Existence of the Property

Nearly all titles to land in the United States depend on an original grant or patent and subsequent conveyance instruments. All of these instruments contain descriptions of the land conveyed. It is a fundamental principle that for a deed to be valid it must contain a sufficient description. Whether a metes and bounds description or a description by reference to a parcel on a map is sufficient to transfer the property is often dependent upon whether a knowledgeable surveyor can interpret the description to reasonably locate the property physically on the ground. In determining whether the land description is reasonably clear, the surveyor determines whether the land description forms a mathematically closed figure and whether the description reasonably conforms to the physical evidence on the earth's surface. The first is done by numeric calculation, the second by a physical measurement process in the field.