There have been a number of posts here recently dwelling on the subject matter of deed vs. monument. And to be clear, nothing I can ever say will ever make the matter any clearer for posterity. The answer to any discrepancy between the two is unique to the available evidence. I got to thinking about something the other day and realized there may be more cases where we as surveyors acquiesce to the written word than we realize; in the case of easements and rights-of-way.
Although I still get my share of "real surveying" the lion's share of my business for the last ten years has been providing R/W services for public utility providers. Before I slipped down that slippery slope I was of the opinion that such matters were "just" easements. And I'm sure I wasn't then alone. Previously I had a tendency to focus mainly on boundary locations and the easements were just something we added to the drawing right before we pressed "Ctrl-P". But easements are so much more, believe me.
My State's minimum standards are vague about surveys for easements. Time and time again easement preparation, documentation, location and monumentation has been determined to not fall in the "land survey" category. My personal view is that should be corrected. But for now, I'll ride with it,
Easements are a granting or conveyance of rights. I call them the "barnacles" of title. Once they're created, they will stick with the servient estate until Gabriel blows the horn. And I'm pretty sure there will be title attorneys that will argue that point after his horn has blown. These pesky little documents can encumber and infest the title of property and even dictate the nature of the use of property well after the original grantor and grantee have perished. No wonder we call them the "dominant" estate.
But I create hundreds of these encumbrances upon properties annually and I don't monument a single one of them. Also 99.9% of them are conveyed before any physical appurtenance is in place. Where does that leave the fella twenty years from now that is trying to ascertain the limits of these rights? In a lot of cases nothing will remain but the written record.
Like everyone else in the business I've got this dream of operating a profitable business. While there are some very small easements that would require a tremendous amount of surveying to locate exactly, I don't have that luxury. Unless stipulated by an addendum to my contract I can charge for three field hours and three PLS hours for any single document within a 4 county area. I generally do OK, but we do concede to the clock in a lot of cases. Seven hundred bucks will only buy you so much.
A good example would be an easement for a rural aerial pole line that leaves the section line and heads into the interior of a section on a quarter or sixteenth line for 800 feet. The engineer has staked this pole line under the assumption the fence is the property line. Let's say (in lieu of no found corners) I can determine the fence is within a foot or two of where I would probably place the quarter or sixteenth corner there on the section line. But the location of the other 'end' of that aliquot line would require some cross-country hiking and a day's worth of field work to determine. Unless I can find record of a previous survey or a filed corner record, I cast that easement's fate to the wind. My client requires a minimum of 30 feet width for a pole line. The conveyed rights in this case will probably read something like "The west 30.0' of the south 800.0' of the E/2 of the SW/4". And perpetual rights will be granted for a piece of ground whose exact location is technically (or at least physically) undetermined...even by the surveyor that prepared the conveyance.
Now in my own defense easements of this nature are the exception, not the rule. Most of what I prepare include recorded corners, bearings, distances and ties to found property corners. Most, but not all. And years from now, when Jeter's pasture is being transformed into a Cadillac Dealership, some surveyor will be performing an ALTA on the property. One of the easements he or she will be required to show will actually be "The west 30.0' of the south 800.0' of the E/2 of the SW/4"...not where I, the field engineer or the fence placed it, but where the current survey data places it.
I think this happens a lot more than we realize. Barring any statement like, "A 30' easement centered by 15' both sides of a pole line..." posterity will only have the written word on which to depend when it comes to locating the extents of this conveyance.
We really do yield to the deed a lot more than some of us would admit.
A pole line reference is only good when the original pole is in place.
When a pole is replaced, the next pole can be several feet away.
Many times the local Electric Coop will cut the original pole off near ground level.
Not many poles are actually centered on the staked position.
The same with underground utilities, they are laid in the hole and not necessarily centered in the easement.
Much the same with fences, they are built in a straight line with the outside of the corner post most of the time and in the case of my newest neighbor, the corner posts were almost put centered on the monuments and the fence is set one foot onto her property.
A Harris, post: 400528, member: 81 wrote: A pole line reference is only good when the original pole is in place.
When a pole is replaced, the next pole can be several feet away.
Many times the local Electric Coop will cut the original pole off near ground level.
Not many poles are actually centered on the staked position.
The same with underground utilities, they are laid in the hole and not necessarily centered in the easement.
Much the same with fences, they are built in a straight line with the outside of the corner post most of the time and in the case of my newest neighbor, the corner posts were almost put centered on the monuments and the fence is set one foot onto her property.
Very few of my easements have any facilities in place at the time they're prepared. At least once a week I get asked to locate an easement from 1946 that is written as 'following a pole line' and nothing remains...not even the barn where the line terminated. Some are fun, some are a pain in the butt. The client usually vacates those for a new and improved description.
