Resolving a discrepancy between plat book and "actual" acreage for a potential purchase

Hoytvectrix

5 year old buck +
We are in the talks of purchasing a piece of land in Northern Missouri. The owner has owned this farm for probably 50 years and has been paying taxes on it. As far as we know, it has never been surveyed. The owner has been paying taxes on 165 acres. The county assessor and the two most recent plat books say the farm is a sum total 165 acres (from 3 distinct, but regularly shaped blocks that are all touching). When sizing up the property for making an offer to purchase, we have checked the acreages multiple times using multiple sources. OnX, Huntstand, and other online sites that scrape county property data and overlay this over satellite imagery put this property all within 0.2 acres of one another. They all say the property is about 156 acres, or 9 acres short of what the county thinks the land has. I think at some point 165 and 156 were mixed up and the current owner has been over-paying. The property has distinct cattle fencing around the whole property so it makes it somewhat easy to estimate areas through the satellite imagery. I know the tools are at least somewhat accurate because the immediate neighbor to this property had their land surveyed and it is exactly the same as what OnX says it is.

Has anyone seen this happen before?

Is our only recourse to have the land professionally surveyed?

If anyone has done this before, does this typically fall on the buyer or seller's responsibility? I would imagine it would fall onto the buyer because in this case the current owner may be over-estimating how many acres they are selling and would be paying twice.

Any tips for navigating this with the current owner?

Thanks in advance.
 
Something that we are considering, but have yet to verify ourselves, is in the state of Missouri, do property lines go to the center of roads or streams? OnX and other tools do not account for this and this could be where some of the discrepancy lies.
 
Has to be surveyed I imagine. Offer to split the cost and see what he thinks. He might not like the thought of "losing" 9 acres though. We gained 6 acres when selling our old home farm. Neighbors all agreed an odd feature belonged to us, and it was written about in the abstracts. The engineering company enjoyed learning something new and surveying lines of a canyon for the 1st time.
 
In IL center of road.
 
Also many times fences arent on the lines, but 5-10 feet from the lines. So you add that all the way around the property, plus going to center of the roadway, which is what I normally see in my area as well.
 
Even if it is surveyed and it shows the exterior fences were placed in the wrong spot it doesn't mean that you will be able to get that land from the neighbor. I'm sure it varies by state, but in some areas once a fence is up for a period of time it can become a new boundary. The property lines likely go to the center of the road, so if the mapping software doesn't count that then that could account for some of the variance.

From a buyer's standpoint I would only offer what I was comfortable paying for the property assuming the worst case. You could certainly talk to the owner and tell him what you have found, but he will likely try to maximize his sell price regardless of what the survey says.

Let us know how this works out for you.
 
My two properties were the same way. Onx wasn’t adding up to the deeds. Both short on onx. I know my current property was surveyed in late 80’s and totals 306.25 acres but onx has it at 292. I tend to trust the survey because it seems pretty specific and not just round numbers and was done by a long time local surveyor for whatever that is worth. The issue I have is I use onx for my property lines where it’s not obvious (creek, road etc) so that means I may be losing 14 acres somewhere. I want to get a new survey but I don’t want to bite off that cost especially if it costs me 14 acres. I couldn’t sell it as the 306 one day if I knew was not.

On my first one I couldn’t get it to add up so I threatened to pull the deal, well the seller ended up selling me the tractor for nothing just so I wouldn’t walk even the deed was what he was advertising.

Not sure how accurate onx is especially in the east with a million parcels per state.
 
I am just worried because I know of someone from this same county who effectively paid for 8 acres they didn't own because the original plat book was wrong.

Like I said, I know that OnX was almost exactly what the survey said for a piece of property that touches the one in question.

I'll definitely report back when I find out for sure. So far, we are almost certainly going to have the land surveyed before purchasing. Nine acres is nothing to sneeze at, especially considering it's over $30K at today's prices.
 
Something that we are considering, but have yet to verify ourselves, is in the state of Missouri, do property lines go to the center of roads or streams? OnX and other tools do not account for this and this could be where some of the discrepancy lies.

Interesting. OnX has been accurate in acreage on my properties in MN but it does include the roadway. I took a quick look at N. MO and noticed what you said, none of the rural roadways were included in the parcel outline.

