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Surveying land

8K views 72 replies 21 participants last post by  ColonyPark 
#1 ·
Amazing how many people get bent out of shape about the truth.

Two experiences with surveys in the last week

We have a neighbor friend that is a widow now for 4 years. Her direct neighbor is her deceased husband's brother. She needed to have a new fence put in to keep her dog on her property and the installer recommended having the property surveyed. Her BIL hit the roof that she was going to have the survey completed because he could be trusted. She had the survey completed and the BIL actually picked up additional property but he was still unhappy about the fence being redone. So upset, he rescinded her right to be buried next to her husband in the family cemetery.

We are buying my parents a home near by so they will be close, 15 minutes as compared to 3.5 hours. The home being purchase resides on ~8 acres. The official property description has the two land lots with 8 different exceptions that are dated from 1940 through 1970, each exception giving a little land to various neighbors. We had two neighbors refuse access to their property for measuring purposes as the land was not adding up. Our surveyor had to get the county involved and ended up measuring 9 different pieces of property to get it all correct. One neighbor that refused access "lost" about an 1/8 of an acre of their 200 acres, yes 200. I say "lost" because it isn't hers but there was no plan to make her move the swing they built. Last night when we met with her she got so worked up because the line she felt made more sense wasn't being followed that she ended up having a cardiac event and left in an ambulance.

The other neighbor that refused access last about a 1/4 acre but it is property that is unusable and outside their fence. They aren't happy but not mad.

Just amazing how much anger the truth brings out.
 
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#2 ·
Interesting stories.

The place next to mine looks like it may be for sale now. I had a survey done when we first bought our place so I know exactly where my lines are. This guy who is selling came here afterward and thinks he owns a little further onto my property only because there is a gully between our places. I was just saying this morning that as soon as I see movement over there I am going to remark the survey stakes in bright orange so there are no questions if the place changes hands.

Funny how the people around you got so worked up about property lines that they had no real proof of.
 
#3 ·
It is interesting, but who's to say the newest survey is correct? Please don't be offended as I only offer some thoughts I had concerning time period, survey equipment, and changes that would seem to account for differences.

For instance, the property East of me has had 3 (soon to be 4) different owners since we moved here 42 years ago. To the West there have been 4 different owners. Twice a surveyor has come to ask me if I knew where any metal pins were located. I have always known where two of them are on the East side, so they start from there. Pretty much got my whole property marked this last time for free and he put in steel pins that should be easy to find for a few years.
So, this one took my word for it instead of starting at the center of a cross road and measuring a thousand more feet or so. That crossing road has been widened at least twice in these 42 years. See where I'm going with this? Who knows if the center of that road is still in the same place? The road that fronts all three properties has also been paved and widened a bit several times. Is the center still the same as the gravel road that had the first spike?

There was a fence on the West side that I thought matched the old survey's marks with the existing fence anchors. He said no, that would never happen. This fence follows a stream so there are several measurements and angles. There is a fence anchor at each survey point. No big deal to me. Put new pins in as he sees fit. I had no problem with how it came out.

I did take offence with a remark he made about the "other surveyor" ( who is long gone) being a little sloppy with his work. What I didn't say out loud was the "other surveyor" used a pencil and paper, a book of logarithms, a transit, a measuring chain, and his brain to do the job. He was mighty close, too.

Fancy laser measuring equipment was only a dream at that time. Heck, no one I knew even had a pocket calculator at that time. The properties that he marked were from a family owned farm that probably had "big tree, big rock, etc." as it's description.

I didn't lose much, but who would ever know what's correct? Does it even matter? Once heard it said that we don't own land, just borrow it for a while. :soapbox:

tommyhawk
 
#4 ·
Once heard it said that we don't own land, just borrow it for a while. :soapbox:

tommyhawk

As long as there is property taxes to be paid, that is 100% correct.
 
