I am building a new 1 family house with a detached garage. The driveway to the garage is basically on the property line. The new survey I submitted to the building department with approved plans seem to be conflicting with the neighbors 1963 survey.
The problem is that the back of the neighbor's garage, on the my new survey, is less than a foot away from my property line. On his 1963 survey, it's 2 feet away. On the old survey, before I bought the house(2006), it shows that it is just under 2 feet. Now if I put in the driveway, which is virtually on my survey's property line, it will encroach on his property according to his survey. The garage is junk and he wants a new one, which he asked me to build which got me in this situation in the first place. New zoning requires the garage to be at least 3 feet away from the property line. On his survey, he would have to move it over only a foot. On mine, he would have to move it over over 2 feet. It seems small, but it makes a huge difference.
This house is already 85% built. His attorney seems to be taking his sweet time to contact my attorney to get this resolved. I have consulted another surveying company to get a different opinion, but that may take a while, and I'm bugging out now and don't want to wait that long to get quick advice. Is there anything I can do to move this situation faster? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks
my quick advice: wait for the new survey
(and of course make very sure the new surveyor is aware of all of your info)
good luck
CastorTroy, post: 425965, member: 12693 wrote: I am building a new 1 family house with a detached garage. The driveway to the garage is basically on the property line. The new survey I submitted to the building department with approved plans seem to be conflicting with the neighbors 1963 survey.
The problem is that the back of the neighbor's garage, on the my new survey, is less than a foot away from my property line. On his 1963 survey, it's 2 feet away. On the old survey, before I bought the house(2006), it shows that it is just under 2 feet. Now if I put in the driveway, which is virtually on my survey's property line, it will encroach on his property according to his survey. The garage is junk and he wants a new one, which he asked me to build which got me in this situation in the first place. New zoning requires the garage to be at least 3 feet away from the property line. On his survey, he would have to move it over only a foot. On mine, he would have to move it over over 2 feet. It seems small, but it makes a huge difference.
This house is already 85% built. His attorney seems to be taking his sweet time to contact my attorney to get this resolved. I have consulted another surveying company to get a different opinion, but that may take a while, and I'm bugging out now and don't want to wait that long to get quick advice. Is there anything I can do to move this situation faster? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks
Can you run a string line between corner monuments? It may be the surveys agree on the line but located an old leaning/bowed garage wall at differing heights above ground.
Around here we see this all too often. Mostly bc there are no corner monuments so surveys sometimes just don't agree. But usually not to that degree. That's a pretty big difference.
The 60s survey and your older agree.... who did the third? Sometimes around here people get way non local surveyors to come in bc they are cheap and this happens bc they just don't have the records that the local companies do. All to save a buck. But usually these companies will not stake, update, or do anything construction for obvious reasons.
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Is it possible the 1963 garage was demolished and the current one built after the 1963 survey?
The other possibility is the control used in 1963 has been destroyed and the later surveys are using different control.
Since the second survey substantially agrees with the 1963 survey the current survey seems to be the outlier. At a minimum the current surveyor should have explained the discrepancy to you.
There are no easy answers, but foremost in consideration in my state is, our statute of limitations lasts 10 years. Therefore, IF your 1963 surveyor was wrong, he is off the hook for liability. A current surveyor will make diligent efforts to accurately retrace the property lines as did the 1963 survey, and, what ever conclusions are reached, the new survey will bear a current seal and stamp. The laws and standards were different in 1963, and consequently harder to retrace, but the goal is retrace what was originally set by the first surveyor.
Rich., post: 426008, member: 10450 wrote: Around here we see this all too often. Mostly bc there are no corner monuments so surveys sometimes just don't agree. But usually not to that degree. That's a pretty big difference.
The 60s survey and your older agree.... who did the third? Sometimes around here people get way non local surveyors to come in bc they are cheap and this happens bc they just don't have the records that the local companies do. All to save a buck. But usually these companies will not stake, update, or do anything construction for obvious reasons.
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I see what you are saying all the time but it still does not remove the liability from the most recent Surveyor.
