Boundary (real estate)

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A property marker outside the United Nations building in New York City. UN prop marker.jpg
A property marker outside the United Nations building in New York City.

A unit of real estate or immovable property is limited by a legal boundary (sometimes also referred to as a property line, lot line or bounds). The boundary (in Latin: limes) may appear as a discontinuation in the terrain: a ditch, a bank, a hedge, a wall, or similar, but essentially, a legal boundary is a conceptual entity, a social construct, adjunct to the likewise abstract entity of property rights.

Contents

A cadastral map displays how boundaries subdivide land into units of ownership. However, the relations between society, owner, and land in any culture or jurisdiction are conceived of in terms more complex than a tessellation. Therefore, the society concerned has to specify the rules and means by which the boundary concept is materialized and located on the ground. [1]

A 'Western' version of the boundary determination might be a legally specified procedure, performed by a chartered surveyor, supported by statements from neighbors and pertinent documents, and resulting in official recording in the cadastre as well as boundary markings in the field. Alternatively, indigenous people represent boundaries through ephemeral performances, such as song and dance, and, when in more permanent form, e.g. paintings or carvings, in an artistic or metaphorical manner. [2]

Identifying boundaries

A private property line plaque separating the private property and the public right of way on a sidewalk in New York City. It declares that the public may utilize the space inside the private property by a revocable license, to prevent it to become a prescriptive easement. Property line, crossing is by revocable license only.jpg
A private property line plaque separating the private property and the public right of way on a sidewalk in New York City. It declares that the public may utilize the space inside the private property by a revocable license, to prevent it to become a prescriptive easement.

Legal boundaries are usually established by a professional surveyor using a transit and or modern Global Positioning System (GPS) technology. The coordinates of the property line are often described on a drawing called a "plot plan" or "plat" by indicating the length of the boundary along a specific compass bearing in relation to a verifiable "point of beginning". The metes and bounds method is also used to provide a legal description of a property.

On maps, the line may be marked with U+214APROPERTY LINE.

The ⅊ symbol may also be used in architectural drawings and CAD design to show plates. [4]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Surveying</span> Science of determining the positions of points and the distances and angles between them

Surveying or land surveying is the technique, profession, art, and science of determining the terrestrial two-dimensional or three-dimensional positions of points and the distances and angles between them. A land surveying professional is called a land surveyor. These points are usually on the surface of the Earth, and they are often used to establish maps and boundaries for ownership, locations, such as the designed positions of structural components for construction or the surface location of subsurface features, or other purposes required by government or civil law, such as property sales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Engineering drawing</span> Type of technical drawing used to define requirements for engineered items

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The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is the surveying method developed and used in the United States to plat, or divide, real property for sale and settling. Also known as the Rectangular Survey System, it was created by the Land Ordinance of 1785 to survey land ceded to the United States by the Treaty of Paris in 1783, following the end of the American Revolution. Beginning with the Seven Ranges in present-day Ohio, the PLSS has been used as the primary survey method in the United States. Following the passage of the Northwest Ordinance in 1787, the Surveyor General of the Northwest Territory platted lands in the Northwest Territory. The Surveyor General was later merged with the General Land Office, which later became a part of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Today, the BLM controls the survey, sale, and settling of lands acquired by the United States.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plat</span> Map showing divisions of a piece of land in America

In the United States, a plat (plan) is a cadastral map, drawn to scale, showing the divisions of a piece of land. United States General Land Office surveyors drafted township plats of Public Lands Surveys to show the distance and bearing between section corners, sometimes including topographic or vegetation information. City, town or village plats show subdivisions broken into blocks with streets and alleys. Further refinement often splits blocks into individual lots, usually for the purpose of selling the described lots; this has become known as subdivision.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Section (United States land surveying)</span> One square mile

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Metes and bounds is a system or method of describing land, real property or real estate. The system has been used in England for many centuries and is still used there in the definition of general boundaries. The system is also used in the Canadian province of Ontario, and throughout Canada for the description of electoral districts. By custom, it was applied in the original Thirteen Colonies that became the United States and in many other land jurisdictions based on English common law, including Zimbabwe, South Africa, India and Bangladesh. While still in hand-me-down use, this system has been largely overtaken in the past few centuries by newer systems such as rectangular and lot and block.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cadastre</span> Comprehensive register of the real estate or real propertys metes-and-bounds of a country

A cadastre or cadaster is a comprehensive recording of the real estate or real property's metes-and-bounds of a country. Often it is represented graphically in a cadastral map.

