Table of Contents
A Legal description of property gives a clear and lawful explanation of a property’s boundaries. This articles will cover the essential element, important element and others surveyors use to build and confirm legal description property.
Legal Description of Property
Many things attached with legal description and what important now is to know exactly what you are buying when it comes to property, and it may be land, house or others things.
A legal description of property defined as a written record of a piece of land revealing information that clearly identifies it. Also it can also be written in a various forms base on where the property is located in the United States, More so, anytime you are dealing with one geographic area, then the descriptions will follow the same wording and language.
Finding shows that a legal description gives legal evidence of the boundaries and give room to a surveyor to accurately determine property lines later.
The purpose of this legal description of property is useful and necessary when dealing with real estate transactions or disputes.
However, the description will typically show on sales contracts and property act. These legal description of property reveal the parameters of a property and which is a basic sales contracts, act, and mortgages. Another thing is that legal description identify possession that may conveyed, assessed, and taxed.
It may really simple and involve so many, and a block within a subdivision name, and note that these specifics can be inaccurate when verified by surveying equipment.
Essential Elements

There are some common methods mostly used to create a legal descriptions of property. And descriptions of real estate must always pick out the county and state the property is located in. Enough information must be hold so that a proficient licensed surveyor could go back later and clearly pick out the property lines.
Methods used to create Legal Descriptions
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Rectangular Survey
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Metes and Bounds
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Lot and Block System
The most important Elements to know
There are some most important elements of a legal description of property which are survey sketch and description. These two include:
- The name of the parcel or parcels the property spans.
- Where boundary lines are located.
- County, town, and subdivision information.
Those description using the metes and bounds methods listed above needs to have a defined inception point. And it must return to the point of inception in order to be valid.
The metes and bounds method used for large unsubdivided parcels of land.
The third method which is plat or lot and block is the primary method in cities and developed suburbs, and it must include the lot, block, and subdivision.
When is a legal Description of Property needed?
This aspect is very important because knowing when a legal description of property is needed is one of the major essential part. The only time a description property needed is during the closing process of a sale.
5 Great Steps To Get A Legal Description of Property

Try to locate the appropriate government office
Copy of your act is kept at the local county recorder office where the land is located. And you just need to search the city, town or zip code of where the land is located to find your county.
Contact the agency
Request the act in person
Use property tax statements
The legal description of property may be located on the annual property tax statements prepared by the city or county tax assessor’s office.
- Not all jurisdictions include the legal description of property on tax statements.
- Any description contained may not necessarily be the “legal” description.
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