Calculating acres in Google Earth

Hi, I wanted to estimate the size of one of my fields, which has an irregular shape so I figured out how to do that using Google Earth. More to the point, someone else figured it out, and I watched it on Youtube and got it to work.

I bought the land as 40 acres (as advertized), and I always thought it odd that the tax statement had it divided into three parts (20, 12, and 8ac) according to land use. There are two Property Identification (PID) numbers for the land, which do not match any of the numbers on the tax forms, although the tax form doesn't have PID numbers listed.

Anyways, it seems like the "40 acres" is actually only 32ac according to my measurements on Google Earth, and that matches two of the divisions on the taxes... I'm going to go into the tax office and get to the bottom of this!!!

I wonder how common it is for land to be bought and sold, and taxed, without really being the correct size?

You can see how to do the area measurement on Google Earth on this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnuRQE0_cIU

The Earthpoint site wants you to pay to sign up, but it does allow you to export to excel, which allows you to see the area without signing up.

Bye for now,

Troy

or: http://www.acme.com/planimeter/

Land is divided for assessing purposes here according to the use and potential use. my little four acres is I believe divided into house lot, good useable land and wetlands. Does your field take up all of the area or are there wooded areas around it that are part of the property but not part of the field?

Troy, having bought and sold several farms, been a real estate broker, been a surveyors helper, and being an attorney who has practiced somewhat in real estate law, I CAN TELL YOU ITS FAIRLY OFTEN that if you buy a larger parcel of real estate in a rural area that hasnt undergone an actual modern survey THE ACTUAL ACREAGE CAN VARY FROM WHAT YOUR DEED (especially older deeds referencing say quarter sections (160 a) or quarter quarter (40 a) section etc) CALLS FOR.

Thats one of the reasons that most deeds cite "more or less" at the end of their legal description

Then theres the whole long settled body of common law known as "Adverse Posession" that fills entire law library sections and years of study which we obviously cant cover and explain here, so just realize if you and your neighbor have used maintained and treated a land "boundary" (such as an old existing fence line) over a statutory period of time such can ripen into the legal boundary even if not in exact agreement with what your deed states is the boundary. You or your neighbor may have a claim pursuant to the legal doctrine of Adverse Posession.

You have to realize the old original government surveys (when they set section corners) were done yearsssssssssss ago before the advent of EDM and GPS (they used chains) and were far from prefect.

Its been my experience the tax records and assessors and auditors office ARE OFTEN IN ERROR AS TO THE EXACT ACREAGE, so what you tell me doesnt surprise me as an attorney, past real estate broker and land buyer and seller one bit.

If you want to talk to your local officials and think you have any valid gripe, I doubt citing Google Earth as authority or reference will impress them while an actual survey (a surveyor is legally competent to render expert legal "opinion" as to boundaries etc) would have more validity, but thats fairly expensive depending on the terrain and presence of recent adjoining modern surveys and mounuments and section corners etc etc.

If you have specific concerns (and theres a lot of money riding on the outcome) I suggest you consult local trained competent professionals such as Land Surveyors and Attorneys.

Nuff said for a Tractor Board

Best wishes n God Bless

John T Country Lawyer

Wow, thanks John! I know there's nothing I can really do about it, but it was just an unpleasant surprise. I thought I'd share my epiphany, so others might be able to check their land too.

Today's modern technologies really do make life easier, and provide loads of reference that we just never had before. Quite an interesting time to be alive. Sometimes I think about the overwhelming amount of information available though, and harken back to a simpler time...

Bye for now,

Troy

(quoted from post at 04:20:15 04/30/12) or: http://www.acme.com/planimeter/

Click to expand...

http://www.freemaptools.com/area-calculator.htm#sidebar

If it has ever been cropped or hayed, the county Farm Service Agency will have aerial photographs of the farm showing the size of the fields. Plus they should have the "Farm acres" and "Crop land" acres listed.

Free for the asking. Just walk up to the counter.

Gene

John,

If you think the old deeds by section can be screwed up you should see some of the old ones around here that went by meets and bounds. None of the trees that are on the deed for my farm are still there, last surveyed around 1900. My dad works in the ag lending buisness and found a deed several years ago a county south of here that listed a property corner as a "white oak tree with a red cow standing under it."

Dave

I hear ya, however even to this day Ive still seen surveyors call out trees as markers although its mostly to "an iron pin set" or "an iron pipe set" or a "pinchbar set" or perhaps a PK Nail in a structure or a "railroad spike set in the centerline of the road"

Of course, its no better then THE STARTING POINT which around here in rural areas is a Section Corner and the local County Surveyors job is to locate and re set and verify and document EACH COUNTY SECTION CORNER.

On my current farm I have a section corner set at the NE Corner of Section 23, Township 7 North, Range 5 West of the Second Principal Meridian (if I recall correctly). Years ago a surveyor buddy found and dug it up a sand stone marker with an X set wayyyyyyyyyyyyy back when. Since then the County Surveyor came and recorded it and set additional markers and signs and used GPS etc. At all my iron pins set I spray roundup around them and dump used motor oil and diesel and paint and all other sorts of "toxic waste" so hay never grows there, it glows at night hmmmmmmmmm lol

When I studied real estate in law school I enjoyed legal descriptions and have worked with a few surveyors so I like this chat

John T

A little off topic, but I wanted to mention my experience with a "witness tree".
A guy from the county came by asking my permission to cut into an old oak tree he believed to be an old boundary tree that had been marked in 1852. I said sure. Anyway they took a chainsaw, made four plunge cuts making a square in the tree, took out the plug, split it where it was black in color, and there was the carved writing from 1852.
Absolutely amazing to me.