Something else that occurs occasionally, usually with commercial sites: The field engineer sticks flags in the ground and we write the easement following his flag line. Somewhere between a week and a month later the trenching crew gets out there. Missing flags and construction debris thrown about can leave the trenching crew (not rocket surgeons) to guess. Six months later the bank is trying to close the deal and a surveyor is hired to perform an as built. Sure enough, my client's facilities are outside of the recorded easement. We dance back out there and locate the now existing line and prepare another easement.
I've shown my client several scenarios where this can be usurped, but have failed in altering their 'status-quo' procedures. I don't guess I mind, it all pays the same.
Somehow our local Electric Coop gets to write their own easement descriptions without their being signed and sealed by anyone.
Those metes and bounds are stepped off and maybe measured with a compass and a wheel at best.
Most of the utilities go inside a highway r/w or inside the margins of a public road.
Someway, the Counties have allowed any utility to be built down our public roads without getting an easement from the actual property owners.
There is the constant problem with none of them being placed at a sufficient depth to avoid being destroyed by road maintenance and deep enough to destroy all monuments in the roadway and none of them are liable for that destruction.
For some reason they always set the transformer poles and phone pedestals and water meters where the reference monuments fall along the margins of any road or highway.
A Harris, post: 400537, member: 81 wrote: Somehow our local Electric Coop gets to write their own easement descriptions without their being signed and sealed by anyone....
Signing and sealing is not a requirement up here either. And for years most have relied upon a "blanket" easement for outside of public R/W easements on private property. I personally don't feel there is anything wrong with a blanket easement, but to be fair to the property owner the utility company's rights should be defined. At least that's what the seminars they attend are telling them.
What has transpired over the last 10 years with a number of our co-ops is the people in charge are attending these seminars. Liability is a big issue with power companies. I think a lot of people are realizing the necessity of easements in this brave new world in which we live. Their legal departments are a big driving force in making sure all of their outside plant rests within a dedicated easement or R/W. And for a couple of years the engineering department attempted to prepare their own RW docs. Some aren't too bad; the north 10' of Lot 6, Block 1 of Booger's Estates is really hard to mess up. But the co-ops are usually rural in nature with metes and bounds being the uniform of the day.
I ran into a co-op engineer on a highway widening project about ten years ago. We were staking relocated facilities for Oklahoma Gas & Electric, a larger and statewide utility provider. The highway department was depending on the co-op to provide their own R/W documents, but the facility engineer failed miserably at his attempt to write the descriptions and was out there looking like a lost puppy and it was lunch time..... After a couple of meetings we struck a deal and I began consulting with them. I have not only continued on and enlarged my responsibilities with them but word of mouth has provided me with a couple of other co-ops. They keep me busy.
In the past I have staked many cross country, upgrades and supply runs for electric companies.
Their metes and bounds are actually a description along the staked centerline with an offset either side of.
My problem with their doing their own descriptions is when they call a pole location or make mention a station number as being on the boundary of certain properties they cross.
Most of the time that is an eyeballed or estimated location.
IMVHO, doing so is beyond their knowledge and purpose to provide for the public's needs.
They have become simply too tight to hire surveyors.
Every office has someone that has surveyed before that speaks up they can do that, and boom, another former IMan or pole holder is now the chief surveyor for the Coop.
State law has every major utility hiring surveyors with the exception of the ones in the nonprofit status.
They do not have the right to use the blanket easements because they were written to the major companies and are not transferable without them owing the major transmission line.
New easements are necessary to cross another person's property to get to a new customer.
Many people do not give easements across their property without proper compensation and others not at any cost and some properties are left without power for long periods until agreements are made on another route.
The majority of the easements that I have surveyed and prepared the easement documents for were sanitary sewer lines. We actually staked the lines on the ground and sketches and written documents made from the surveys. Anyone who has staked and/or installed sewer lines knows that "adjustments" are made frequently. The descriptions almost always stated that the easement is "centered on the sanitary sewer line hereinafter installed" and the easement "begins where the line enters the property and ends where the line exits the property". It sure does save a lot of questions later. Our sketches of the easement are attached to the written part so no stamp or signature is required. I don't believe I have ever monumented property that was not granted as fee simple.
Andy
My state has recently added the requirement that any easements shown on a boundary survey must be monumented. Only when they run with a property line are we not required to monument them. I haven't run into a situation where the survey was for the easement rather than the property boundary, but it makes sense that the requirement would be the same.
