lot or some similar variation.  The APN is just a unique id assigned by the assessor to each individually identified property.  A "property", i.e., an APN for the assessor, may or many not match up with the blocks that were laid out when the area was subdivided.  I've seen descriptions like "the west 10' of block 5 of ... and block 6 and the east 20' of block 7..."

Out in the country, it can be much more varied.  Some areas use sections, which are roughly one square mile. But the edges run along meridian lines, so sections aren't all the same size.  They're identified by township and range, which identify a block of 6 x 6 sections then a section number.  Individual pieces are identified as some piece of a section.  Our family farm, for example, is long and skinny and spans across several different sections. So there is a separate APN for each piece even though the deed describes it as a single property.

Other areas use "surveys".  These aren't as organized as sections.  These were done during the early explorations and often go along rivers.  They're big chunks of land surveyed off at one time.  A deed might refer to some piece of some survey that was part of some survey expedition (or whatever they were).

Of course, all this can vary from area to area.

Karen Margrave · Answer

Ann Bellamy That's just too funny!

Karen Margrave · Answer

Mark Hu I just looked at a recent description on a lot we bought in Lake Forest, CA, and the lot number is 15 on the AP number and 38 on the legal description. Humm.. ? I'll have to ask the title company tomorrow, and I'll let you know what I find out.

Jon Holdman · Answer

Here are some examples, I've removed all the specific identifiers but otherwise these are from actual deeds

For a piece of rural land in Missouri, which uses the section based approach:

All that part of the East fractional half of section XX, Township XX North, Range 13 West of the Xth P.M. [Prime Meridian] on the East or Left Bank of the XXXX River. 
ALSO...

It goes on to name other pieces that lie in different section.  Each piece named in the deed has a unique APN from the county assessor.  Its actually just "parcel #" on the tax statement.  One piece of it is the section number.  There are several numbers before that that are the same for all pieces, and a bunch of digits after the section number, most of which are zeros.  So, I don't think there is any relationship of those number to GPS coordinates.

From a house in an urban area of Adams county, CO:

Lot XX, Block XX, XXX Addition, County of Adams, State of Colorado.

XXX Addition is a reference to some subdivision filing that's recorded elsewhere.  This particular deed doesn't have a more specific reference to the subdivision, but I've see others that say "XXX Addition recorded on page XX in book XX of the XXX county recorder.

Another from a property in Texas.  Texas (or at least this part of Texas) doesn't use sections.  Instead they use surveys.

A XX acre tract of lang, situated in the P.W.Grayson Survey, Abstract No 43 and the G.W. Nexsen Survey, Abstract No. 65, Matagorda County, Texas, Being all of that certain 1.70 ac tract of land called tract xx of the XXX Subdivision (not recorded) out of an a part of tract No. xx of the ZZZ Subdivision as shown on plat of record in volume xx at page xxx of the deed records of Matagorda County, Texas.

This one actually then goes on to describe another sliver of land we cut off and gave to the neighbors when we bought the place.  They had drilled a well that wasn't actually on their property.  The P.W.Grayson and G.W.Nexsen surveys are the equivalent of sections in this area.  The legal description on the deed includes a detailed meets and bounds description based on the ZZZ Subdivision, which contains the smallest recorded unit above this particular property.  When we bought this property, I did actually track back to those two surveys and found maps of those.  Unfortunately, I don't seem to have those any longer.  I may have just reviewed them at a courthouse or library.  This was in the days before easy online access for this sort of data.

Ann Bellamy · Answer

And in New England, where original lot lines refer to "Nathaniel Overthere's barn" it gets interesting.  Especially if Nathaniel built his barn in 1742.  Tax assessor maps are notoriously way off from "Metes and Bounds" descriptions, and it's common to find out your neighbor's lot line cuts through your living room.  Or your garage, that used to be a carriage house, sits half on your neighbor's lot.  Never a dull moment.

Karen Margrave · Answer

Mark Hu It would seem to me that the APN lot number and the lot number in the legal description should match. The APN shows which book, and page the map is on, and then the lot#. However; if you need clairification, you can call the title company, ask for the "title plant", and someone in there will be happy to help you,or you can take your legal description down there, and they will look it up for you.

Jon Holdman · Answer

The property we have in MO all uses sections.  The legals do tie back to these government surveys, though maybe indirectly.  At some point, some big piece of land was subdivided into smaller pieces.  This may have been done repeatedly, so the current lots may be pieces of some larger lot in a large subdivision.

Used to be there were "plat books" that had maps showing the names of owners.  Now days its all on online records in many counties.  Most of the counties around here have some GIS system that will show you maps and you can click down on those to find who owns what.  Of course every county seems to have their own system.  I've never seen two alike and they're all hard to use.

In TX, the rural property I owned there was part of a survey rather than the sections.  Same basic idea, but essentially random chunks of land.

If you look on Google maps and google earth you can find the sections.  Topo maps from USGS also show them.

Bill Gulley · Answer

Mark Hu and Jon Holdman

Yes Mark, they all tie in to the US Gov. Survey system. There will be a Range, Section, Township for any plats filed and the palts may be further broken down to block lots. Jon was referring to (I think) the survey corners where physical markers are set. Most of the old landmark surveys have been corrected especially from the Mississippi as rivers change. Then there are section markers as known points for surveys to work off from. Today we have survey markers down to blocks......but then we also have spot GPS systems to use.

I'm thinking that the APN is from the GPS system to identify properties and works in with the emergency management system that police, ambulance and fire departments use to find your property and has nothing to do with any legal description.

Jon, that was a great explanation of the survey system, especially from a techie engineer type...LOL.  I had to rewrite legals from an existing meet and bounds along the James River without surveying it. And it closed on each parcel....LOL! That was a head scratcher as the parcels/lot lines go to the deepest part of a river in Mo. and lucky my surveyor told me so, that the description simply says "to the center of the James Branch of the White River" that took care of that!!!

Mark Hu · Answer

The subdivision/block/lot is recorded map reference. Does this recorded map have a relationship with Government Survey, (sections, township and range?). Does the recorded map itself have to be referenced to the Government Survey? I can't imagine it is just arbitrary like the APN.

What does the legal description of property mean?

Most Popular Reply