For years, the local plat book showing where landowners properties were located in the county where I am from contained at least one error of which I was aware.
I was aware because I heard it from my parents. The creator of the plat book had switched the locations of two properties: some pasture ground my parents owned and a local subdivision. The error remained in the plat book for nearly thirty years.
Did it really matter?
No. The local plat book was not an official record and most relatively modern plat books showing locations of real property and their owners include caveats regarding the potential for errors in their publications. Even if the maps were created from official records, these privately published plat books are not legal documents.
What really mattered in terms of the pasture ground my parents owned was that the deed described the property correctly (which it did) and that they paid taxes on the correct parcel of land (which they did).
Errors are errors, but sometimes they don’t matter as much as we may think they might.
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