Arrgg!! Well, at least an easement that is called to be 30' wide along the south end of a certain section is identifiable. I have been chasing a few easements lately that were written to be a 30' wide strip, 15' each side of the pipe as laid across the section. This pipe was buried in the 40's. They want it located, but can't understand why it would cost more than a couple hours to figure where it is (nope, it doesn't run a straight line. It enters on the north side, and leaves on the west side, there is a PI someplace). As much as I would like to call Mr Cash names and tell him he owes me a hamburger for his practice, I do understand how and why some easements end up like this. (I don't write easements except for things that require plans, so I really can't make more comments about not monumenting) I always took the notion that a 30' easement with the CL being the midline of the pole and not described could change if new poles were put into place, because it was agreed that the easement would be the center of the poles, wherever they ended up.
Monte, post: 400596, member: 11913 wrote: Arrgg!! Well, at least an easement that is called to be 30' wide along the south end of a certain section is identifiable. I have been chasing a few easements lately that were written to be a 30' wide strip, 15' each side of the pipe as laid across the section. This pipe was buried in the 40's. They want it located, but can't understand why it would cost more than a couple hours to figure where it is (nope, it doesn't run a straight line. It enters on the north side, and leaves on the west side, there is a PI someplace). As much as I would like to call Mr Cash names and tell him he owes me a hamburger for his practice, I do understand how and why some easements end up like this. (I don't write easements except for things that require plans, so I really can't make more comments about not monumenting) I always took the notion that a 30' easement with the CL being the midline of the pole and not described could change if new poles were put into place, because it was agreed that the easement would be the center of the poles, wherever they ended up.
Easements for buried utilities specifically tied to the line are definitely a pain in the butt. Ran into one not too long ago that had a grainy 8.5 x 11 map filed with it that showed the pipeline straight through the quarter section. For some reason the locator was only able to get a tone on portions of the line, and it appeared fairly straight...until they got to a large creek. The dozer clearing for transmission line R/W actually uncovered the pipeline about 50' from the 'straight' line. When the line was placed the crew apparently "jogged" to clear the deepest part of the creek. Although the pipe wasn't compromised it got everybody's attention real quick.
A couple of years ago I gave a presentation to a group of title attorneys about what they should expect from a survey. I was the only the surveyor in the room with 40+ title attorneys (they soon realized they were seriously out numbered). One of the attorneys, who has a very profitable business doing title work and closings on commercial real estate, made the statement that his biggest problem was dealing with easements that were vague, and he predicted that easements would be the main reason for title insurance claims in the future.
My home state of Mississippi has by law described the practice of surveying as "Locating, relocating, establishing, resetablishing, laying out or retracing any property boundary or easement" since the early 80's and the Licensing Board has disciplined surveyors for not monumenting easements for over 20 years. The Standards of Practice (which is a Board Rule) were revised recently to clarify that easements and rights-of-way are boundaries in Mississippi and must be monumented just as a property line.
Of course, as with anything that involves attorneys, there is an exception for utility companies, which is very complicated. the short version is if the easement or right of way is "measured" by an employee of the utility, they do not have to be licensed. But, if the utility contracts or hires someone to do this, they must be a licensed surveyor and must perform the survey to standards.
Joe W. Byrd, post: 400621, member: 10015 wrote: ... revised recently to clarify that easements and rights-of-way are boundaries in Mississippi and must be monumented just as a property line..
I agree wholeheartedly. The largest argument among my colleagues here in Oklahoma is just a bunch of "what ifs?" What if two easements don't jive? What if an easement monument is mistaken for a property corner? What if, what if, what if...and it seems as though a lot of surveyors get indignant when you start talking about making surveys more informative, complete or comprehensive. And I hear a lot of grumbling from surveyors that want to squeal there would be an increase in their liability if physically monumenting easements were a requirement. That's BS. If you feel good enough about your location to put in on paper, putting it on the ground is merely punctuation.
paden cash, post: 400624, member: 20 wrote: If you feel good enough about your location to put in on paper, putting it on the ground is merely punctuation.
Amen Bro Preach It.
Monte, post: 400596, member: 11913 wrote: Arrgg!! Well, at least an easement that is called to be 30' wide along the south end of a certain section is identifiable. I have been chasing a few easements lately that were written to be a 30' wide strip, 15' each side of the pipe as laid across the section. This pipe was buried in the 40's. They want it located, but can't understand why it would cost more than a couple hours to figure where it is (nope, it doesn't run a straight line. It enters on the north side, and leaves on the west side, there is a PI someplace). As much as I would like to call Mr Cash names and tell him he owes me a hamburger for his practice, I do understand how and why some easements end up like this. (I don't write easements except for things that require plans, so I really can't make more comments about not monumenting) I always took the notion that a 30' easement with the CL being the midline of the pole and not described could change if new poles were put into place, because it was agreed that the easement would be the center of the poles, wherever they ended up.