It is a known fact that online mapping like OnX frequently has the boundaries off a little due to scaling errors but that is a different issue than the total acre # of a parcel. MN Counties all have a free GIS service that lets you look at boundaries of each parcel and tax info. Doesn't seem that MO's has as much info available.
 
I would not trust OnX or the tax assessors maps as much as a true calculation from aerial imagery. Can you see all the lines, corners on Google Earth? If so, then you can get the acreage very precisely. Go ahead and estimate how much going to centerline of road and creek would change the figure. If he’s been paying taxes on more acreage for decades, it’s going to be tough to change his mind.

Funny story. I made an offer to purchase a tract with no survey. Seller claimed 150 acres. It was oddly shaped with some difficult boundaries to account for. I gathered all the info I possibly could and came up with 136. We offered on that basis and it pissed the seller off. A guy ended up buying and flipping it. The new listing advertisement touted a fresh survey. Guess how many acres it was — 136. This gave me some pride, but I’d have rather had the land.

Moral of the story is it may not matter to the seller how many acres are really there if it’s a seller’s market. Depending on the price, it maybe shouldn’t matter to the buyer either. Haha.
 
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Interesting. OnX has been accurate in acreage on my properties in MN but it does include the roadway. I took a quick look at N. MO and noticed what you said, none of the rural roadways were included in the parcel outline.

It is a known fact that online mapping like OnX frequently has the boundaries off a little due to scaling errors but that is a different issue than the total acre # of a parcel. MN Counties all have a free GIS service that lets you look at boundaries of each parcel and tax info. Doesn't seem that MO's has as much info available.
This is where my confusion lies. I get scaling errors and the like but in my case the deed has three parcels literally spelling out 306.25 acres but yet onx reads 292. Wonder how that error happens?
 
We are in the talks of purchasing a piece of land in Northern Missouri. The owner has owned this farm for probably 50 years and has been paying taxes on it. As far as we know, it has never been surveyed. The owner has been paying taxes on 165 acres. The county assessor and the two most recent plat books say the farm is a sum total 165 acres (from 3 distinct, but regularly shaped blocks that are all touching). When sizing up the property for making an offer to purchase, we have checked the acreages multiple times using multiple sources. OnX, Huntstand, and other online sites that scrape county property data and overlay this over satellite imagery put this property all within 0.2 acres of one another. They all say the property is about 156 acres, or 9 acres short of what the county thinks the land has. I think at some point 165 and 156 were mixed up and the current owner has been over-paying. The property has distinct cattle fencing around the whole property so it makes it somewhat easy to estimate areas through the satellite imagery. I know the tools are at least somewhat accurate because the immediate neighbor to this property had their land surveyed and it is exactly the same as what OnX says it is.

Has anyone seen this happen before?

Is our only recourse to have the land professionally surveyed?

If anyone has done this before, does this typically fall on the buyer or seller's responsibility? I would imagine it would fall onto the buyer because in this case the current owner may be over-estimating how many acres they are selling and would be paying twice.

Any tips for navigating this with the current owner?

Thanks in advance.

The acreage that they actually own is defined by the plat attached to the deed. Acreage doesn't change unless the boundary is defined by a natural feature like a creek. These days most places don't use natural boundaries any more. Imagery is just a georectified picture. It does not show any survey points. The websites like Timmons usually take information from the county and simply roughly overlay it based on a few physical landmarks and reference points.

The only way to know exactly what you are buying is to have it surveyed based on the deed. You don't need a survey to calculate the acreage. You can simply do the math based on the deed description to do that. The survey shows how that polygon defined in the deed lays on the earth.

I'm currently having a real headache with my suburban home deed. One of the neighboring houses just changed hands and the new owner had a survey done. It turns out that there was a mistake made with the deed and plat were created for his and several other neighbors including me. We back to a creek. On the other side of the creek is the community rec club. When it was created, the intent was that the homeowners would own to the water. The new survey shows that actual plat lines run through many of the back yards. The rec club does not want this property as it is just a liability and maintenance headache for them. They want to give it back to us. Although everyone is in agreement, getting through the legal process is crazy. County wants public hearings and crap. Since mortgage companies have a "interest" in the properties, they have to sign off on any deed changes even if it is add property. While I'm personally fortunate that the credit union holds my mortgage, Commercial mortgages are bought and sold and the company that services the mortgage may not be the one that holds it. So, some property owners may have a real challenge finding out who has to sign off!
 
