Legal Descriptions

So what is a legal description? According to USLegal it’s “Legal description is the geographical description of a real estate property for the purpose of identifying the property for legal transactions. A legal description of the property unambiguously identifies the location, boundaries, and any existing easements on the property. A legal description of the real estate is usually provided in a deed, mortgage, or other purchase document. It can also be obtained from a county recorder, tax assessor, or similar official.” Basically it’s the basis for land ownership in the USA so it impacts a lot of things. Especially when they are old and impact items current day.

Really old descriptions can be from the 1800’s. Here is one from 1911.

And a slightly newer one from the 1980’s

So what do these look like? Do you have the original plat that was recorded with the description?

If you do not, OR if you want to see where several of these legal descriptions are in relation to one another we can plot them out for you. Seeing everything together in one map on an aerial is the easiest way to relate to the project.

This is also known as a meets and bounds description from a known point in what is known as “calls”. Several of these “calls” are strung together to describe the boundaries of a piece of land. Some descriptions can be pages long with some complicated angles and curves. Some can be as simple as the NW 1/4 of the NE 1/4 S 1/2 of section 9, Township 6 S Range 2 East.

If you know what all of that means and want a better way to view it or you would like some help making sense of it all, drop us a line we are more than happy to help decipher it all for you. Contact us

We have been spending lots of time lately building and configuring various webmaps for several clients and we thought why not show some examples?

First why use a webmap?

If you need to dynamically interact with data or be able to zoom and pan around on the fly AND your going to have a connection to the internet all the time, it’s good option to start developing. One key note here, you have to be careful on the design of the overall webmap as to not overload it with information that could confuse/clutter or slow performance.

We primarily use ArcGIS Online for our webmap projects, either using our in-house account or using the clients account. Each have their pluses and minuses that we can walk you through.

To get started, you need an overall goal. Really a blueprint on what this shiny new webmap will accomplish for you. This is where we listen to your needs and recommend a direction. When the rough framework is in place then we need to look at what data you have or what you need to get. Never overlook the data part, this is where most projects get tripped up.

After both pieces are in place then the development of the webmap commences. When the initial configs are complete then we open it up to client testing to see if we hit the desired mark, adjusting as necessary.

Typically this leads to more questions on what is possible to add in a webmap for other projects. Then we start the process over in defining the new goal.

Webmaps are a nice technology to deploy in certain uses. If you want to learn more on how they can benefit you contact us for more information.

We bet you have lots of lists hiding in every corner of your workflow. Everything from excel lists to big databases, even lists that are copied into word. They do their job to the best of their ability. But what if you want more out of them? Free your data up to see the underlying story that it really wants to tell you. Mapping Your List

It’s one of our most popular requests. We get lists all the time containing everything from employee locations, buildings, competitors and many others. Overall everyone just wants to know the WHERE. It’s the most important thing and we think so too. See that hidden dimension that is hiding in plain site in your lists. Map is out and see where it leads you.

Mapping Your List

So where do you start now that you have that list in hand and you want a map? Let’s start with a format. Easiest and fastest to translate to geographic data is an excel file. Be sure you are using excel as a database and not for printing. Individual data pieces per column are even better. This way the data structure is setup beforehand. Whatever you see in  your table you see in the resulting map. Bonus area is any column in the excel file can be used to sort, color, size or label to mention a few. It’s called data driven maps.

The more structure you have in your list the more useful it can be when making a map with it. You can also tell a better story from the data. For example would your list of real estate comps be more useful as dots on a map? Or would it be better to see the dots sized by value and labeled with the date?

We would take the latter. It tells a better story overall. What story can we help you tell by mapping your list?