clearcut
It is also obvious that I do not speak for BLM anymore and the gentlemen that gave this presentation do.
But, I don't think they established a new concept!
Keith
clearcut
But
Read your posted note from the BLMers and you will see that it is directly in context with the discussion here on junior corners on senior lines.
That is the point.
Reread and read again, the closing phrase in the above BLM presentation sign.
Everybody!!
Keith
I have a question for those of you who would bend the line.
(I am not taking either side of the debate since I need to see this stuff in the field to get a feel for the conditions etc.)
If you were doing this survey for a development of some type would you feel comfortable holding the bent line for offsets if your client wanted to build tight to the north line?
I know that we're talking a foot and a half but suppose your client wanted to build as tight as possible? Or, if you were creating a subdivision would you create minimum size lots including the overlap area? How sure of your decision are you?
Dtp
PS For the record, I am a "hold the bounds" kind of surveyor, in MOST SITUATIONS.
How do you come to the rational decision to ignore a monument that everyone has been using for 35 years?
The alternative is a massive gap and overlap concept and that should be easily understood by all and does not protect land tenure.
Imagine the opposite here, foggyidea, what happens if you ignore the monument after the land owners on both sides of that monument have built their houses close to the line and you come along and move the line?
The landowners have had faith in the survey 35 years ago and used the line through the monument since then.
Keith
For you non-benders
If in fact you hold to the concept that you will never, ever, bend a senior line through a junior corner, then you have reduced your judgement to a simple black and white answer,and I don't think that will hold up anywhere where it is challenged.
Land surveying principles can never be exact black and white concepts.....period!
Keith
Accept or reject?>Keith
Good non-answer Keith...
My client has no bearing (no pun intended) on my findings or decisions.
I would have said "If I find something near where I'm looking it is my duty to consider it valid evidence of the deed" a bit differently, but this is basically how I operate. When I was a neophyte I could tell you to the thousandth of a foot how far every monument I found was out of position. After I got licensed and began to learn how much I didn't know I changed my thought process. Now I am like linebender, if I find a monument the burden of proof is on me to prove that it isn't marking the corner. Just because I recently calibrated my instrument on a baseline doesn't give me the right (or authority) to reject a monument.
Accept or reject?>Keith
I think Keith answered it quite well.
Why would your decision on the finding a previously established line (resurvey) be affected by the planned land use? If you make a well reasoned decision, based on the best available evidence, and teh law, it will stand the same tests if the landowner decides to build a multi-million dollar building or a very cheap chicken coop. How does the intended use of the land change the evidence found and the laws applied?
Great post Jim
I would call that rationale an awakening to the real world!
Some stick with their slogans, because that is the way it is done around here, and do not consider the alternative.
Keith
Accept or reject?>Keith
My question was related to the confidence in the decision. I would have no problem bending the line and holding it for setbacks and running tight to the line.
Keith did not answer whether he would do that or play safe...
If you know there's a question on a line and a potential for dispute would you deliberately run tight to the line or play it safe?
We all know that there are differing standards for different properties, some places 1.5' would be nothing, other places it could be critical...
Accept or reject?>Keith
I really don't think there is a question about what I would do, after all my postings?
Keith
Accept or reject?>Keith
I think it is a good question. I think you should ask yourself that question every time you are considering to accept an existing pin. But I would say that once I accepted a pin and showed my distance and bearings through the pin I am 'bound' to hold it in your given situation. (I would always encourage trying to talk the owner into giving himself at least a little 'play' room. It's always scary staking a building at the precise offset distance. You don't know how precisely they will build the building to your hubs.)
PS. I don't know what a "hold the bounds" type of guy is. Is that a guy that considers the straight line between the farther points the bounds, or is that the kind of guy that considers the junior pins the bounds? Your later statement, implies that you would "bend" throught the pins.
Great post Jim
A section line once surveyed and relied on should remain stable with no section line kinking between established monuments, that seems to be the case here and the section line was well monumented with monuments in place when this tract was created and fenced, lord knows where the pins came from. A section line is part of the foundation of aliquot parts, as such it is controlling for all land division on both sides of the line, so kinking the line has the potential to do unintended harm to others. Don't kink the line because it can effect others, what you should be doing is working with both owners to make some deed corrections to match occupation. Around here most land owners would recognize the section line and when major repairs were needed to the fence, to move it to the line, imports excepted. There does reach a point of development when less reliance on the section lines is normal, but while controlling others, kinking around one owner can cheat others.
jud
Accept or reject?>Keith
I would probably bend the line. oh, and I agree with you Chain, I try to get a half a foot "wiggle" room..
