There are acres and there are acres

[dennis52]

It not only can be, it is more area than the deed says, but for most instances the increase is small.

If you have land which is perfectly flat, but tilted at 5 degrees to level (to an engineer, flat and level are different things) you would have about 0.4% more land than the plat indicates.

At 15 degrees, you will get 3.5% more area, but the land will be almost impossible to work.

The formula is: (area/plat area) = 1/cosine (slope) , where the slope is expressed in degrees.

Thanks CurlyDave,
the best examples I have seen of working steep country are the rice paddy terraces in the hills of South East Asia; human industry.

 

[Ford tractor]

There is an easy way to demonstrate the concept.

Take 2 sheets of notebook paper. Wad one into a real tight ball. Then unwad it some but still leave some pretty big hills and valleys. Now lay it on top of the fresh sheet and you can see how much smaller the wadded up one is. They both have the exact same area, one is just flat.

 

[Kyle241]

Don't give the tax collector any ideas. We don't need a surface area tax.

Agreed! My thought exactly.

 

[DAY]

Speaking of taxes, I "own" 17 acres, but with extensive road frontage, I only can actually use 15 acres. The other 2 are in the Right of Way, measured from the center line of the road. (But, since the township plows and paves and patches "my" land, I ain't complaining. . .)

 

[JRobyn]

About the back third of my "townhouse" lot is power company access easement - so I successfully appealed my property tax assessment to reduce my lot size to only what is not in the easement.

 

[Dr_Zinj]

About the back third of my "townhouse" lot is power company access easement - so I successfully appealed my property tax assessment to reduce my lot size to only what is not in the easement.

Don't give up control of the easement. Just get them to not tax it on you as it's not usable by you; other than as "buffer zone".