#5 ·
It's amazing how the County surveyor found the corners of our property twice within a 1/2 inch each time. Our neighbors father ,knew a fellow who claimed to be a surveyor ,tell us my neighbor owned half of my front lawn.. Amazing how a little knowledge and the proper tools makes so much difference.
Worst thing I'm the one that had to pay both times. , till the dad passed away ,he still claimed to own my front lawn..,his son my neighbor, said not to worry . I wasn't either way the state would own the majority of it anyway.
 
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#6 ·
Another survey story, or two

I've got two stories to add to the list.

My cousin had a neighbor who insisted that the property line between her property and his was further to the west. It was a straight line so that part was easy. She paid for the survey and he lost about 10 acres but still insisted he had the right to hunt there. . .

My aunt and uncle lived in a house on property that came from our farm. After they passed, my cousin sold the house and property but the new owners didn't get a survey until after they closed. (How stupid was that?) Their first survey put their well on our property. We thought about it and knew approximately where the property line was and told the surveyor to come back. He was totally incompetent and unable to follow bearings and distances on a triangle. We hired a second surveyor and split the cost with new property owner. The new survey gave them their well back which was our loss but the line is within a foot or so of where it should be.

Just because a surveyor has a license doesn't mean they are competent.

Treefarmer
 
#7 ·
For those asking who is correct.....

As stated, our surveyor ended up surveying 9 properties around ours to make sure everything lined up, it did until you go to these two properties who were refusing access. So our surveyor agreed with 3 surveyors and the county and disagreed with 2 land owners and one surveyor. I would say that is pretty good odds they were doing it correctly.

They spent 4 days measuring and a week researching and speaking with the other survey companies.
 
#15 · (Edited)
For those asking who is correct.....

As stated, our surveyor ended up surveying 9 properties around ours to make sure everything lined up, it did until you go to these two properties who were refusing access. So our surveyor agreed with 3 surveyors and the county and disagreed with 2 land owners and one surveyor. I would say that is pretty good odds they were doing it correctly.

They spent 4 days measuring and a week researching and speaking with the other survey companies.


Wow! How much did that wind up costing?

I too have a survey story that started when a neighbor in Georgia was about to put one of those metal Quonset hut looking metal building darned near on my property. I had made it an annual practice to relocate all of my pins. All of a sudden, the two pins adjoining his property were missing. I politely approached him with the property plats, not mentioning the pulled up pins, and he immediately went explosively belligerent. I paid a surveyor to reinstall the pins and he pulled them up again! Wound up in court a few times over the years - almost came to violence at one point until a judge put a peace bond on him and in no uncertain terms informed him if he so much as spoke to me he would be jailed - only then did this insanely belligerent individual back off. It was THAT BAD over a few feet of property.
 
#8 ·
As a licensed land surveyor in NYS in private practice, all of these stories hit home. To the OP's comment about the "truth hurts", sometimes I think people think the land surveyors are making stuff up by waving a magic wand around. The flip side is we can't place boundaries by waving a magic wand. We have to take so many things into consideration: historical documents such as deeds and maps, the "intent" of the deed, existing monumentation on the ground, occupation on the ground, local knowledge, work of our predecessors etc, etc, etc. With all of that, we then form an opinion as to where the boundaries are, and it's just that, an opinion. And, as we all know, sometimes the opinions are different.


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#9 ·
The problem is that there is no such thing as an accurate historical survey. In they days of chains and compasses, there was an incredible number of errors that can and did stack up. You can survey an old piece of property nine times using nine different starting points and end up with nine different sets of markers. As technology has improved so has our accuracy, but it's still not 100% accurate. The planet isn't a perfect sphere after all.
 
#10 ·
Surveys are a good thing, especially if worthless lawyers get involved.

I always try to make sure the pins are easy to find.

The Earth is not static and there is constant movement even in the most stable areas.

As for the people upset over a trivial amount of land as mentioned in previous posts...well let's just say I'd be banned from GTT if I said what I really thought of them. If they are pissing and moaning over a 1/4 acre out of 200 acres, then they have serious issues.

