Proposed Improvements for Land Surveys and Title Transfers

The transfer of real estate in the United States is surrounded by difficulties out of all proportion to the values involved. This is particularly obvious when a comparison is made with the transfer of any other form of wealth. The unnecessary costs and delays, the investigations, surveys, and uncertainties of boundary location, the prolonged procedure used in proving title–all tend to reduce the negotiability of real property and to damage its value. Surveying equipment, skill, and procedure have been developed which give results far beyond the accuracy required to eliminate boundary difficulties, and methods of recording title have already been successfully employed which eliminate delays in title search. It appears to the writer that the time has come for surveyors and title examiner to combine in a joint effort to find ways and means for employing these excellent tools already at hand. The uncertainties of boundary location are caused basically by: (a) A lack of permanent, recognized, and correlated monuments from which surveys may originate; (b) increasing land values with no provision for more accurate surveys; (c) faulty descriptions (not erroneous); (d) blunders in description and surveys; and (e) the rules of adverse possession in force where accurate surveys and proper title records eliminate their usefulness.