The best online tool for that is <a href="http://websoilsurvey.nrcs.usda.gov/app/WebSoilSurvey.aspx">USDA WebSoilSurvey</a>.

You make a AOI (Area of Interest) on the map and it tells you acres and even overlays soil types on the map for that area.

I bought some ground in the late 1980s it had been split off of a larger farm in the 1930s. The deed showed that there was 98 acres in the piece I bought. I had farmed the ground for a few years. I only had eighty acres in crops and the balance was in pasture. So the 98 seemed correct.

So when I wrote up my offer to buy I just made the offer be for a curtain amount not a per acres deal. I got the farm with the understanding that I had to pay for any survey if it was needed to transfer. The county said it did not need to be surveyed. Flash forward to 2007. My one son wanted to build a house on the old farm building site, only a machine shed was left when I bought the land. So we had to have a survey done to split out that acreage.

The new survey was done on the whole parcel to get the split done. The county has changed the rules on land transfers. The new survey shows that there is 128 acres total in the tract. I am real good friends with the guy that owns the other piece that was split off all those years ago. We went to the ASCS office and had them run the boundaries of his entire farm not just the farm ground. His ground was the thirty acres short. The original land survey done in the 1800s was correct and the split in 1930s was off by 30 acres. His is really rough ground that covers a valley so you can't really see it all at once so it is hard to know what he had. The dividing line is a county road that has been there since the late 1800s. So the acreage was just mis calculated.

This goes to show that the age of the survey does not matter. If it is more that ten years old then it could be off.

The newer equipment to survey with is just amazing. The guy that surveyed the land showed me just how accurate the equipment is. He set two nails in the yard 200 feet apart using his equipment. We measured it with a steel tape. It was within a 1/4 of an inch. He said he might have moved some when he was holding the rod. Think how they used to have to drag chains and hold them level to get good measurements.

Local surveyor has the stump of a witness tree in his office, with the plug hinged like a little door on the stump- open the door, and there is the old carving.

He said he still gets a kick out of seeing little kids' reaction to it- it generally will keep them occupied until he has finished his business with their dad.

A handheld 'hiking & camping' type of GPS (not the car travel models) most have an area calculator that is fairly accurate. Walk or drive around the area and it will calculate the acres for you - $100 and up.

Bought the 40 next to me, knew it was not 40 acres, they moved the county road back in the 1950's and got messed up bewteen the surveyor and the road builder, the surveyor's office burned with all the paperwork, now the county goes off of the middle of the road, however the road builder moved the centerline of the road within the original right of way. Made a mess of our farm and the neighboring 40, but my deal is a few acres all together, I'd want 12 acres worth sorted out for sure!

--->Paul

When the folks were arguing with the county over our deal dad pointed to the spot in the tar road where the marker should be. County guy's metal detector hit on something within 2 feet of dad's pointing. They hemmed and hawed well that it could be anything there.... Next Monday morning they started at that point removing tar and somehow got everything bladed up & removed in an hour....

The corner stone that was a 3-way property marker the neighbor's hired help managed to roll out when plowing.

Another corner stone the neighbor's kid said he was out picking rocks when in school and he hauled it home, didn't know it was a corner stone.

The one cornerstone in the middle of our property is in a filed road, but the gophers are trying to sink it.

Yea gotta have a sense of humor on all this along the way, don't you?

--->Paul

For all you survey trivia fans the systems are messed up, they are run by government why are we surprised? Let's look at Michigan, because it's an example I
happen to be familiar with. Seems back in 18 whatever we they decided to survey Michigan's lower peninsula they had the bright idea to use two crews to
establish the baseline, one starting in the Detroit area (east working west) and another on the shores of Lake Michigan (west working east). Only problem is
when the "met up" south of Lansing they didn't they were about 900' feet apart. One or both lines were not a true east west. This means most sections in
Michigan are more or less, in theory they are supposed to be exact and they push the errors northwest. By the grid system their are entire townships (36
square miles) missing, the legal description appears valid but if you look at the maps they disappeared them in the name of correction. A lot of this missing
land changes hands in the early fall in various bars in Detroit, Lansing, Grand Rapids, Flint and Kalamazoo as aspiring deer hunters decide to purchase a
"hunting 40" up North because they got a deal to good to be true from a fellow they met at the bar. As late as the 1960's and 70's Michigan was still finding
land that never really was owned, meaning the state never issued a deed on it since territory days. At that time the state was offering the land to the
adjacent land owners 50/50 first offer, if one land owner turned it down 100% to the other. Here in Wisconsin the survey is just as screwed up but the un-
issued land is given to the county, were they us it to landlock private parcels and hold the landowners hostage until they buy an easement.

Check out Planimeter app on Google Play with many measurement features for Google Maps:
distances, areas, angles.

Perfect tool for my tablet! it's very helpful for pasture measurements.

Nice app, adding markers with GPS is very useful feature.