My last house was in the 'burbs sitting on a whopping 1/10th acre lot, and of all the houses on the block, only mine had two survey pins missing out front. This became an issue when my neighbor was building a POS fence. I had the builder's surveyor come back out under Colorado's defects law and redo the survey. Somehow my idiot neighbors managed to keep the fence on the property line. Damned if I know how as every fence post was set a different distance apart, nothing was plumb, and so on.

Bottom line...100-years from now, none of us on GTT will care; 1-million years from now, who knows what the landscape will be like then. 4 - 5 billion years from now it won't matter as what's left of the Earth will be inside a swollen red-giant sun in its death throes.
 
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#11 · (Edited)
I too deal with this every day. Indeed we can only offer our opinion as to the location of a property line. The single greatest problem is the lack of an original survey at the creation of the parcel. Many times deeds are written by landowners, realtors or God forbid, an attorney. I could go on for days but wont. Our primary duty is to protect the public's interest.
Historic surveys, those done with a steel chain, and their inherent problems have little to do today's survey problems.
 
#16 ·
Historic surveys, those done with a steel chain, and their inherent problems have little to do today's survey problems.
How can they not have a significant bearing on modern surveys? All of those inaccurate surveys (through no fault of theirs) were used as the legal definition of millions of pieces of property around the world. Those legal descriptions do not match with the reality of modern surveying technology, and discrepancies are pretty much guaranteed whenever a modern measurement is taken.
 
#12 ·
Legal descriptions for land use so much extra flowery language that I call it 'Shakespearean Legalese."

When I was at NREL, I was working on getting our AutoCAD based models to coincide with the legal descriptions of the property boundaries. When I distilled out the important information of distance and bearing on my notepad; what took pages of legal descriptions boiled down to a page or two.

Although NREL was founded in 1977, the land it sits on had numerous other uses in the past, and some of the monument descriptions were not surveyor's pins with caps; but "hole in rock," etc. That's where historical (hysterical?) surveys get humorous to read...sometimes.

A damn good surveyor is one who is, "out standing in his field." :mocking:
 
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#13 ·
What about GPS? Is that accurate enough to locate parcel corners?
 
#14 ·
A surveying grade GPS is accurate to 1/100 of a foot, which I think is the standard for a legal survey...maybe the actual surveyors can verify.
A regular GPS might get you accurate to a few feet one day, then 20 or 30 feet the next day.
 
#17 ·
I didn't say they don't have bearing on today's survey. I said they aren't the source of most of the problems we encounter. Original surveys are the foundation we build on. No matter how the measurements stack up against today's those surveys are still correct. The hierarchy of survey control is natural monuments, man made monuments, distance and finally direction. They knew early on that procedures would improve but a physical object would remain in its proper location, unless disturbed by man.
The "shakesperean legalese" spoken of is what qualifies the measurement. When it is stripped out of the deed the essence and intent can be lost.
 
#19 ·
So how do you work with a flawed historic measurement? I live out in the flat corn fields of Illinois, so let's use a simple scenario where 150 years ago some junior surveyor didn't know how to properly calculate magnetic north deviation. His survey said "2800 feet along a line bearing 0*00'00"." Now due to your more accurate measures, you know that he is off by 2*-3* from reality. How is that handled?

(FYI, I'm not arguing...I'm curious)
 
#21 ·
This is a very interesting thread. There are other considerations beyond the accuracy of past surveys when determining who owns what piece of land. Property boundaries are generally governed by common law. A legal description or physical survey markers are not always the way a court of law would settle a boundary dispute. History of use or traditional fence lines can sometimes win over legal property descriptions. That is why it is important to resolve boundary issues earlier than later.
 
