Blog · September 30, 2026
What Is the Priority of Calls?
Priority of calls is the order courts and surveyors use when parts of a description disagree. Intent and monuments generally outrank courses and distances, and area often ranks last. It is a way to resolve conflict, not a way to ignore a clear deed.
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The usual order
A common statement of the order runs from the parties’ intent, to natural monuments, to artificial monuments, to adjoining boundaries, to courses and distances, and then to area. The exact list varies in how textbooks phrase it, and the facts can change the result, especially where a call is a mistake everyone can see. The reason monuments outrank a distance is practical. The grantor pointed at a river, a road, or a stone. The distance was an estimate of how far that object sat. If the stone is 202 feet away and the deed says 200, the stone usually wins. If there is no stone and the deed gives a clean metes-and-bounds figure that closes, you do not invent a monument to defeat the courses. Priority applies when calls conflict. It is not a slogan that always throws out the numbers.
Natural and artificial monuments
A river, a ridge, or a marked tree is a natural monument. A set stone, an iron pipe, a road, or a wall can be an artificial monument. Adjoiners, the line of the grantor’s neighbor, are their own category and often rank above bare courses. Area, the more or less acres, usually loses to all of them. So a deed that runs to the creek, 400 feet more or less, containing 5 acres more or less, is first a deed to the creek. The 400 and the 5 explain. They do not pull the line off the creek. None of this tells you to wade the creek or to rebuild a wall. Identifying which object the deed meant is surveying. A pile of stones you prefer is not the monument just because monuments rank high.
What a reader does with the order
When you sketch a deed and the courses miss a called-for monument, do not silently drop the monument to make the math close. Note the conflict. When the courses close and no monument is called, do not go looking for a tree to promote into a monument so you can move the line. Write down what the deed actually calls. County GIS will not apply priority of calls. Its boundary is a drawn polygon for tax purposes, and it may follow a fence, an old map, or a digitizing shortcut. Platbookmapper links to that polygon’s viewer and stops. It does not weigh calls. A laser measure that proves a distance is 203 feet does not, by itself, move a called-for corner. It is not a survey.
What to do next
- List monuments, adjoiners, courses, and area separately.
- If they agree, there is nothing to rank.
- If they conflict, note which call is senior in the usual order, then ask a surveyor.
- Do not drop a called-for monument just because the distance misses it.
The mix-up to avoid
Using priority of calls to discard a distance you dislike even though no monument disagrees with it. The rule resolves conflict. It does not invite a rewrite.
Questions people ask
Do courses ever beat a monument?
Yes, when the monument was named by mistake, when it cannot be identified, or when following it would defeat the clear intent of the grant. Those are exceptional findings, made from evidence, not from convenience.
Does the order change in every state?
The core idea is widespread, and the phrasing and the exceptions are local. Do not treat a guidebook list as a statute. For a dispute, the survey and the legal advice have to come from people licensed in that place.
Find the county map
Open Platbookmapper and pick the county that taxes the land. Use that viewer to get the parcel id, then match it to the recorded plat if you need the easements and lot numbers.
Not a survey. County GIS and tax parcel maps are assessment and planning layers. They are not a substitute for a recorded plat, deed, or licensed survey.