Reading a plat
The drawing is the product. This is how to read one.
Most people receive a survey, glance at it, and file it. It is worth ten minutes — particularly the notes, which are where a surveyor puts the things that will matter to you later.
The legend
- Monument found
- An existing pin, pipe, or stone we recovered. The strongest evidence there is.
- Monument set
- A new pin we placed, capped and identifiable as ours.
- Calculated point
- A corner we could not physically occupy. Held by measurement, not by iron.
- Boundary line
- The line as we resolved it from the record and the evidence.
- Deed line
- Where the paperwork says the line is, when that differs from where the evidence puts it.
- Easement
- Somebody else's right across your ground. Usually a utility, sometimes a neighbour.
Four things worth knowing
- Bearings run clockwise from north
- N 06°14' E means fourteen minutes past six degrees, east of north. It is a direction, not a distance, and it is how every line on the sheet is described.
- Found beats set
- An existing monument recovered in the ground is stronger evidence than a new one we placed. Where the two disagree, the drawing says so rather than quietly averaging them.
- A fence is not a line
- Fences move, get replaced a foot out, and get built by people who were guessing. Half our residential work ends with a note like the one on this drawing.
- The signature matters more than the paper
- An unsigned drawing is a working copy. The sealed, signed version is the one your title company, your county, and your attorney will accept.