When you buy or sell a home or if you decide to dabble in real estate, you may see the term “plat map.”
You receive a plat map of your new home or other purchased property. You can access a plat map of your neighborhood. Most of the developed real estate within a municipality has been surveyed and the results placed on a plat map.
What is a plat map, why is it necessary and who uses it? It’s something about which you should understand the basics at the least, so here is what you need to know.
A plat map is a guide to a tract of surveyed land created and maintained by licensed surveyors. They are a blueprint containing detailed property information used by a variety of interested parties.
Property or land survey plats may seem straightforward, but the origin of platting laws creates ambiguity because plat laws are based on public law instead of contract law. They grow out of the governmental legal concept of the right of the government to make laws to protect the welfare of the public rather than the idea of creating a document controlling the rights of the signatories.
As such, public law can be somewhat vague at a time when specifics matter the most.
City leaders also use plat maps to plan and regulate the growth of the city.
There is a wealth of information to be found on a plat map.
When a plat map is registered with the city or county, you must follow specific rules and requirements when creating the record.
Metes and bounds are part of a system for describing land and real properties using the physical features of the geography, distances, and directions.
Metes refer to a boundary defined by the measurement of a straight line. It’s specified by a distance between two terminal points and includes the direction or orientation of the line.
Bounds are a general boundary description of bodies of water, stone walls, or adjoining land. If needed, an attorney can write the metes and bounds for your tract of interest.
Plat maps may include alleys, parks, or streets, as well as other physical features of the land.
A plat map contains all the details required to subdivide, merge, or develop a property. It contains the property divisions to consult when selling or transferring ownership of a property.
A plat map also defines property dimensions to guide the development of natural resources or constructing new buildings. It's used to show access to city sewer and water supplies and to double-check other land documents for accuracy.
If you have a development project or simply need to know where your property line and easements are, you need a plat map.
Obviously, land developers use plat maps. So do real estate agents, oil and gas companies, and others who require the information in their work.
When resources are developed, companies must take care not to trespass or infringe on public land or the owner of the surface land beneath which the resource lies.
There are five types of plat maps to serve different purposes.
Each type of plat contains information specific to its use. A plat map contains a set of plats for a particular section of land.
A plat map contains numbers and symbols to demarcate property lines, utilities, trees, and geography, among other things.
The tract number and the name given by the builder to the subdivision is provided along with the source of information. Typically the source will be the county assessor’s office.
The street (house) number for each lot is listed, and the center of each property contains a parcel number assigned by the county assessor's office. Usually, this number is in bold, underlined type. A number accompanying the parcel number is the builder’s lot number.
Along the property lines, you will find numbers indicating lot dimensions. The property drawings indicate the shape of the property. If the length or other dimension is the same on either side of the line, the measurement is not listed on every plat.
The county assessor assigns an assessor’s parcel number (APN) for every property using the Assessor’s Book Number, the Assessor’s Book Page Number and the individual parcel number. Each group of numbers is separated by a hyphen. The book and number pages are found in the corner of the plat map page for the book and page number.
Plat maps are an essential tool for realtors, homeowners, land developers, and resource developers. They provide a legal description of a specific tract or parcel of land to prevent accidental trespass and provide information for the sale or transfer of ownership of a piece of property.
Not all plats are formally measured, and some surveys may be incorrect. If you think the property you own or that you are considering buying does not match the plat, hire a professional surveyor to measure your lot and submit the corrections to the county assessor’s office.
