I seem to be engaged in a bit of a land war with my next door neighbor… which really sucks. I actually had a question about exactly where my property starts and ends, but then, as I was looking at the deed to my house, I noticed something odd. So, now I have two questions.
I live in a corner house at the intersection of X Streeet and Y Avenue.
On my deed, it says that my property is defined as:
My original question was… when it says that the starting point is a the intersection of the northeasterly side of X and the southeasterly side of Y, does that start at the street or does is the sidewalk considered part of X street or Y avenue?
However, when looking at the deed, I noticed that the second and third lines were identical. The third line should state that the boundary runs southbwesterly for 18 feet, not southeasterly for 90 feet. Running another 90 feet southeasterly puts me about three houses down the block in the other direction! Do I have a real problem here? Obviously this is a simple cut-and-paste error.
I’d say that you need to ask a lawyer, not random bozos like us. Common sense would dictate that this should be an easily correctable mistake. But of course, the law has only seen common sense once. In the 1960’s. For about 20 minutes.
Are you sure you’re looking at a deed? It’s unusual to see metes-and-bounds legal descriptions for urban residential property; usually a deed will refer to a lot and block in a subdivision plat filled with the appropriate recording agency - especially in the boroughs, where hundreds of city blocks were platted at once in some cases. That plat won’t have metes and bounds descriptions for each individual parcel, but rather the entire site, with the exact lot location implied by the measurements shown on the plat.
In any case, don’t always assume the edge of the sidewalk is the edge of your property. Sometimes the public right-of-way (often 50 to 60 feet wide on a residential street in the US, but not always) extends closer to the house. If a street has a 50 foot wide right-of-way but is physically 30 feet wide, the property line will likely be 10 feet from the curb.
Idealy, there should also be iron “corner pins” placed at each corner of the lot. You’ll only be able to find them with a metal detector, though.
FWIW, I can read a metes-and-bounds legal description. If you have a legal, can you post it in its entirety here? (I’ll try to get to it before Shabbos.)
its a message board for professional land surveyors. There are lots of friendly people there, and you can ask questions as a layman, or get into intricate technical discussions with experts.
Virtually all New York City real property deeds use a metes and bounds description of the property. (By the way, the "BEGINNING at the corner of . . . " description is known as metes and bounds in case that is confusing).
When it says “BEGINNING at the corner of X Street and Y Avenue,” that is the corner of the mapped street, which normally would include all or most of the sidewalk. Generally, older New York residential properties are built out to the propertline, or have a courtyard/stoop to the property line (though sometimes the stoop may extend onto the City property).
On your description, it is almost certain that the second and third line is just an erroneous repetition. Ignoring one of the doubles, the description forms a nice 18 x 90 foot rectangle, northeast for 18 feet, southeast for 90 feet, southwest for 18 feet and returning northwest for 90 feet. If you go another 90 feet southeast, it doesn’t meet back at the beginning.
I expect that your deed has a clause that says something like “being and intended to be the same property that was conveyed to Joe Prior Owner and Josie Prior Owner in a deed dated January 1, 2000 and recorded at lieber 2350, page 349.” If so, that clause indicates that you got the same property the Prior Owners got (and the Prior Owner’s deed with a similar clause means that they got what the even earlier owners got, etc.) I wouldn’t worry about it.l
