Availability: All plans.
What you are seeing
The description is a lot, a block, a subdivision name and a plat reference, and nothing else. Something like “Lot 14, Block 3, Quarrystone Reach subdivision, as recorded in Plat Book 9, page 44”. There are no courses anywhere in it.
That example was written by BoundaryLogic for these articles. The subdivision and the recording reference are invented and match no real record.
What happens next depends on how you gave it to Trace, and the two are very different.
On the AI document path
The description comes back with a Lot and Block warning, which says plainly that Trace has no access to the related plat document. That is the correct answer and the one you want.
In the manual plotting editor
There is no warning, and the result is worse than a refusal. A lot and block line written with commas is read as a section reference, and Trace draws a full nominal section: 640 acres, reported closed, with no error against it.
| Typed into the editor | What Trace draws |
|---|---|
Lot 14, Block 3, Quarrystone Reach subdivision, as recorded in Plat Book 9, page 44 |
A four course tract of 640 acres, closed, no error |
Lot 14, Block 3, Quarrystone Reach |
A four course tract of 640 acres, closed, no error |
Lot 14 Block 3 of Quarrystone Reach subdivision as recorded in Plat Book 9 page 44 (no commas) |
Correctly rejected: Unrecognized direction "Lot" |
Never type a lot and block reference into the manual plotting editor. Three or more comma separated pieces are read as an aliquot section reference, and any piece Trace does not recognise resolves to the whole section. Without the commas the line is rejected properly, which is why the same words can behave two ways.
Why it happens
A lot and block description does not describe a boundary. It names one that is drawn on a recorded plat, and the plat holds the geometry. Trace has no access to the plat and cannot fetch it, so there is nothing to build from.
This is the shape of the product rather than a gap in it. Trace works from metes and bounds tracts, aliquot descriptions, and easements described from a centerline. Plats and lot and block are outside that.
What you can do instead
Two routes are honest, and neither is Trace plotting the land the description names. Be clear with yourself about which you are doing.
If the plat carries courses for the lot
Many recorded plats print a direction and a distance on each lot line, and some carry a full metes and bounds description for the lot in the plat notes. Where yours does, type those courses into the manual plotting editor and you have a real plot, built from real courses. The deed syntax reference has every form, and it spends no credits.
If you only need to see the lot in position
Put the plat itself on the map as an image overlay and line it up over what is already plotted. This is a picture placed by hand: it is useful for comparing against the tracts around it, and it is not geometry Trace computed. Nothing measured off it is a plot. See Image overlays and the guide to aligning a plat with image overlays.
If neither applies
Where the plat gives no courses and you need the boundary rather than a picture of it, this is survey work. No setting in Trace reaches it.
If that did not work
- You already typed the line and got a 640 acre tract. Delete the line. The figures it reported belong to a full section, not to your lot, and nothing about them describes the land.
- The description has a lot and block reference and also carries courses. Then the courses are what matters. Plot those and treat the reference as a label.
- The document is a plat and you want it read automatically. Trace reads legal descriptions, not plat drawings.
Related
- What Trace can and cannot plot, for the four outcomes
- Read your description before you upload it, for catching this before you spend anything
- The document queue, for the Lot and Block warning
- Image overlays, for putting the plat on the map
- PLSS calls in the editor, for aliquot references written on purpose