Land registration is any of various systems by which matters concerning ownership, possession, or other rights in land are formally recorded to provide evidence of title, facilitate transactions, and prevent unlawful disposal. The information recorded and the protection provided by land registration varies widely by jurisdiction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Land lot</span> Tract or parcel of land that is owned

In real estate, a lot or plot is a tract or parcel of land owned or meant to be owned by some owner(s). A plot is essentially considered a parcel of real property in some countries or immovable property in other countries. Possible owners of a plot can be one or more persons or another legal entity, such as a company, corporation, organization, government, or trust. A common form of ownership of a plot is called fee simple in some countries.

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Construction surveying or building surveying is to provide dimensional control for all stages of construction work, including the stake out of reference points and markers that will guide the construction of new structures such as roads, rail, or buildings. These markers are usually staked out according to a suitable coordinate system selected for the project.

The Association of Canada Lands Surveyors (ACLS) is the national licensing body for professionals surveying in the three Canadian territories, in the Federal parks, on Aboriginal reserves, as well as on and under the surface of Canada's oceans. It is a self-governing, non-profit, non-governmental organization that manages the activities of its members across Canada in the field of cadastral surveying.

Land administration is the way in which the rules of land tenure are applied and made operational. Land administration, whether formal or informal, comprises an extensive range of systems and processes to administer. The processes of land administration include the transfer of rights in land from one party to another through sale, lease, loan, gift and inheritance; the regulating of land and property development; the use and conservation of the land; the gathering of revenues from the land through sales, leasing, and taxation; and the resolving of conflicts concerning the ownership and the use of land. Land administration functions may be divided into four components: Juridical, regulatory, fiscal, and information management. These functions of land administration may be organized in terms of agencies responsible for surveying and mapping, land registration, land valuation and land revenue generation. The purpose and scope of this knowledge domain appear from the following introducing notes:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Constraint (computer-aided design)</span> Imposed limitations in computer-aided design

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Cadastral surveying is the sub-field of cadastre and surveying that specialises in the establishment and re-establishment of real property boundaries. It involves the physical delineation of property boundaries and determination of dimensions, areas and certain rights associated with properties. This is regardless of whether they are on land, water or defined by natural or artificial features. It is an important component of the legal creation of properties. A cadastral surveyor must apply both the spatial-measurement principles of general surveying and legal principles such as respect of neighboring titles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Real property</span> Legal term; property consisting of land and the buildings on it

In English common law, real property, real estate, immovable property or, solely in the US and Canada, realty, refers to parcels of land and any associated structures which are the property of a person. In order for a structure to be considered part of the real property, it must be integrated with or affixed to the land. Examples include crops, buildings, machinery, wells, dams, ponds, mines, canals, and roads. The term is historic, arising from the now-discontinued form of action, which distinguished between real property disputes and personal property disputes. Personal property, or personalty, was, and continues to be, all property that is not real property.

References

  1. Turk, Andrew (2007) Representations of Tribal Boundaries of Australian Indigenous Peoples and the Implications for Geographic Information Systems. pp 232 - 244 in Dyson, et al, 2007.
  2. Muecke, S., Benterrak, K., & Roe P. (1984) Reading the country: An introduction to nomadology. Fremantle, W.A.: Fremantle Arts Centre Press.
  3. Jordan, Cora; Randolph, Mary (1994). "Easements Acquired by Use of Property". Neighbor law : fences, trees, boundaries, and noise (PDF) (2nd ed.). Berkeley: Nolo Press. ISBN   9780873372664. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2015-03-18. Retrieved 26 July 2014.
  4. "Text Symbols and Special Characters Reference". AutoDesk Knowledge Network. AutoDesk AutoCAD. Retrieved 16 February 2016.