#24 ·
I have hired a couple different surveyors for a couple large projects in the last couple years. We split up the family farm, and we ended up with 220 acres, but it was part of 4 separate farms, from way back when. I was fascinated by the whole process.
The surveyor and the lawyer said that when push comes to shove, a legal description and survey usually prevails in court. It makes sense because creeks, fences, and treelines move over the years, and you can't guarantee fences ever did go in on the property lines. Distances were often determined by the amount of fence that was installed, and follows the contours of the land. Nobody likes to perpetuate all of those inaccuracies.

I'm in a agricultural area, and more often than not, the property lines follow the section lines. In our case we found that the fence lines deviated by 20, 30, or 50 feet from the section lines in some cases. Rather than dealing with all that, we all just agreed to make the actual corner posts the new boundaries, and changed the legal descriptions accordingly.

I have found also, that it's kinda nice to have a surveyor lay out fences for me, even if they are not on the property line. I can get nice square corners that way.
 
#23 · (Edited)
I too agree this thread is very interesting, now just inmagine u was them miners that was trapped down in the mine, by somerset,pa. it took a surveyor to get the drill to drill at the right place to bring them up. I think that's wonderfull and they all lived, my wife went to school with one of them, and I think they used GPS to find them. I only live 20 miles from their. big jim
 
#27 ·
For me the most concise deed has no bearing or distance. For instance a description that calls for the NE 1/4 OF THE NE 1/4 of Section 35 is more accurate than a deed that reads North 1320' or N00-05'32"E, 1319.25'. Both of the route and courses contain error. The description by aliquot parts has no ambiguity. That is part of the reason the original government land patents were issued that way. Whethe a quarter, quarter section contained 39 or 41 acres, compare to the nominal 40, it didn't matter.
On another note, if we could get architects to abandon using inches that would be a happy day. They are the only ones in the engineering world that do.
For those that don't know surveyors and civil engineers use decimal feet.
 
#29 ·
Well said.:good2: I have one sitting here right now that I was worried about as the homeowner had done some measuring for themselves prior to calling us out. They knew their deed called for their back line to measure 175' across, which would put the corner over into what the neighbor is occupying. Our folks were ready to kick the neighbor off. However, our client's deed calls for the back line to be established by splitting the distance in half between 2 roads and then goes on to say, being approximately 175'. Once you determine the half way point between the roads, the back line ends up at about 166' across and falls right in line with everybody's occupation. So there you are again, the distances/numbers take a back seat to the half way point between the 2 roads. Luckily my folks understood and are cool.

I do not currently, nor have I ever done work in a Public Lands state. That doesn't mean I didn't have to study the heck out of it for my licensing exam though so I can appreciate your explanations (which are great BTW). I totally agree about architects and their inches. Thank goodness our state agencies have gotten away from using metric. They were going to be the trend setters when they adopted that!
 
#31 ·
This has been a very informative thread - I've learned a lot!

I have an example of what has been talked about with a gully which is a runoff from a culvert pipe from the state road. Before the pipe was installed the old shallow gully was pretty much the line - now since the new culvert was installed that gully is much deeper and ~30' away from the original. When I had my place surveyed when I bought the place the surveyor used the gully as the property line which is actually incorrect. When I look at the footage listed in the deed and measured from a couple pins it shows the old way it was. Even on his own map he provided the measurements to meet up with the old gully but his drawing shows the property line at the present gully.

It hasn't been a problem even with a new resident in the next place for 10 years or so even though he thinks he owns to the gully - no big deal. But the property is up for sale now so when it changes hands I am going to go mark the correct pins nice and brightly.
 
#33 ·
This is an interesting thread!! And timely too as I'm considering hiring a survey to mark one side of our property.

Our entire property was surveyed back in 2000 when the guy that built our house bought the property. The east boundary is the road. The north boundary is a straight line that is pretty well marked with a fence that's about 40 years old. West boundary goes off 90 degrees of the north boundary. Then, for the south boundary, a 90 degree turn with a straight line for about 140'. Then it tapers towards the southeast corner of the property. Our road frontage (east boundary) is 300'. The rear of the property (west boundary) is only 261'. So the south border "tapers" about 39' along a 609' line. (Hopefully that makes sense)

My question for the surveyors is this - Do they make (and would the average surveyor own) a GPS unit that's accurate enough that you could enter the corner points as "Point A" and "Point B" and then follow a line between those points? I'd like to mark the line about every 30-50' along the property border. I can't just find the pins and pull a string taut because the entire line is infested with honeysuckle. And it's just about impossible to walk a straight line through the brush.