This is where my confusion lies. I get scaling errors and the like but in my case the deed has three parcels literally spelling out 306.25 acres but yet onx reads 292. Wonder how that error happens?
I see the same thing in Kentucky with OnX where the parcel boundaries are basically in the road ditches before land touches the road compared to how my properties in MN go to the centerline or include the total width of the road.
 
I see the same thing in Kentucky with OnX where the parcel boundaries are basically in the road ditches before land touches the road compared to how my properties in MN go to the centerline or include the total width of the road.
Yeah between my road frontage and shared creek boundaries I wonder if that isn’t it.
 
I would recommend getting it surveyed which is where you seem to be leaning anyway. They can do 165 rather quickly but, probably a 2 day job. Then you can battle it out with the tax people. I had issues of about 8 acres difference after a survey. The tax people wouldn‘t budge on changing the assessment. They said that’s what it was worth before the survey and nothing had changed as far as worth. Tough to fight the government. Maybe where you’re at they’re more accommodating.
 
I see the same thing in Kentucky with OnX where the parcel boundaries are basically in the road ditches before land touches the road compared to how my properties in MN go to the centerline or include the total width of the road.

It depends on who owns the right of way. In my area, most county roads have a designated right of way. Township roads are often owned by the adjacent landowners.


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When sizing up the property for making an offer to purchase, we have checked the acreages multiple times using multiple sources. OnX, Huntstand, and other online sites that scrape county property data and overlay this over satellite imagery put this property all within 0.2 acres of one another. They all say the property is about 156 acres, or 9 acres short of what the county thinks the land has. I think at some point 165 and 156 were mixed up and the current owner has been over-paying. The property has distinct cattle fencing around the whole property so it makes it somewhat easy to estimate areas through the satellite imagery. I know the tools are at least somewhat accurate because the immediate neighbor to this property had their land surveyed and it is exactly the same as what OnX says it is.

If the original site lay-out was wrong, everyone one going forward will be wrong. I have seen the DNR make mistakes in surveying property lines so i would not trust what past opinions were.

If you don't get a survey then you are buying as is. If a neighbor or someone else makes a claim that challenges what you bought, then you have no recourse to defend yourself or against the seller.

You need a survey especially if it is vacant land.

You should also have an attorney do a records search to search on the title to see if there are any unknown easements or restrictions.

You also have to consider what is the title company insuring? They generally only insure legal land descriptions. BTW ... have your attorney review the tite work, they make mistakes also.

Tell him you are willing to split the cost of a survey with him or you will pay for the survey and any acreage shortfall against his stated amount would be a deduct against the price.

You have already seen that the county has the incorrect land size which means the legal description is probably incorrect also. How many other issues are there to uncover?

Whatever you do, I wouldn't submit an OTP without a survey as part of your contingencies.
 
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It depends on who owns the right of way. In my area, most county roads have a designated right of way. Township roads are often owned by the adjacent landowners.


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Just read my deed and it says beginning in the south right away…
Doesn’t sound like it’s a center line issue for onx. They are off or my deed is off. I’m hoping it’s onx!
 
Welcome to Missouri 🤣 The last piece I bought had 3 acres on the owners deed and the same 3 acres on the neighbors deed.
I knew that 3 acres wasn’t part of what I was buying but I couldn’t get my deed recorded for over a year. Eventually I had to file a quit claim deed on the three acres. Made my neighbor happy to know I wasn’t a jerk that was going to fight him over 3 acres.

I believe we go to the center of the road. But the road dept and water and electric companies have easements. And believe me the electric company thinks it’s 15 foot easement gives them the right to do anything anywhere. I’ve had two run ins with them already and the next time is going to get ugly!
 
In states that go to center of road which this is only in rural area.This is for property lines only and yes you are correct that this is a utility right of way.I have also seen it in 2 instances in last month that the roads had moved slightly over the years so the center of road is not center of road but a property pin.Remember 16.5 ft X 1/2 mile is an acre.I would check register of deeds back on that property and get survey.Most counties I know of re evaluate the county every 4 years so if you do correct it could take this long to correct.
 
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