Agenda

Webinar instructions will be emailed before the date of the webinar.

Please log into the webinar 15 – 30 minutes before start time.

Wednesday, December 28, 2022
8:30 am – 4:30 pm CST

 

Presented by
Wendy Lathrop, PLS, CFM, CFS

Agenda
Locating Land Boundaries on Paper (And on the Ground) 

What a deed tells us about real property interests and their locations – or doesn’t 

Common kinds of land descriptions 

• Metes and bounds 

• Reference to a subdivision 

• Reference to a tax parcel 

• “Strip” descriptions 

• 3-D descriptions (condominiums, split estates)
• Blanket easements 

Reading a description to find evidence of location 

The work involved in writing a description 

Tying the paper deed to the ground: What is evidence of a boundary? 

Why paper and ground may not match 

When the paper and the ground don’t match: the hierarchy of evidence in descriptions 

Summary: elements of a good description 

Physical Evidence of Boundaries 

The difference between a corner and a monument 

Retracement surveys versus new or independent surveys 

Discrepancies between the written record and what is on the ground 

• Types of discrepancies 

• Causes of discrepancies 

The hierarchy of evidence revisited

Easements: Understanding Possessive Rights in Lands of Others 

Distinctions between ownership and possession 

Easements distinguished from other possessory rights 

Types of easements and distinctions between them:
appurtenant, in gross, affirmative, negative, and others 

Methods of easement creation 

Clues in documents to determine if interests are fee or easement 

The effect of the Statute of Frauds on possessory rights 

Methods of easement termination 

What happens after termination? 

Disputes: Boundaries, Shared Spaces, and Split Estates 

Distinctions between trespass, adverse possession, and prescriptive rights 

Maintaining adverse claims 

• Statute of limitation 

• Elements of a claim 

“Lost grant” claims 

Quiet title actions 

Acquiescence, laches, estoppel, and equity 

Less litigious approaches to settling land interest disputes 

• Practical location and boundary line agreements 

• Boundary line commissions 

 

 Webinar Instructions
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 can be downloaded in PDF form upon passing a short quiz. A link to the quiz will be sent to each qualifying attendee immediately after the webinar. The certificate can be downloaded from the Results page of the quiz upon scoring 80% or higher.

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Credits

Land Surveyors:
6.5 PDHs (in Most States)

Engineers:
6.5 PDHs (in Most States)

Attorneys:
6.5 CLE Hours (in Most States)**

** No credit for NY attorneys

 

Continuing Education Credit Information 
This webinar is open to the public and is designed to qualify for 7.5 PDHs for professional land surveyors in most states. 

This webinar is open to the public and is designed to qualify for 7.5 PDHs for professional land surveyors in most states. 

 This course has been approved by and/or registered with the following boards: the Tennessee Board of Examiners for Land Surveyors, the Missouri Board for Architects, Professional Engineers, Professional Land Surveyors and Professional Landscape Architects, and the Florida Board of Professional Surveyors and Mappers (#10381). 

 This course has been pre-approved and/or recognized only by the listed boards. This course is not approved for New York land surveyors. 

 Attendance will be monitored, and attendance certificates will be available after the webinar for those who attend the entire course and score a minimum 80% on the quiz that follows the course (multiple attempts allowed). 

 

Speakers

Wendy Lathrop, PLS, CFM, CFS

President and Owner of Cadastral Consulting, LLC

Ms. Lathrop is licensed as a professional land surveyor in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and Maryland, and as a professional planner in New Jersey. She holds a master’s degree in Environmental Policy and has been involved in surveying since 1974 in projects ranging from construction to boundary to environmental land use disputes. Ms. Lathrop is also a certified floodplain manager through the Association of State Flood Plain Managers (ASFPM) and a Certified Floodplain Surveyor through the New Jersey Society of Professional Land Surveyors. A former adjunct instructor at Mercer County College in New Jersey, she has also taught as part of the team for the licensing exam review course at Drexel University in Pennsylvania. Ms. Lathrop has been teaching seminars for surveyors since 1986 and has been writing articles for surveyors since 1983. She is a contributing editor for The American Surveyor magazine, and she has four articles included in the American Bar Association’s text, Land Surveys: A Guide for Lawyers and Other Professionals. She and Stephen V. Estopinal, PLS, PE co–authored a book titled Professional Surveyors and Real Property Descriptions: Composition, Construction, and Comprehension, published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. in 2011. She is also on the faculty of GeoLearn, a web-based educational provider. Ms. Lathrop is a past president of the New Jersey Society of Professional Land Surveyors and of the National Society of Professional Surveyors, and she has served on the Board of Directors for the American Association for Geodetic Surveying.