I've looked at the aerial mappings on the county website where they've super imposed the property lines on the images. Part of he south neighbor's driveway looks to be only a few feet off property line and it seems like they're encroaching more this way. But I also realize (based on this thread :bigthumb:) that the county's website maps may not be completely accurate.

Any words of wisdom from the surveyor's here?

(Hopefully this thread has already deviated from the OP's original post that I'm not the one hijacking it!! :))
 
#35 ·
Any surveyor worth their salt would have spent the BIG bucks to get a professional grade GPS system. Consumer grade GPS systems are not accurate enough.

The fence doesn't count for doodly-squat as far as I'm concerned as far as being a boundary marker. Fences either make good neighbors, or they cause fights if they encroach onto another person's property.

What matters are legal descriptions, survey pins, monuments, and other legally accepted waypoints. Unless there is a change in direction requiring a pin; I doubt very much a surveyor would add intermediate waypoint pins on a straight line. This would add unnecessary verbiage to the legal description and drawings.

I wouldn't rely on the GIS (Geographic Information Systems) data you find on the county's website to be accurate. What little I know about GIS is that it can be accurate; but it all depends on the person doing the work and the quality and quantity of information available to them. Some counties are pretty accurate, others not so much.

Get an estimate from a surveyor(s) to see if it fits in your budget.

Damn, I didn't get a chance to do the legal description translation I meant to do for the group, as I was working on property and stormwater taxes for our properties today. :banghead:
 
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#38 ·
I have made surveying a hobby and have managed to find several of my old markers using a transit and a legal description. I have always been interested in OLD SCHOOL surveying and drafting and bought "vintage" equipment off of ebay. As long as it remains a HOBBY I enjoy getting out during the winter months and tinkering with it. In the summer it quickly becomes a JOB because I live in the tropical paradise of Louisiana and the summer months are a hostile environment which takes all enjoyment out of being in the woods. Skeeters, red bugs (chiggers), snakes, thickets that seem to grow a foot a day, 90% humidity and 98 degrees, etc.

I have learned a lot in the short time I've been messing with the stuff. I am amazed at how accurate the old surveyors were when surveying out my land back in the day.
 
#41 ·
I think that is such a neat idea for a hobby! I've always had this constant need to learn something and never thought of looking into something like this. I've always liked simply math and geometry and this seems like a good fit. Wouldn't be able to do it now however but I may do some reading/research on the subject to learn some that way.
 
#39 ·
We "line stake" property lines quite often. For the line stakes we just put in 4' wood lathe. If visibility to the sky is good a surveyor can GPS this all day long. Right about now that window is closing for us. The foliage is getting pretty heavy now, but in the winter we can accurately stake in most wooded areas with GPS. I would recommend getting the same surveyor back to do it.
Also, when I say GPS I really mean GNSS since we also use GLONASS (Russian satellites ) in conjunction with GPS (American).
This roughly doubles the number of satellites that are available for use at any given time.
 
#58 ·
Oh, who cares if you can't spell, FarmGirl!! It's hard to beat a cute, Texas blonde that flies and likes tractors! :bigthumb:

Has Hank Jr. every sang a song about women from Alaska? He sure has about women from Texas!! :usa
 
#63 · (Edited)
OK, I said frak it concerning property taxes and decided to work on the legal description post I kinda-sorta promised the group.

I don't have Surveyor's knowledge, training, background, and experience; but I'm a firm believer that regardless of the profession that language should be used to easily and clearly communicate intentions, not obscure things behind flowery language just because it's always been done this way. That's why I despise the 'Shakespearean legalese' used in legal descriptions for property. An average person should be able to read and understand a property legal description without getting a lawyer, civil engineer/designer, or surveyor involved to decipher it.

