We are having a discussion in our office. The only place that I have seen a bend in a section line that was not at an aliquot part, was in court cases.
How would you handle this scenario dealing with the South line of the SE 1/4 of Section 21 that was monumented at both ends?:
Land south of the line was aliquot description before being annexed into city, a subdivision plat was recorded showing several residential lots, and monuments were set 20 years ago. Houses have been built and all lots have been occupied.
Farmland on the North side of the section line is still described as aliquot parts. Owner wants to develop. Monuments from the subdivision 20 years ago end up North of the section line by anywhere from a couple of hundredths to 0.8'. Surveyor that set them agrees that they are over the section line, but is putting a great deal of emphasis on the fact that the lots have been monumented, improved, and occupied for 20 years. Owner of farmland is not interested in fighting over the land between the monumented section line and the subdivision monuments. If there was a kink in the section line at one of the monuments, the rest would fall fairly neatly on the "kinked" section line.
What are your thoughts?
I agree with the surveyor that set them over 20 years ago.
Or on the other hand, it sounds like a lot of fun and entertainment in getting the neighbors, title companies, mortgage companies, utilities, etc., all hiring lawyers and fighting over a "couple of hundredths to 0.8'?" Gee, I bet someone could even file a complaint against the surveyor of the subdivision with the licensing board for incompetence because he can't measure and set stakes for sour owl poop...........
east-west section lines bend anyway,,,,,,,,,,
sorry couldn't help it,,,,,,,,,,,
I'd tend to hold the monuments,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, however, .8' is pretty bad for only 20years ago.
The section line doesn't bend. Not in this case anyway. The ownership line bends. Match it and move on.
What makes you think that the corner set 20 years ago is eight tenths over the line? I'm not saying you're incapable of locating it to that degree of accuracy; if you are going to call a set survey mark off, you need to be 100% confident.
I'm saying that a home owner may have moved it.
A couple hundredths doesn't bother me; I wouldn't even mention it.
What if a surveyor twenty years ago set a 1/16th corner 0.8 feet off the line?
The property line has changed by virtue of Recognition & Acquiesence
It sounds like the parties involved are content. Why upset the neighborhood?
That ain't nothin'. Check this out. The northeast section corner is just to the left of the M in Main St. where it intersects Udall Road. The northwest section corner is maybe 100 feet north of where Trego Road intersects 220th Road/Highway 39. The north quarter corner is in the trees north of 220th Road on the extension of the road projecting southwesterly towards it. So there is a significant deflection at the north quarter corner and another deflection a bit more than one-quarter mile to the northeast of that. Properties on both sides are aliquot descriptions and are occupied to the old road that dead ends at the small creek. This has existed since sometime prior to 1926. Oh, about forgot to mention that this is a Section 24 where the record indicates the line was run from the northwest quarter straight to the northeast corner and then returned to set the north quarter corner a link or two from the random line that missed the existing northeast corner by twice that amount.
Paden Cash hosted a seminar at the OSLS Convention in 2014. One of the things he talked about is how the N and S 1/4 corner got set. Meaning how they really got set. The lowliest lackey on the crew got sent back to move the temporary corner to the true line. If that even happened.
I bet most of them were simply stubbed in. It's not like anyone was checking, an easy way to speed up the survey?
Areas such as the one shown are responsible for my very negative attitude towards the great works of fiction known as the Field Notes for the Government surveys in this area. The discussions of following the Earth's curvature on east-west lines is ludicrous when we are starting out with outright lies in the "GOSPEL" as written by the original surveyors. The phrase, "your mileage may vary", must apply as so many of you actually believe the Field Notes that are applicable to your projects.
The Section line and the line of occupation are not coincident. If all elements are met the monuments control the boundary. The Section remains unchanged.
I have seen cases where a controlling intermediate monument 'kinked' a subsection line at a place other than an aliquot corner. These are limited to evidence of the original surveys. As I understand it not all BLM offices follow that line of thinking.
On other notes...
I see a lot of comments about fraudulent notes and procedures. In over 35 years (half of it here in the northwest) I've only encountered a few blatant cases. Can anyone point me to a specific township?
Thanks, Tom
I believe Jerry Penry provided a link once to a report of some kind detailing the apparent shortcut version applied by a specific surveyor in Nebraska who did many townships. He had determined a minimalistic pattern of moving through a township to set corners that totally violated the method set forth in the instructions. The standard pattern required the surveyors filling in the sections after the range lines and township lines had been monumented to traverse 125 miles after starting at the southwest corner of Section 36. This specific surveyor's plan involved less than half that distance as I recall.
Another apparent practice was to have two or more crews working independently approaching one another. Invariably there would be a kink where they met. The picture below shows a kink in a range line that was reported to have been traversed in a single pass from south to north. The offset is in the 200-300 foot range. The section corner at the intersection of 130th Road and Udall Road is a township corner. I'm pretty sure they didn't stop for the day at that corner, wake up the next morning and take off heading northeasterly instead of north, go a half mile, realize their mistake, reset their compass and continue northward knowing they had been off course.
Take a look at Holy Cow's initial example just west of Stark, Kansas. For several sections north of his example it appears the quarter corners were stubbed in from the west. I'm assuming the GLO plats don't show that. Maybe Holy Cow can confirm that. Also, look in the north or west tier of any township for plenty of fictional GLO notes/plats that indicate wonderfully regular closures onto the section corners set previously on the township lines. I have one on a current job where about 600 feet of departure exists on the east line of Section 4 (all 3 original corners found since the 1970's), where the original survey plat/notes and a subsequent completion survey plat/notes show almost zero departure. That 600 feet all shows up in the north half mile, so you suspect they didn't run it at all, or if they did, they lied. Either way, this part of their notes is pure fiction. Meanwhile, patentees and their successors occupied the land based on the plat (they apparently didn't think to look 9 or 10 chains from where the survey said the corner was, and didn't find the corner) which is all "fine" until a modern surveyor ignores that occupation and breaks down the section using just the math. The PLSS is an imperfect system made less perfect by dishonest survey execution.
