Property Rights and Legal Descriptions

Property rights are a lot more than simply owning a piece of land and the building on it. There are seperate rights to the surface, subsurface or minerals, water, and air, and all can be held by seperate people! When one party has absolute ownership of property unencumbered by any other interest, it is called a "fee simple estate". In class, I learned that it is the person with the subsurface rights that has the most power on the property. This is because in order to get below the surface of the land, you must be granted access  onto the surface.

When it is time to transfer title of real estate, a precise legal description is necessary. The original way to achieve formal legal description of the exact boundaries of the land was in a metes and bounds description. Below is an example of one:

 



Another formal way to describe land is a method called the rectangular survey system. Fun fact for all you Texans: Every state west of the Mississippi EXCEPT Texas describes land based on this system! Below is an example of the rectangular survey system: