Last year, a survey on my property revealed a found monument at the northwest corner. Later, I discovered the monument had been moved during a water main installation project by the county water department. Unfortunately, the surveyor did not verify the monument's location and used a new location to relocate my property into a 15-foot private roadway along the east side of my property. This relocation also allowed my neighbor to create a new driveway along our shared boundary. My question is whether a reliable surveyor will place the monument in its original location or keep it in the new site.
It's unlikely your surveyor did anything wrong. His opinion was likely correct based on the evidence present to him at the time of the survey. Change the evidence, change the opinion.
If you haven't done so already, contact your surveyor and share with him the information you discovered along with the contact info of its source. He has every right to charge you additional fees if he determines the new evidence to be sufficient. I would want to speak directly with the person who moved the monument or someone who saw it being moved. Absent that, I would likely stick with my original opinion.
You may want to use tact in this situation as the county water department might come down with amnesia if they hear about a boundary conflict involving improvements.
Good luck and try your best to keep from assuming foul play or negligence on the part of those involved. This stuff is complicated, verifying a corner is not a 1+1=2 equation. Be willing to compromise even though you did nothing wrong.
@murphy, I do appreciate your response. Thanks to my diligent wife, I have photos of the point where the referenced monument was found, showing a 3-foot wide by 4-feet deep trench at the exact location where the monument was later found. Given my evidence, there is no question whether the monument was moved. In addition, I was not questioning the ethics of my surveyor in my initial post. That is neither here nor there. The facts are that I had a survey performed that found a corner location that does not correspond with previous surveys that identified the monument's location. That survey moved every property along my street about 15 feet east. I will not bother you with the backstory; I only wanted to know if a different surveyor would correct that corner location, given the evidence shows the monument was moved.
Last year, a survey on my property revealed a found monument ..... Unfortunately, the surveyor did not verify the monument's location
- This surveyor did something, but if he did not verify the location of the monument then he didn't do a survey. Probably you hired him to come out an locate your monuments. Which is a different thing. Last week in another thread I commented on how when surveyors provide services like this, to keep costs low, people assume that -because a surveyor did something - they have had a survey done. They have not.
- If the water project destroyed your monument the water project is responsible for restoring it. At their expense.
- It could be that the monument your surveyor recovered wasn't your property corner after all. Sometimes a iron rod is just an iron rod.
- I could be that this new monument isn't intended to mark your corner. It may, possibly, be marking a right of way centerline. Or something else.
Any reputable surveyor will restore a lost monument in its original location to the extent that the evidence allows. Regardless of who may be paying the freight. Failure to do so could easily result in revocation of his license to practice. This threat of losing his livelihood is enough to keep the vast majority in line. So it is very unlikely that this is the problem here. In my 34 years in this business I've seen mistakes made and I've seen corners cut, but I've never seen an outright fraudulent survey.
Later, I discovered the monument had been moved during a water main installation project by the county water department.
How did you discover the monument had been moved? Did someone in the neighborhood claim it was moved or did the company doing the water main installation state they had moved it?
I have been told monuments had been moved for a variety of reasons over the years. Sometimes, that is so, but it has been fairly rare. More often than not, it has been a case of someone assuming a monument has been moved because it is not exactly where they wanted it to be.
If you had a survey done, then the surveyor should have confirmed that the location of the monument made sense by comparing its location to other monuments before accepting the current location as correct.
One approach would be to simply call your surveyor and tell them the claim that it was moved and where that claim came from. They would probably want to check it out and see if there is validity to that claim.
@Norman Oklahoma, I greatly appreciate your insight regarding my situation. I have arranged for an experienced surveyor to provide his services. I must admit I was worried about the second survey, but your comments have given me hope and alleviated my concerns. I am truly grateful for your knowledge and consider you a blessing. Thank you so much! Regarding my first survey, I was led to believe I was receiving a boundary survey, as you pointed out, and I have found from other individuals that I may not have received that service. That is water under the bridge, and I hope this will be resolved soon. Thank you again!!!
Utility contractors in my experience are notorious for knocking out corners and not paying to have them replaced properly. Water lines are buried to a minimum depth and its blow and go. Time is money.
If a surveyor doesn’t verify the location of the monument he should retire. To be fair you should talk to the surveyor you hired and ask him to explain how he determined the location of the corner. That is a reasonable.request. I’d stop by the utility company and get them to pay for the costs and let them go after the contractor. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
Fence builders are frequently even worse. They will pull the monument, drill their hole, set their post and then stab the monument back in the ground somewhere near the post (where they can actually do so). Then along comes a survey tech looking for a bar. BAMM! There it is.
then stab the monument back in the ground somewhere near the post (where they can actually do so). Then along comes a survey tech looking for a bar. BAMM! There it is.
Better yet...next to the post in the wet concrete. GRRRRR.
I want to express my gratitude to everyone who responded. Most of you agree that I should have contacted the surveyor who conducted the work and explained my concerns. This should result in an explanation of the evidence upon which the survey was based. I did as most of you suggested some months ago, and initially, the surveyor stated that "the monument takes precedence" and that the survey was accurate. However, when I presented evidence of the monument being moved, the surveyor returned to my property and provided three different survey drawings, all different and dated on the same day as the original survey. He did not verify the monument's placement in question or explain it to me. When I questioned him during his last visit to my property, he stated, "That is my opinion. If you don't like it, get another survey." He also made a comment about putting further into my neighbor's driveway and causing a dispute. All three surveys altered my east boundary (where he had stated he would place it to create an argument with my neighbor), but none changed the west side of my property, where I had evidence the monument was moved. Once again, I appreciate everyone's time. I will update you after the new surveyor has completed the job.
