The Deed Studio is essentially a central hub for recording, mapping, and managing land titles. Compared to manually deciphering and mapping oftentimes complex and lengthy metes and bounds descriptions, utilizing the Deed Studio significantly increases the accuracy of the mapped boundary as well as greatly reduce the time and effort needed for completion of a project. Since the boundaries created using the Deed Studio are then available within the Surety Pro interface, the Dossier Studio can be used to create dossiers containing additional land profile data for marketing and/or to provide to your client.
The Deed Studio is designed to parse out segments from legal descriptions containing Metes and Bounds (Courses and Distances) course descriptions. Please see the Deed Studio Interface walk-through page for instructions on where to paste or type the legal description in order for the program to parse out the different boundary segments. The Deed Studio is designed to handle one or more tracts as well as any exceptions from those tracts.
This support page provides examples of different steps and situations that will arise once you have your legal description text filled out within the Deed Studio's "Deed" tab.
Looking for something specific? Click on a section to skip directly to it.
Types of Legal Descriptions
Legal Descriptions come in different formats and variations. Becoming familiar with them will assist when trying to map the boundary using the Deed Studio add-on for Surety® Pro
Here are some of the most common types:
- Cover-All/Global/Blanket/Area-Wide Description
- This generically describes all of the property or land owned by someone in a certain area. (state, county, block are examples)
- Example: all of the land in section 14 owned by John Smith
- Doesn’t describe individual boundaries
- Fractional Designation
- The PLSS or Public Land Survey System is used by 30 US states. It is not used in the states that made up the 13 original colonies.
- It is a grid based system that breaks up land into mostly 1 mile by 1 mile sections.
- These sections are then split into halves, quarters, eighths, etc. when they are described. Example: NW1/4 SW1/4 NW1/4 SE1/4 of Section 23
- Subdivision (Lots and Blocks)
- This description requires the use of a plat map with county public records. An area is broken up into subdivisions then can be divided again into blocks and lots.
- The description will list the lot first, then the block, subdivision next and, if needed, a part number last.
- Metes and Bounds aka Courses and Distances
- If a boundary doesn't follow a fractional designation area, then it will typically have a legal description in the Courses and Distances format or otherwise known as Metes and Bounds.
- Metes references the distance of the boundary segment
- the most common unit of measurement is feet but other units of measurements used include: Chains, furlongs, links, miles, rods, and varas.
- Bounds references the direction of the boundary segment travels
- Bearings - the numerical unit indicating the direction or course that the boundary line runs.
- They are described using degrees, minutes and seconds along with cardinal directions that indicate either the NW, NE, SW, or SE quadrant
- An example of a bearing would be N 15 degrees 20 minutes 5.23 seconds to the west.
- When a bearing is straight North South East or West, then no numerical value is needed and it may be stated as follows: due West a distance of ...
- Monuments
- This description typically uses a metes and bounds call description but the Point Of Beginning or POB, is a physical, natural object or man-made structure.
Mapping Scenarios
Finding the Point of Beginning
Locating the Point of Beginning (P.O.B.) is the first step to mapping your boundary or exclusion. The P.O.B. location will be described within the Legal description text in most cases.
After segmenting the map calls from the Legal description, the Plot tab will require the Point of Beginning to be set on the map. Do this by left clicking on the map at the spot of the point of beginning or at the spot the description says to start finding the POB from.
In some situations, it is as easy as finding and clicking on a corner of the section.
Beginning at the southwest corner of said Section 31;
In other scenarios, finding the point of beginning can be more complex. Many times there will be more than one measurement that indicates where the start of the boundary is located after referencing a known point such as a section corner or physical marker. When this occurs, either type the measurements in the appropriate format into the top text box and click the plus button, click the ellipses and manually enter the information in the appropriate boxes then click on the Add(+) button,
or hover your mouse over the map to display a distance from the first point. Click the map to add segments until the point of beginning is reached.
Once the point of beginning is found, then we can proceed to the next calls and map the boundary.
Click Next
Mapping a boundary line segment
The Deed Studio will recognize a typical description of a line segment in most cases and will attempt to populate the correct description in a way the Deed Studio can map it. The proposed call will be listed below the Previous and Next buttons.
A standard line description will follow this format:
N/S ## ## ##.##(bearing in Degrees minutes seconds - spaces instead of punctuation) E/W #.#(distance) ##(distance units))
Verify that the call is correctly matching the description and either click the "Plus" button then click Next or click the Add/Next button to automatically add the segment to the map and proceed to the next segment.
Alternatively, to skip the process of needing to manually add every call, use the Auto Add button to have the Deed Studio run through the segments and map out anything that it is able to parse a value out of.