[SARCASM]
What??? You can't locate it? Get out your witching wires and go to town. Should be close enough, right?[/SARCASM]
I do not think requiring monumentation of easements is a good idea in some cases. That was a requirement in Texas in the late 70s for a while and it did confuse the retraceability on the ground of the boundary in some subdivisions. If you are working in a platted subdivision and had to set pins on every wall, water, sewer, open space and power easement, well in some places you'd have a healthy pin farm in some yards. I think if the easements are tied to sufficient boundary markers, then you won't have a problem retracing the easements without throwing unnecessary scrap iron in someone's tulip bed.
As for transmission line easements running cross country through a large acreage tracts, sure, why not monument the angle points and the points where the easement crosses the boundary line. I would suggest to leave monumenting eaements to the discretion of the responsible RPLS. But then again, there have been those cut-rate discount operators who won't take the time and effort to do it when it is needed.
I suppose what I'm saying is that it depends.
You need a different type of cap or tag for easement monuments to reduce confusion (at least the fonfusion for those thorough enough to read stamping or look at a plat).
I don't know how common it is, but I've seen plats with yellow caps for boundary monuments and pink caps for reference and other points.
Paden,
This statement from your OP really interests me: "... the lion's share of my business for the last ten years has been providing R/W services for public utility providers."
How in the H*LL do you get utility providers to pay for surveying services?! Out here that is the last thing they would EVER consider. I have spoken to a number of providers about this and get a blank stare. They just set up their directional boring machines and off they go... I know of several spots where I am 100% certain they aren't in an easement of any sort (I have Title Reports), but they don't seem to think its an issue. I guess they haven't gotten burned yet. I presume that's why your providers care...
paden cash, post: 400624, member: 20 wrote: And I hear a lot of grumbling from surveyors that want to squeal there would be an increase in their liability if physically monumenting easements were a requirement.
This is the same story I have heard for years from surveyors, not only about easements, but anything that they thinks adds to what they "have" to do. I always tell them what I was told by the surveyor I worked under when getting my license, "If you want a job without liabilty, go push buggies for Wal-Mart."
Andy Nold, post: 400704, member: 7 wrote: I do not think requiring monumentation of easements is a good idea in some cases. That was a requirement in Texas in the late 70s for a while and it did confuse the retraceability on the ground of the boundary in some subdivisions. If you are working in a platted subdivision and had to set pins on every wall, water, sewer, open space and power easement, well in some places you'd have a healthy pin farm in some yards. I think if the easements are tied to sufficient boundary markers, then you won't have a problem retracing the easements without throwing unnecessary scrap iron in someone's tulip bed.
As for transmission line easements running cross country through a large acreage tracts, sure, why not monument the angle points and the points where the easement crosses the boundary line. I would suggest to leave monumenting eaements to the discretion of the responsible RPLS. But then again, there have been those cut-rate discount operators who won't take the time and effort to do it when it is needed.
I suppose what I'm saying is that it depends.
Interesting thoughts Andy. I haven't thought things through near enough, for sure. But in my mind a platted area (with all the easements created simultaneously) probably really wouldn't gain much by having easements monumented within the lot boundaries. The easements are a dependent feature of the lot. And in saying that I also have to say there are surely cases in unplatted areas where the same could be shown. Something to think about for sure.
Jim in AZ, post: 400710, member: 249 wrote: Paden,
This statement from your OP really interests me: "... the lion's share of my business for the last ten years has been providing R/W services for public utility providers."
How in the H*LL do you get utility providers to pay for surveying services?! Out here that is the last thing they would EVER consider. I have spoken to a number of providers about this and get a blank stare. They just set up their directional boring machines and off they go... I know of several spots where I am 100% certain they aren't in an easement of any sort (I have Title Reports), but they don't seem to think its an issue. I guess they haven't gotten burned yet. I presume that's why your providers care...
It's a specialty niche I guess, but definitely growing. I kind of backed into it by helping out on highway project like I described above. What also helped out was the experience I already had with the Land Services Department of the larger statewide electric provider.
A lot of smaller co-ops have been thrust into the 21st. century by technology and it's opening their eyes. Two of my co-op clients actually have an attorney on staff and the others do not. One has a small town"good ol' boy" lawyer retained just in case. Attorneys in the utility business are actually a catalyst for surveying work. Like I said, power providers pay bigass insurance premiums and liability is a big issue. All of them understand there is a 'higher reality' as to whether they are operating within public R/W and dedicated easements. And keeping electrical facilities within prescribed criteria is also a public safety issue.
And it helps that they are considered non-profit organizations (as opposed to quasi-public utilities with stock-holders). They have the revenues and as long as expenses can be justified toward providing service to a subscriber, they are all for it.