Poll - Re-Surveys and the requirement for surveys and survey (Land Surveying)

How could it not be legal for the landowners to have control over the establishment of their common boundary line? Who's land is it? Even the courts can't determine a boundary line other than to settle a dispute between landowners that can't settle the issue themselves.

I was not making any reference to boundary line adjustments. Boundary line adjustments require the conveyance of real estate between the parties. A surveyor can monument the new line and it is being done with the authorization of the landowners which conclude the adjustment by a conveyance recorded in the deed records. So in reality the landowners established the boundary (signed and recorded the conveyance), the surveyor was just the tool to get the work done.

Why isn't getting the landowners authorization realistic. Don't have the time or budget to contact the folks you are taking the liberty of establishing their boundary (adjudicating). Regardless of what the pie in the sky licensing statute states (boiler plate in most states) you won't find any court ruling that states a surveyor can adjudicate and establish an uncertain boundary line between landowners. You can find plenty of case law where the courts accept landowners agreements and establishment of boundaries.

Actually I'd have to agree with you about local agencies taking regulatory control over boundaries. It's due to ignorance and not having a survey profession willing to stand up for landowners and the law.

If you really dig in deep you might discover that the courts frown on rewriting descriptions also. Yeah I know that the regulators continually push to rewrite that description and that someday we will get to some utopia where the math and the records are in perfect alignment. Ain't never going to happen and it doesn't need to. You own the title to your land by the deed description, the first one when the parcel was created. The boundaries are where they were established hopefully by the original document that created them and was done with some mathematical precision. But we all know that wasn't the case for millions of parcels in the past. Even the math in the original PLSS plats is not all that precise (it is what they measured but not all that precise by today's standards). So the deed records give you your title and modern surveys can give the precision of the record and the measured of the established boundary. That's why we record deeds and file survey's in a separate place where they don't affect the deed records.

Maybe I missed out somewhere but I've never been able to retrace what was never done. Find something that never existed, yet it seems surveyors are able to do it every day unilaterally without the knowledge of some of the parties affected. Interesting, eh?

Actually unwritten title transfers never take place, it goes against the Statute of Frauds which requires written conveyances. Establishing an uncertain boundary is NOT A CONVEYANCE it's just locating the boundary between the existing title and doesn't change the title or the description. Yes the precise mathematics may not be exact between the title description and the actual location on the ground but that is more the reality than the exception. How many PLSS 40's you found that were perfectly square and exactly 1320 feet by the most exact measurement possible?

The fabric doesn't fit together perfect by the title records. So what else is new? Doesn't mean its all wrong? For those that need the measurements on a nats butt, go retrace the established boundaries and report the measured vs the record, file the survey so anybody who needs it in the future can find it. Why can't that work? If the boundary is uncertain get the authorization of the landowners to survey a line that they accept and establish the location of their common boundary. It's their right as owners of the land. Yeah and I certainly agree that they can't abuse or misuse this right to establish their common boundary to move a boundary from the location where it should be established according to the evidence.

So is messing with landowners boundaries a business model that should be fine tuned to make the most profit?

Is land surveying something separate from boundary law which can be done without applying the law which is strictly the domain of attorney's?

I don't know, I could save a lot of trouble for many landowners just by inspection of their deeds and just say, contact your attorney, this record is imperfect, ain't going to match up to the total record. There is going to be gaps and overlaps in your title and the section isn't perfectly square like the metes in your deed. It's just a mess but I can stake it on the ground and show you just how messed up the math is, its my business model.

Anyway it took me ten years of asking and debating these questions, research and such to come to where I'm at and I'm sure I have much more to learn. The surveying profession over the last 3 or 4 decades has tried so hard to remove itself from applying the law and convincing itself there is no liability for ignoring the law which is the domain of attorneys only that its no wonder the imperfect record and messed up math have become KING. The real sad part is it is landowners that suffer the consequences, the very folks that need surveyors to help them out. Don't think that the public won't throw those under the bus that cause problems instead of resolving them.

Also a survey of a parcel that has never been surveyed (that can be proven in the record) is a resurvey because the law presumes that a survey was done when the parcel was created. So you would need to overcome that presumption before you can claim you are doing the original survey. So if the parcel is occupied with physical evidence that resembles the record, although not perfect to modern standards, how did that happen? Well somebody measured it out on the ground and the landowners have relied upon that. So it was surveyed and if you resurvey it placing the lines differently (according to the almighty record) you are resurveying placing the lines other than the original survey.

Also a original survey is done for a landowner by their authorization. When a parcel is already created in the record you now have two landowners on each side of the line. So these landowners can authorize the survey of the line, maybe an original survey but both landowners need to authorize and accept the survey for it to be valid. Who owns the land? How can anyone else be in control? Ignoring the landowners rights just defies all logic.

Actually with regards to my 18 month project. I placed the parcel where the existing evidence pointed to it being originally. One of the adjoiners thought they owned the parcel because the owners had been absent for about fifty years. So that was the main conflict. Also all the owners where upset due to the placing of new section monuments by a supposed dependent resurvey that shifted all their boundaries that had been physically in place for about a hundred years. These folks didn't even want a surveyor near their property. But I got them all together, everyone was given the chance for input and in the end they all agreed to where the parcel was placed according to my determination of the original evidence. So in the end the parcel has been located where it was originally with everyone's blessing but it doesn't agree with the modern dependent resurvey which itself was not authorized by the landowners and used proportion to set makers from many miles away which themselves cant be proven to be original. Proportion can be a method of mass boundary destruction when used blindly and in ignorance of lots of other evidence.

I am thinking of the new found liability of legal actions against the surveyor who is engaging in the practice of law by providing legal advice to both parties. Hold on to your wallet and LS card when one of these 'resurveys' takes a turn for the worst and the neighbor engages a real attorney who in turn reports you to the board of licensing.

All people are presumed to know the law. A licensed professional had better know the law in his area of supposed expertise or he is not a true professional. I would much rather be if front a licensing board explaining that I do know the law and have correctly applied it to arrive at my professional opinion concerning the location of a boundary line than trying to convince a board OR a judge that I have no duty to know and apply the laws of property boundaries as a licensed professional. Since when is knowing and correctly applying the law in the performance of ones professional duties prohibited?

Not saying you should refrain from providing an opinion based on experience but the minute you think you understand all the nuances of real estate law is the day you need to sit for the bar.

I don't express my opinions based on experience, I express my opinions of a property boundary location based on evidence, facts derived from that evidence, and the law applied to those facts. That is NOT the practice of law, it the practice of Land Surveying. No, the landowners are not bound by my opinion, but they have hired me to express my correctly formulated opinion. That is the quasi-judicial function I not only perform, but am expected to perform.