When using Auto Add, the process will stop at any segment that requires further input - many times curves and manual points need a little help. Simply use the ellipsis to fill out the correct call information and then proceed with the Auto Add button.
Adding Curve Segments
When the Deed Studio does not automatically parse out a curve segment from a segment it is helpful to know what information is required in order to plot an accurate curve. let us take the following as an example and work through it.
thence westerly a distance of 137.17 feet along said northerly right of way line and a curve not tangent to the last described line
concave to the north having a radius of 3270.46 feet and a central angle of 02 degrees 24 minutes 11 seconds and the chord of said
curve bears North 85 degrees 55 minutes 39 seconds West
This is parsed as follows:
Curve RIGHT N 85 55 39 W 137.16 FEET r3270.46 FEET a02 24 11
The curve direction is stated first(Curve Right) followed by the bearing(N85 55 39 W), chord distance(137.16 feet), radius(r3270.46 feet) and central angle (a02 24 11)
Note: Unlike the Plot Deed tool, the Deed Studio assumes the curve direction is a concave.
This particular example will automatically be parsed by the Deed Studio.
In some cases, parts of the curve information will be stated in a previous call and will need to be referenced to complete the curve calculation or some of the information may not be provided at all. The Deed Studio only requires certain measurements in order to calculate the proper curve. Many times the description does not state if the distance is the curve distance or the chord distance. This should not affect the mapping of the curve since the distance is only used for the calculation of a curve when there is no central angle information available. If a curve distance is typed into the chord distance cell in the Add/Edit Curve Dialogue and the central angle and radius are also present, then the distance is not used when calculating the arc. A message will state that if the distance is used, then an alternate central angle would be needed.
In the following example, both the radius and the bearing of the curve were stated in the first call and need to be added to the distance that was stated in the second call in order to complete the curve calculation since the Central Angle is not given.
thence south 00 degrees 44 minutes 05 seconds east, 1958.74 feet on the east line of the said west half to the northerly right
of way line FAP route 408, being a point on a curve having a radius of 5569.58 feet, chord bearing south 71 degrees 33 minutes
44 seconds west, 1730.07 feet; thence on said curve and northerly right of way line of FAI 408, 1737.10 Feet;
The data would be filled in as follows:
Adding Manual Points
Manual points can be added to the map simply by left clicking on the map while the appropriate segment is displayed. This needs to be done in the cases of following the center line of a river or similar descriptions.
While adding manual points, 2 lengths are shown initially and after one point is placed, 2 more appear
the purple number is the distance from the previous point to the cursor's location
the orange number is the straight line distance from the start of the manual points to the cursor
the yellow number is the total distance from the first manual point to the cursor including all of the points in between
the bottom set of information in black font is the bearing of the line segment from the last point
Each manual point placed will also add its own coordinate to the call list. Any point can be deleted by clicking on the red delete button next to the corresponding point's coordinate in the left panel.
The manual points can be modified on the map by first clicking the Edit Nodes button on the map interface then left clicking and dragging the nodes around the map. Make sure to click the Edit Nodes button again when done to turn the function off
Keep in mind that when you modify or add a manual point directly before a metes and bounds plotted segment, it will move all of the segments after that point on the map.
After correcting the segment or adding manual calls, click Next and then Auto Add again to proceed with mapping the segments automatically.
Closing the Polygon
To complete or "close" the polygon the final segment must be reached. Once the final segment is reached, a prompt will appear asking if you would like to connect the last plotted point to the nearest point to it. The distance between the two points is given to allow you to determine whether or not any corrections need to be done. It also gives the acres of the potentially closed polygon.
Click YES to close the polygon.
Adjusting Deeded Acres of the closed Polygon
Once the polygon is closed, a Deeded Acres input field will appear. You can manually enter an acreage amount.
Simply type the desired acres into the Deeded Acres text box to update the displayed acres on the acres tag.
Fine tuning the placement of the polygon on the map.
Sometimes, the polygon does not line up completely with the map imagery's landmarks. This is typically due to an incorrect starting point. The boundary can be adjusted in a couple ways.
Once the polygon is closed, the entire boundary can be shifted by using the arrow keys in the lower right corner of the map. This is convenient to adjust the position of the entire boundary.
The second method is to click and drag the very beginning placed point in order to move the entire boundary. Note: This method will not work if there are manual points placed on the map other then the first one. This is because the manual points will not move with the rest of the polygon.
First make sure the polygon is not closed (delete the final manual point from the last segment if needed).
click on the Edit Nodes button
then left click and drag the starting node around on the map to move the entire boundary with it.
Once the boundary is in the proper place, click Yes in the last segment to close the polygon again. (and Save!)
