How Many Acres

How many acres of land do I have based on the following land description:

That portion of the SW1/4 of SE1/4, Section 30, Township 3, Range 10 East, St. Helena Meridian described as follows:
Beginning at the northwest corner of the said SW1/4 of the SE1/4; thence south 1/2 deg. east along the west line of the said SW1/4 of the SE1/4 6 1/2 chains; thence South 47 deg. east 16 chains to public road; thence north 18 deg. east along public road 7.75 chains; thence in a northerly direction along said public road to the intersection of the north line of the said SW1/4 of the SE1/4 at a point approximately 9 chains from the northwest corner; thence west along said north line to the point of beginning.

Thanks
Ken Creel

[Robert Fogt]

Wow, that seems very cryptic and complex. Is this for a school test of some sort?

Hopefully an highway engineer will see this post and be able to help, as this went way over my head.

Trying to sell some property in Louisiana and this is from the legal description.
Being as it's from Louisiana ought to tell you something.
Kcseagull

around here (wisconsin, minnesota), the county (parish, in your case) platbooks usually give the size (in acres) of each plot of land.. at least in non-urban areas. public libraries usually have platbooks you can look at in the reference or local sections. that would be the easy first place to find an answer.

Ken,

By best estimate of the size of your land (from a sketch, not a precise calculation) is about 14 acres. This is based on standard plat map conventions. I understand that some sections in Louisiana, where this lot appears to be by the description of the principal meridian as St. Helena, can be irregular, especially if the land borders a river or other body of water. But that does not appear to be the case from the description.

Your parcel has an irregular pentagon shape.

Some usefull conversions: 640 acres per section. Your land is in 1/4 of 1/4 of the section, that is 640 X 1/4 X 1/4 = 40 acres. Your land has to be less than 40 acres and appears to represent about 1/3 of this forty.

One acre = 1 chain X 1 furlong. 1 furlong = 10 chains. Therefore, 1 acre = 10 square chains. Your lot should have about 140 square chains, which sound s silly.

I hope someone with real land surveying experience can check my estimate.

Thanks for the fun puzzle.

Dave

How many acres are in the W1/2 of the SW1/4 of the NE1/4 of the SW1/2 of section 13?

KC, If you are living in lousiana go the county register of deeds with the information you provided. They will be able to give you the LAST surveyor's dimensions from the LAST time the land was appraised. The all caps (LAST) is because the last time it was surveyed might be 20, 30,10 years ago. The information you have is meerley a legal document, kind of like a binding agreement between City and Land holder.

1/4 section is 160 acres so a 1/4 of a 1/4 section is 40 acres

Take the legal to your local title company. If they are good, they should be able to draw it out on paper and tell you

[JohnS]

To Dave in post #5: I'm not a real surveyor either, but I can't get close to a closed traverse from the description, so I think there must be a flaw in it.

All: This is pretty typical of land descriptions in much of the Midwest surveyed in 1800's by PLSS. The basis is the 6 mile square township. Let's parse the first part

That portion of the SW1/4 of SE1/4, Section 30, Township 3, Range 10 East, St. Helena Meridian described as follows:

The township is the third township block south of the Louisiana base line. The south is omitted, but the baseline is also the state border; north would be another state. It is the 10th township block east of the St. Helena meridian (in eastern part of the state. There are problems imposing a square grid on a round earth (and surveying errors in 1800's) so the north-south-east-west alignment and six mile squares are all "nominal." The actual monuments in the corners prevail, even if screwed up.

The 36 square miles of a township are divided into 36 one square mile sections, numbered serpentine from the NE corner, section 30 defines a particular square in the township, near southwest corner.

The section is divided in half, both north/south and east/west into quarters; we care about the SE 1/4. The 1/4 section is quartered again, and we care about the SW 1/4 1/4. We are talking about a square 1/4 mile or 20 chains on a side (nominally), and 40 acres in area. Note the west border is 1/2 degree out of true north/south. We'd also really like to know the exact bearing of the north border, but it is not given (it will be close to east/west).

He only owns a part of the 40 acres described as:

Beginning at the northwest corner of the said SW1/4 of the SE1/4; thence south 1/2 deg. east along the west line of the said SW1/4 of the SE1/4 6 1/2 chains; thence South 47 deg. east 16 chains to public road; thence north 18 deg. east along public road 7.75 chains;

OK, I can start a traverse from here. At the end of the 7.75 chains, I am 10.04 chains south of the PoB and 14.15 chains east. Now I have a problem. From the following description, I should go north an unspecified distance and be about 9 chains east of the PoB, but I'm over 14 chains east. I don't know the exact bearing of the northern 1/4 1/4 boundary, but I have to go roughly N27°W to cross it 9 chains east of PoB. I could accept a couple of degrees from incomplete info, but something has been copied wrong here.

thence in a northerly direction along said public road to the intersection of the north line of the said SW1/4 of the SE1/4 at a point approximately 9 chains from the northwest corner; thence west along said north line to the point of beginning.

This may require a back title search and a surveyor on the ground to resolve the issue.