To Surveyor and his colleagues; I am in awe of what you do as you have to measure with a high degree of accuracy a semi-spherical planet with so many bumps and gashes in it that it makes an acne plagued teenager's face look downright smooth. Add into the mix of vegetation, water, foul weather, traffic, critters, etc; and you definitely earn your pay. :thumbup1gif:

OK, attached are some files I spent making today.

The first image is a close-up of Section 21 from a USGS map. The second is a site plan of the development where our bare dirt is. The third is a close-up of our dirt. The fourth image is a screen grab of the legal description on the cover sheet drawing of our dirt's subdivision. The last three images illustrate why I despise artsy-fartsy architectural fonts on drawings as they are a PITA to read, especially with reduced and/or poorly reproduced copies.

The PDF file shows the current legal description from our title insurance documentation, followed by my simplified version that removed the flowery language. The last page of the PDF shows how I would have done the survey; but and that's a big but; I have no idea why the surveyor chose the northeast corner of Section 21 as his master benchmark when the southeast corner would have made more sense since that is a corner of the development. The northwest and southwest corners of Section 21 would have been impractical as they essentially lie at the bottom of a dry creek with a high creek bank directly east of those point.

Although my word counts are slightly less than what is commonly written for a property's legal description, which are easier to understand for the average person?

By the way, surveyor's measurements are interpreted as follows; 'North 00 Degrees 28 Minutes 17 Seconds West' means the surveyor is 'looking' north, and then swings his/her equipment over to the left (west) the amount shown.
 

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#66 ·
OK, I said frak it concerning property taxes and decided to work on the legal description post I kinda-sorta promised the group.

I don't have Surveyor's knowledge, training, background, and experience; but I'm a firm believer that regardless of the profession that language should be used to easily and clearly communicate intentions, not obscure things behind flowery language just because it's always been done this way. That's why I despise the 'Shakespearean legalese' used in legal descriptions for property. An average person should be able to read and understand a property legal description without getting a lawyer, civil engineer/designer, or surveyor involved to decipher it.

To Surveyor and his colleagues; I am in awe of what you do as you have to measure with a high degree of accuracy a semi-spherical planet with so many bumps and gashes in it that it makes an acne plagued teenager's face look downright smooth. Add into the mix of vegetation, water, foul weather, traffic, critters, etc; and you definitely earn your pay. :thumbup1gif:
Thanks for the praise, much appreciated[emoji106]? I am going to let surveyor handle your questions. I have never worked in a Public Lands state, so he will be more of an expert. I had to study it for my licensing exam, but that was a decade ago and I don't want to give you inaccurate info.


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#64 ·
A neighbor just sold their property. They had only been there 5 years. They had already moved, when I noticed a strange truck hanging around, so went to check it out. Turned out to be a surveyor. He told me he could not find the pic at one corner of the property, but knew it was there 5 years ago, as he did the survey then. I told him he might want to look a little more on the other neighbor's property, as the current owners that were selling had put up a new fence, due to the second neighbor's livestock tearing down the first one, and to avoid the BS from that neighbor, the fence was placed a few inches more on the seller's property.

This is the second property I have had a surveyor tell me they could not find one corner pin, and the other time was similar. Fence was a few inches more on one property, and in that instance it was due to a severe slope that was not conducive to holding a fence.

Both were found, but I wonder......If you don't find a pin easily, do you not look a few inches from where you expect it to be, or just give up and say, "I can't find it"? I mean, what are the odds I'd be around two different properties with the issue, if that is not a common issue? So, why don't they look as much as a foot away from a fence corner? :unknown:
 
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#65 ·
I always look in a large radius around where the stake was originally located, as sometimes they get "relocated". I had a client call those relocated stakes "Midnight Movers" once! If the stake is in fact gone, then we will reset a new stake in the same spot.


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