When you buy property, the deed describes what you own. It includes measurements, boundary descriptions, and references to adjoining properties. The deed is a legal document recorded with the county, and it’s supposed to represent the exact location and extent of your property.
But here’s something many property owners don’t realize: deeds don’t always tell the complete story.
Over time, certain types of property information get lost, misinterpreted, or simply don’t make it into the recorded documents. This creates gaps between what the deed says you own and what’s actually happening on the ground.
How Deeds Describe Property
Property descriptions in deeds typically use one of several methods:
- Metes and bounds descriptions use bearings, distances, and reference points to trace the property boundary. These descriptions might reference natural features like streams or man-made features like roads, fences, or stone walls.
- Lot and block descriptions reference a recorded subdivision map. Instead of describing boundaries with measurements, the deed simply says “Lot 12, Block 3” and refers to a specific filed map.
- Government survey descriptions use township, range, and section numbers based on the Public Land Survey System. This system divides land into grid sections, typically one square mile each.
All of these methods work at times, but they may rely on the assumption that the information in the deed matches reality on the ground, and that is not always the case.
Physical Monuments Disappear
Many older deeds reference physical monuments as boundary markers. These might include iron pins, stone walls, trees, fence posts, or concrete markers. The deed might say something like “beginning at the oak tree on the northwest corner” or “along the stone wall to an iron pin.”
Physical monuments disappear:
- Trees die or get cut down.
- Stone walls crumble or get moved.
- Iron pins corrode, get buried under soil, or get disturbed during construction.
- Fence posts rot.
What was clearly visible when the deed was written decades ago might be completely gone now.
When monuments disappear, the deed still references them, but they’re no longer there to mark the actual boundary. This creates ambiguity. Where exactly was that oak tree? How do you measure from a stone wall that’s no longer standing?
Boundary surveys help resolve this by locating remaining monuments, searching for evidence of lost ones, and establishing the boundary based on the best available evidence and the intent of the original deed.
Encroachments Develop After the Deed Is Recorded
A deed describes property boundaries as they existed when it was written. It doesn’t account for what happens afterward.
Encroachments occur when a structure, fence, driveway, or other improvement crosses the property line. The deed doesn’t mention the encroachment because it didn’t exist when the deed was recorded. But now it’s there, and it affects how the property functions and potentially who has rights to that portion of land.
Common encroachments include:
- Fences built slightly over the line
- Driveways that extend onto the neighbor’s property
- Sheds or garages that sit partially across the boundary
- Overhanging roofs or eaves
- Retaining walls or landscaping features that cross the line
These issues often go unnoticed until someone orders a title survey or tries to sell the property. The deed says one thing, but the physical reality is different. Resolving encroachments can require negotiations with neighbors, easement agreements, or boundary adjustments. In all scenarios, they mean the existing deed may not match the current property.
Easements That Aren’t Recorded
Easements give someone else the right to use part of a property for a specific purpose. For example, utility companies have easements to run power lines, water lines, or sewer pipes, or neighbors might have easements for shared driveways or access to landlocked parcels.
Not all easements get recorded.
Some exist by implication or necessity. Others were created through long-term use, a legal concept called prescriptive easements. Your deed might not mention these easements at all, but they’re still legally valid and affect how you can use your property.
Even when easements are recorded, they’re not always clearly marked on the ground. You might not know where the utility easement runs across your backyard until you try to build a fence or plant trees and the utility company or municipality objects.
ALTA surveys are designed to identify easements, both recorded and unrecorded, and show exactly where they’re located on the property. This is especially important for commercial transactions where easement conflicts can create significant liability.
Changes to Adjacent Properties
Property boundaries are defined relative to adjacent properties. Your western boundary is their eastern boundary. When something changes on the neighboring property, it can affect your boundary too.
Adjacent properties get subdivided, which changes where boundary lines fall. Neighbors build improvements near the property line, sometimes crossing it. Roads get widened or relocated, which can shift the boundary if your property line is described as running along the road.
Your deed was written before these changes happened. It doesn’t reflect the current conditions. This is why surveys reference current adjoining property owners and current physical features, not just what the deed says.
Accretion, Erosion, and Natural Changes
Properties with water boundaries – rivers, streams, lakes, or shorelines – face unique challenges. Water boundaries shift over time, with issues such as:
- Accretion, which is the gradual addition of land due to sediment deposits.
- Erosion, which is the gradual loss of land due to water movement.
- Avulsion, which is a sudden, dramatic change in water course, like a river changing direction after a flood.
Deeds describe water boundaries as they existed at a specific point in time. Decades later, the shoreline might have moved significantly. The deed still says your property extends to the water’s edge, but where exactly is that now?
For waterfront properties, surveys account for these natural changes and establish current boundaries based on both the deed description and the present location of the water feature.
Lot Splits and Subdivisions That Weren’t Properly Recorded
Sometimes properties get divided informally, such as when a parent sells off a portion of their land to a child or two neighbors agree to adjust their boundary line.
These transactions should be formally recorded through a subdivision or lot split survey, but they don’t always follow that process. The deed might describe the new smaller parcel, but without proper surveying and recording, the boundaries can be unclear or legally questionable.
This creates problems later when someone tries to sell the property or when disputes arise about where the line actually falls. The deed describes what was intended, but without a proper survey and recorded map, it’s difficult to establish the boundary on the ground.
Typographical Errors in Deeds
Deeds are written by people. People make mistakes. A bearing might be recorded incorrectly – North 45 degrees West instead of North 45 degrees East, or a distance might have a typo – 150 feet instead of 105 feet, or a lot number might reference the wrong subdivision map.
These errors might seem small, but they can create significant discrepancies. When you try to plot the property based on the deed description, the boundaries don’t close properly, or they create gaps or overlaps with neighboring properties.
Surveyors identify these errors by comparing the deed description to physical evidence on the ground, historical surveys, and adjoining property deeds. Sometimes resolving the error requires research into older records to figure out what was originally intended.
Why Surveys Matter
Deeds are legal documents, but they’re not perfect representations of physical property boundaries. Surveys bridge the gap between what the deed says and what actually exists on the ground.
A boundary survey establishes where your property lines are based on the deed, historical records, physical evidence, and applicable laws. A title survey goes further by identifying improvements, easements, encroachments, and other features that affect the property. Topographic surveys provide detailed elevation and feature data for development or design work.
At Aerial Land Surveying, we use both ground-based and aerial technology to provide accurate, detailed surveys throughout Long Island and downstate New York. Whether you’re buying property, resolving a boundary dispute, planning development, or need survey data for any other purpose, we can help.
Contact Aerial Land Surveying at (833) 787-8393 to discuss your survey needs. Having accurate information about your property boundaries protects your investment and helps you avoid costly surprises.