PLSS SECTION SUBDIVISION
CASE STUDIES
AND LOTS, TRACTS, & PARCELS
MAN
FOUNDATION TO CURRENT RULES OF
SUBDIVISION OF SECTION
• Manual of Survey Instructions, 2009
• Cragin v. Powell
• Acquired Lands
• Bona Fide Rights
• Ownership
Manual of Survey Instructions, 2009
• 3-99. Title 43 U.S.C. 752 and 753 (Rev. Stat.
2396 and 2397) contain the fundamental
provisions for the subdivision of sections into
quarter-sections and quarter-quarter
sections. Sections are not subdivided in the
field by Bureau of Land Management
cadastral surveyors unless provision is made
in the special instructions, but certain
subdivision-of-section lines are protracted
upon the official plat
In the public land survey system a corner is
fixed in position by operation of law. Corners
marked in official surveys followed by use are
fixed in position by monuments. Only a small
portion of corners are marked on the ground in
original surveys. Subdivision-of-section corners
are generally not marked. Their positions are
fixed on the plat by protraction. Their positions
are fixed on the ground by the survey process
of running (and marking) line between marked
corners, and setting monuments.
IN THE CASE OF CRAGIN V. POWELL
(128 U.S.691, 696)
The Supreme Court said:
“It is a well settled principle that when lands are
granted according to an official plat of the
Survey of such lands, the plat itself, with all its notes,
lines, descriptions and landmarks,
becomes as much a part of the grant or deed by which
they are conveyed, and controls so
far as limits are concerned, as if such descriptive
features were written out upon the face
of the deed or the grant itself.”
FRACTIONAL SECTIONS
• By law a fractional section is (1) a section
containing outlying areas protracted as surveyed,
or (2) an invaded section in which at least one
quarter-section corner has not been or cannot be
fixed.
ACQUIRED LANDS
• Lands owned and administered by the United States
that were not part of the original public domain or
such lands that were part of the original public
domain but that were alienated and later returned
to Federal ownership
• Can acquire rights/restrictions while alienated from
the public domain
OWNERSHIP
• Protecting Bona Fide rights
• Public Domain Lands may be re-subdivided within a
section, at the discretion of the Chief Cadastral
Surveyor
BONA FIDE RIGHTS
• 3-137. When any claimant, entryman, or owner has acquired
bona fide rights as to location per 43 U.S.C. 772 to certain
legal subdivisions, that claimant, entryman, or owner has
rights as to the location of the identical ground location as
represented by the same subdivisions upon the official plat,
controlled by monuments on the ground.
TRACTS, LOTS, AND PARCELS
• Special surveys may involve areas of
land that are not aliquot parts of
sections but are designated as tracts,
lots, or parcels.
TRACTS
• 10-2 In common usage, the term “tract” is applied to an
expanse of land of no particular size, often irregular in
form. In modern Federal land surveys, the term is used
specifically to mean an expanse of land that lies in more
than one section or that cannot be identified in whole as
a part of a particular section. It is properly described by
tract number and township. Tracts within a township are
numbered beginning with 37 or the next highest unused
numerical designation to avoid confusion with section
numbers. Tracts that have been segregated in the
course of an independent resurvey are treated as
described under that subject.
LOTS
• 10-3.
A “lot” is an irregular expanse of land with
a Federal interest lying entirely within a surveyed
section. Small expanses of land, when not aliquot
parts of sections, are designated as lots wherever
they can be identified as parts of a section. The
description is by lot, section, and township.
PARCELS
• 10-4.
A “parcel” is a special designation used
for identification of an expanse of land. Parcels may
include land with no Federal interest and should be
so designated except in independent resurveys, or
if the proper name is “Tract _____.” To distinguish
among several parcels, they may be called “Parcel
A,” “Parcel B,” and so on. The Bureau of Land
Management (BLM) does not modify land
descriptions of alienated lands. The designation of
alienated land as a parcel is for administrative
purposes only and as a reference to the existing
land description of the parcel. It does not change
the chain of title.