Is there appropriate certainty in mapping boundaries? asks Carl Calvert
Describing what land is bought and sold is often well understood at the very onset of subdivision of land but as one parcel is carved from another and buildings appear, sometimes close, sometimes touching, sometimes far away, the description of that land may fail to describe the legal estate in that land. To assist matters it has often been the practice of placing a deed plan with the deed as an indication or description of the land.
Construing a conveyance is a matter of law: Sara Colin in Boundaries and Easements, p 9, says there is sufficient authority for the parcels clause to be construed together with the conveyance plan and not each in isolation. In Wiggington & Milner v Winster Engineering 1978]1 WLR 1462, [1978] 3 All ER 43 Buckley LJ stated that the court must “…have a regard to the conveyance as a whole”.
Sometimes the plan is no better than a crumpled toffee paper while in other cases the plan is a creation of scientific endeavour made by some surveyor
