Legal descriptions
Metes and bounds
A description tracing a boundary by directions and distances from a point of beginning
The oldest system in use in the United States, standard in the original thirteen states and anywhere land was never laid out on a grid. It reads as a walk around the perimeter, and it must close — return to the point of beginning — or it describes no enclosed parcel at all.
How the exam asks about it
The failure mode the exam tests is a description that does not return to the point of beginning.
Related terms
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