Land Description Systems in Public Land Survey States
DISCLAIMER
Before purchasing, review the rules of your licensing or certifying entity. It is your responsibility to confirm this course meets your CE requirements. See the credit tab on the course page for details.
What’s Included: Full webinar recording, written course materials, expert instruction, a mandatory quiz, and a certificate upon completion.
Deliverability Timeline: All courses are generally available within 1-2 weeks after the live presentation.
CE Credits: AIA and/or LA/CES accreditation is available by request for courses recorded prior to March 11, 2026. All courses after that date include those accreditations by default, if applicable. With these accreditations, our courses qualify for credit in nearly all states for engineers, surveyors, architects, and landscape architects.
Learn more about the on-demand format in our FAQ or contact us at (715) 835-5900 or customerservice@halfmoonseminars.org
Agenda
Day One: Tuesday, September 22, 2020
11:00 am – 2:15 pm CDT (including a 15-min. break)
Working with Metes and Bounds Descriptions
Basic land description concepts: distances, directions, circular curves,
mathematical closure, state plane coordinates
Reading a metes and bounds description
Writing a description
Drawing a description
Software for mapping, drawing and locating described lands
Working with the U.S. Public Land Survey System (PLSS)
PLSS basics: meridians, baselines, ranges, townships, sections
Public Land Survey System (PLSS)
Aliquot parts
“Part of” descriptions
Reading a PLSS description
Writing a description
Drawing a description
Software/websites for mapping, drawing and locating described lands
Day Two: Wednesday, September 23, 2020
11:00 am – 2:15 pm CDT (including a 15-min. break)
Statutory Plats in Land Survey States
Duties under Plat Act
Certification and recording
Affidavits and exceptions
Reading and locating platted descriptions
Writing a description
Drawing a description
Software/websites for mapping, drawing and locating described lands
Describing Rights to Access Land
Private easements
Utility rights-of-way
Utility easements
Public rights-of-way
Webinar Instructions
Each webinar session earns continuing education credit and can be registered for individually. All attendees must log-on through their own email – attendees may not watch together if they wish to earn continuing education credit. HalfMoon Education Inc. must be able to prove attendance if either the attendee or HalfMoon Education Inc. is audited.
Certificates of completion will be provided for each webinar attended and will be sent via email in PDF form about five business days after the conclusion of the series.
Webinars are presented via GoToWebinar, an easy-to-use application that can be run on most systems and tablets. Instructions and login information will be provided in an email sent close to the date of the webinar. It is highly recommended that you download, install and test the application before the webinar begins by clicking on the link in the email.
GoToWebinar App requirements:
Windows 7 – 10 or Mac OSX Mavericks (10.9) – macOS Catalina (10.15)
Web Browser:
The two most recent version of the following browsers:
Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Apple Safari, Microsoft Edge
Internet Explorer v11 (or later) with Flash enabled
Internet connection: Minimum of 1Mbps Hardware: 2GB RAM or more
For more information, visit the Support section at www.gotowebinar.com
Credits
Professional Engineers:
6.0 PDHs
Land Surveyors:
6.0 PDHs
Certified Planners:
6 | CM
Continuing Education Credit Information
Individual courses for engineers and architects are not subject to pre-approval. HalfMoon Education does not apply for landscape courses in FL, NC, and NJ or land surveyor courses in FL, KS, NJ, TN and TX, unless expressly stated.
HalfMoon Education Certifying Entities
American Institute of Architects Continuing Education System (No. J885)
International Code Council (No. 1232)
Landscape Architect Continuing Education System
American Institute of Certified Planners (APA)
Boards of Engineering: Florida (No. 0004647), Indiana (License No. CE21700059), Maryland,
New Jersey (Approval No. 24GP00000700), North Carolina (No. S-0130), and North Dakota.
Course-by-Course Providers:
Association of State Floodplain Managers
American Planning Association/AICP
HalfMoon Education is deemed a New York-approved continuing education provider for engineers, architects, and landscape architects via its registration with the American Insti- tute of Architects Continuing Education System (Regulations of the Commissioner §68.14(i)(2), §69.6(i)(2), and §79-1.5(i)(2)).
Completion certificates will be awarded to participants who complete this event, respond to prompts, and earn a passing score (80%) on the quiz that follows the presentation (multiple attempts allowed).
Speakers
J. Cole Helfrich
Principal Land Surveyor, Koru Group PLLC, in Wheaton, ILMr. Helfrich has been principal land surveyor with Craig R. Knoche & Associates, P.C. and its successor Koru Group PLLC in the Chicago area for the last 30 years. Mr. Helfrich first picked up a plumb bob in 1971 for Webster & Associates. From tape-and-transit to GPS, mortgage surveys to shopping centers, he has his seal on billions of dollars of commercial, residential and institutional developments and transactions in 23 counties in Illinois together with consulting and managing projects in 15 other states. Mr. Helfrich has enjoyed working with countless prominent developers, attorneys and other professionals in the field and the office. His specialties include real estate law, boundaries and boundary law, easements, rights-of-way and other encumbrances and servitudes, statutory and common-law plats, ALTA surveys, topography, building and site layout, construction- and project-management as well as land development consulting. He has presented classes and co-written manuals with the Illinois Institute For Continuing Legal Education along with classes at the University of Illinois and HalfMoon Education. Mr. Helfrich is a member of the National Society of Professional Surveyors and the Illinois Professional Land Surveyors Association.
