The Light Bulb Analogy
Think about when you need to replace a 60 watt light bulb in a lamp in your home.  This is easy.  You stop by at any hardware store and pick up a standard new 60 watt incandescent bulb, bring it home, put it in the lamp, turn it on, and it works.

Now imagine there is no such thing as a standard 60 watt bulb.  At one store you find a bulb that is threaded the opposite way from your lamp at home.  So you go to another store, and their bulbs use a kind of filament that will immediately burn out in your lamp.  You go to yet another store and they have bulbs that might be what you need, but their packaging is not adequately labeled, so you don’t know if their bulbs will work in your lamp.  A fourth store only carries halogen bulbs.  Furthermore, at each store, you ask the clerks where you can get a bulb that will work in your lamp at home, but the clerks are only knowledgeable about the kind of bulbs they carry in their store.  They don’t know about the other kinds.  Aren’t you glad you don’t have to go through this every time you need a new light bulb?  Now, in light of this (pun intended), consider the land transaction scenario below.
 

Standards - An “Easy” Land Transaction
(Note: while reading through this scenario, remember that using the Cadastral Data Content Standard does not mean it is necessary to make comprehensive changes your existing data.)

Now think about this.  You are about to purchase some land in your county, outside of the nearest town’s limits.  Until now, the land has been used for agricultural purposes.  It is bounded on the north and northeast by a nature preserve managed by a public agency.  That agency retains subsurface mineral rights for the nature preserve, and also for many of the surrounding parcels.  A new road improvement project is scheduled to begin on the rural highway that borders the west side of the property.  You are planning on converting the land’s use from agricultural to residential --- lots of room for your new home and two horses.  You also plan to subdivide the land for two additional home sites.  The nearby town has just voted to extend the town limits so that starting next year the property you are buying will be within the town limits.  So you set off to gather all the information you need about the land.  Here’s what happens…
 

Restrictions
You call the public agency that manages the nature preserve and subsurface mineral rights.  They tell you there are use restrictions on what you can do on land adjacent to the preserve.  You have to make sure your horse barn and corral are more than 150 feet from the boundary.

Subsurface rights
The public agency also says that for some years there has been some confusion with the county over the subsurface mineral rights that intersects part of your land.   They tell you to call the county, and they refer to your land as an “aliquot”.

Definitions, terminology
You contact the county land use department and tell them you are inquiring about subsurface mineral rights on the “aliquot”, and they don’t know what you are talking about.  They refer to your land as a “parcel”.  It’s a relatively minor mix-up, but it takes three phone calls and an hour of asking questions to finally communicate with them what piece of land you are talking about.

Incompatible record keeping systems
The county land use manager tells you they will have to research the subsurface mineral rights, cross referencing records with the county recorder’s office, but that the recorder’s office uses a system that is different from the land use department’s, and it will take some time to sort through and cross reference the information.  The search will also require contacting a Federal land management agency to locate historical information about subsurface mineral rights.

Easements, and Unshared information
You contact the state highway department to find out about the planned improvements along the highway on the west side of the property.  The highway department says they have a 30 foot easement into the land you are buying, along a 400 foot length of the highway – and they plan to use this easement to build a new passing lane and improve the shoulder.  This doesn’t sound right to you – no easement was mentioned in the purchase discussions.  The highway department representative says that’s no real surprise.  There is no method in place for them to share their information with the local real estate agencies, so situations like this often come up without warning.  The easement information is probably noted on a plat map or in survey notes stored at the county building.

Local Taxes
Next you contact the county and the city to find out about what it will mean when the town limits extend out to include your land.  You learn that next year your land will come under the set of taxes which support town services such as police, fire, and trash pickup.

Zoning, and Subdivision Survey
At the county office you find that your land has always been zoned agricultural, and that your plan to subdivide the land for residential use with horses will have to be submitted for a zoning review, and also must be submitted for a survey for the subdivision of lots.

Boundaries, Corners, and Legal Land Description
You discover that the public agency managing the nature preserve has new GPS-ed coordinates identifying the preserve’s boundaries and corner monuments, but that this information differs from the legal land description used by the county.  You also find the GCDB reliability diagram for the south line lists a 40 – 200 foot reliability.  While the legal land description will take precedence in defining the extent of the real property, you wonder about the boundary the public agency will use.

Overall you meet clerks who thoroughly understand the cadastral information kept in their own offices, but who know little or nothing about information maintained in other offices and agencies.  Records are so different from one office to the next that getting printouts and maps from each one does little to clarify the information you need. You encounter a confusing assortment of record keeping systems, land descriptions, survey records, and lists of rights and interests.

Still, you need to have the highway department, public agency, town, and county talk to each other and share information, but their records, while covering the same area of land, describe the land in different ways.

Won’t it be great when you can take advantage of standardized cadastral information while dealing with land transactions and ownership?  When that happens, offices using differing land record systems will be able to share and exchange cadastral information.  It may be a while before it is as easy as changing a light bulb, but working with land records will be much more manageable, less costly, and more easily understood by everyone involved.

And remember, this does not mean that the present way of working with cadastral information will be ‘taken over’ by a Standard.  Instead of ‘taking over’, the Standard provides clarity, definition, and a way to achieve connectivity between cadastral information stored in differing data systems.