Exclusions/Excepts
Once a tract boundary is complete, excepts/exclusions can be taken away from the boundary.
Click back on the Deed Tab
Make sure the tract that you want the exclusion applied to is selected on the left then click Menu > Add Exclusion
The exclusion will be placed beneath that selected tract after numbered and saved.
You can also re-number a tract or exclusion with the Edit Selected menu option or delete an entire tract or exclusion with the Remove Selected option.
From here the steps to creating the exclusion are the same as mapping out a regular tract boundary. Either paste/type the descriptive text in the deed tab or click on the Plot tab to start manually drawing out the exclusion.
Once you are at the map, tract boundary that will be excluded will be now colored green on the map.
If on the edge of the original tract, the exclusion should overlap the tract boundary. This can be done by either adjusting the manually placed nodes and pulling them across the boundary (after clicking on the Edit Nodes button)
or if the exclusion contains segments, shift the boundary by editing the point of beginning or using the adjustment arrow buttons. Remember to Save!
When accessing the boundary within the Surety Pro interface, you may notice that the boundary appears to extend around the exclusion still. This is actually just part of the DeedSegments layer.
Simply turn this layer off to view the final boundary.
How to display the created boundary within the Surety® Pro interface.
Once the polygon has been closed and the Deed has been Saved within the Deed Studio, close or minimize the Deed Studio and zoom to where the boundary is located on Surety Pro map.
The Form Manager can easily locate and zoom to your desired deed record.
First, open the Form Manager with the Form Manager link.
Set your Form filter to Deeds
Zoom to the specific Deed on the map by clicking on the corresponding magnifying glass icon.
Note: if you click to open the Deeds or DeedSegments record from the Forms Manager, the information is read-only and can only be modified within the Deed Studio itself.
Depending on your account's settings in the Map Options section of the Tools > Options > Options Page if the Auto Enable A Custom Layer is turned off, manually enable the Deeds and DeedSegments layers from the layers list to display the polygon on the map.
Otherwise if that setting is on, the boundary will appear on the map as soon as it has been saved in the Deed Studio.
The coloring style of the boundary will the program default for a layer. To change the look of the boundary, refer to the Form Layer Properties Help Page
The DeedSegments layer contains each call description that can be enabled as labels for each segment of the boundary within the Labels tab of the form properties.
By selecting this Deed layer with the select tool, a map or form such as the FSA Map or Sales Data form can be generated using that boundary.
A Paradigm could also be generated to send multiple maps to the Dossier Studio to create a map packet.
Mapping a Legal Description that Includes an Easement
In this scenario, we have a deed that has an easement plotted out around the boundary. By adding the interior
boundary as an exclusion as well as a separate tract, we can create maps and reports using either or both of those areas.
This is what our finished Deed containing a separated easement will look like.
To start, we want to create the outer-most boundary by pasting or typing our description into Tract 1 after opening the Deed Studio.
Proceed to create the boundary in the Plot Tab
Once you have your initial boundary created and closed,
navigate back to the Deed tab (SAVE)
and create a new Exclusion under the first Tract using the
Menu button.
Using the description of the interior boundary, we can plot
out the interior boundary as the exclusion.
Part of this description describes three segments as being
parallel 5 feet from the exterior boundary that we mapped previously. Once the interior boundary is drawn, it can be fine-tuned on the map using the measurements that appear when the cursor is hovered over the map.
Use the previous and next buttons to find a section that
needs to be the 5 feet away. Then hover the cursor over the map to bring
up the measurement in order to double check the distance between the two lines.
If the lines are off, use the Edit Nodes button
to allow the positioning of the point of beginning.
Once the exclusion is finished, the main tract will look like this if viewed again. The
light blue indicates the counted acres.
Once you have the placement of the boundary where you want
it, you can copy the latitude & longitude position of beginning point by
cycling to the first segment. This will be used when creating the interior
boundary.
Now create another tract by going back to the Deed Tab
(SAVE) and adding a new tract from the Menu button.
Repeat the previous steps to create the exact same exclusion
boundary only now as a Tract. Doing this will allow you to select the interior boundary
separately from the easement within the main Surety Pro® interface.
NOTE: It is important to place the boundary in the exact same
spot. After adding the description to the Deed tab, switch over to the Plot Tab
and begin the boundary by pasting the point of beginning coordinates from the
exclusion in the first segment’s call box. Remember that
the call box will only appear after clicking on the map once.
Hit enter and proceed through the rest of the segments to the
close and completion of the 2nd tract.
SAVE your project and switch back to the Surety Mapping
System Tab or window
Find the deed on the map
Each boundary can be selected separately with the select tool.
Or together.
Related Pages:
Deed Studio
Deed Studio Interface Orientation
Dossier Studio