Accept or reject?>Keith
some places 1.5' would be nothing, other places it could be critical...
I think the poster stated that the NW corner was 0.5' north of the line.
I can say that I have accepted numerous BLM monumets that are quite a bit further "off" than 0.5' along interior section lines. I even had a fencer ask why my lines weren't straight when the lines were supposed to be (I was suprised just how visible the kink was). They would kink at the BLM 1/256 or the 1/64 corner. These are resurvey corners set during section retracements. And a few of them are private survey monuments that were accepted by the BLM, so should I reject the BLM brass cap because they are "off" or because they accepted private monuments that are "off"?
For most of the rural surveys I do 0.5' is almost nothing. And a monument from the 1970's well.....
> 
>
> There are aliqout corners at each end of the straight line with corner records. The box is described from the west corner. The description was created at the same time the corner record was 35 years ago. "400 ft east of the .....corner, thence south..., thence east..., thence north..., thence west to POB. There is no record survey. There was no recording law 35 years ago. The boxed lines are fenced and there are re rod with no Kaps at all four corners and the aliquot corner. There is no boundary dispute at this time. If it's important to you the distance from the straight line to the NW corner of the box is half a foot and it on a hilltop. The measured distances fit the deed distances ok if that is an issue for you. Accept the rerod as the boundary? Does section line bend or are the rerod treated as closing corners? If so, what imact is there on the back line? Does the owner of the box have unwritten rights in the adjacent alquot part? Inquiring minds want to know. Come on now, this is a common situation, right? Let's air some dirty laundry.
One thing I haven't seen answered is...where the rebar set at the time of conveyance of the property? We run into this issue a few times a year around here and for the most part if there is no evidence that the corners were set at the time the parcel was created then they do not hold because they are not original corners and were set after the parcel was created. If there is evidence the corners were set as part of the original conveyance/deed creation than there is substantially more weight to hold the corners as is.
I live and work in recording states so I have no idea how this would pan out in states that don't have this requirement....talk about headaches imo.
On the old pipe vs stone thread, I am convinced that was a hypothetical scenario that took off into a very long thread.
However, in that case there was an actual monument, not just a line imagined in the writings.
The parcel to the north has everything in their Title which goes up to the physical location of the Section line on the south. There is no absolute requirement in the law that the line has to be perfectly straight. Well not straight, curved, but you know what I mean.
Where is the headache in recognizing reality?
Even if the rebars were set 20 years after the original conveyance but they were used from that day forward then where is the problem?
There isn't one until a Land Surveyor comes along and starts disturbing long held occupation.
Dave
This type of survey always gives me pause..... not because I'm worried about my conclusions being correct, not because the landowners may not understand, and not because of the title companies. What worries me most is that invariably some mathemagician type "surveyor" will come along behind me someday, and not knowing or understanding the principles and laws involved, will stir things up by either telling the landowners "someone stole some property", or some other assinine accusation.
It seems more and more often, the problems encountered by surveyors are those created by other surveyors. I was sure hoping that continuing education requirements would eventually pay off by educating surveyors what the laws actually are. Oh well........... we keep trying.....
Just where did all these mythical "rules" that many people keep quoting come from????
> Where is the headache in recognizing reality?
>
> Even if the rebars were set 20 years after the original conveyance but they were used from that day forward then where is the problem?
>
> There isn't one until a Land Surveyor comes along and starts disturbing long held occupation.
If the rebars were not set as part of the original conveyance, thus losing all connection to what was actually sold on the ground between the grantor and grantee then the surveyor that set the pins has set them in error. I am not going to put an angle point in the section line just because someone can't set a pin online between a section corner and 1/16 corner.
While the owner to the south may have an adverse possession claim, he has no claim to anothers property merely because non original(meaning NOT set at the time of conveyance) pins are set there.
Don't get me wrong I see some of the logic in what you and others have posted but I respectfully disagree and from the 1000's of surveys I have seen and done in this area I can say that around here most would not create an angle point in the section line in this instance.