CastorTroy, post: 425965, member: 12693 wrote: I am building a new 1 family house with a detached garage. The driveway to the garage is basically on the property line. The new survey I submitted to the building department with approved plans seem to be conflicting with the neighbors 1963 survey.
The problem is that the back of the neighbor's garage, on the my new survey, is less than a foot away from my property line. On his 1963 survey, it's 2 feet away. On the old survey, before I bought the house(2006), it shows that it is just under 2 feet. Now if I put in the driveway, which is virtually on my survey's property line, it will encroach on his property according to his survey. The garage is junk and he wants a new one, which he asked me to build which got me in this situation in the first place. New zoning requires the garage to be at least 3 feet away from the property line. On his survey, he would have to move it over only a foot. On mine, he would have to move it over over 2 feet. It seems small, but it makes a huge difference.
This house is already 85% built. His attorney seems to be taking his sweet time to contact my attorney to get this resolved. I have consulted another surveying company to get a different opinion, but that may take a while, and I'm bugging out now and don't want to wait that long to get quick advice. Is there anything I can do to move this situation faster? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks
My first train of thought is that if you want to remove the delay remove the Attorneys and save the money and frustration, not to mention the legal fees. Chances are that neither of the two Attorneys are well versed in resolving these situations.
If you have an older survey that substantially agrees with your neighbor's 1963 survey have you provided copies of them to the Surveyor that most recently worked on your property? How much does a foot or 2 matter between neighbors? Sometimes allot, sometimes not so much.
There are options, remove the lawyers from dragging their feet and contact the person who did your 2006 survey and ask him to verify his work to present to the most recent Surveyor, explaining to the most recent that your latest survey is in conflict with 2 older ones and let him either revise his survey or show cause for not being in harmony with the other two.
My gut instinct is that the first 2 Surveyors knew something that the 3rd didn't and if he is not willing to go back and check his findings against the two older surveys I would contact the person who did the 2006 survey and ask him to update it. That would save time, legal fees and aggravation and resolve the situation amicably with your neighbor all for the cost of two or 3 hrs of Attorney fees.
The final option, if the location and relocation of the neighbors garage is a huge issue is to come to a boundary line agreement with him so that everybody is happy and life goes on, assuming that would not cause zoning violations or change what you have proposed to build with a negative impact.
In these cases, it is rare for an attorney to help amicably and expediently resolve the situation. They are often too busy advocating.
Get a few beers*, sit down with your neighbor and sort it out.
* whatever you can both relax with.
spledeus, post: 426127, member: 3579 wrote: In these cases, it is rare for an attorney to help amicably and expediently resolve the situation. They are often too busy advocating.
Get a few beers*, sit down with your neighbor and sort it out.
* whatever you can both relax with.
This is a simple and too often overlooked solution. Properly executed, a problem is solved and new neighbors can become new friends.
Do one or more of the maps have a title that reads something like "Mortgage Report", "Mortgage Survey", or any combination of the words "mortgage", "lender", "report", "inspection", with or without the word "survey"? If so, the map with such a title is probably worthless for determining whether or not something encroaches or how close to the actual boundary location any improvement feature is.
If you are not sure about the map, read the "fine print". That would be the Certification or Surveyor's Statement. If it is a mortgage report, the Certification will contain a statement that translates to "This survey is not really a survey" and may contain additional statements along the lines of... "...intended for lending purposes...", "...should not be relied upon for...".
If you find anything like that on any of the maps, don't rely on them for anything beyond identifying that the house bearing the proper address is nominally (but not necessarily completely or properly) on the lot to which that address is assigned. That being the case, you wouldn't really have a survey problem but instead have a problem of using a map inadequate for what you're using it for because it was never intended to be that reliable.
If the map is titled "Boundary Survey", "Record of Survey", or in some states, "Certificate of Survey" (not sure of the terminology typically used in NY for a real boundary survey), or something very similar, then the map was intended to be reliable as to the location of the boundary relative to any controlling corner positions that it is shown being related to (typically one or more block corners or perhaps the monumented corners of an adjacent property). The positions of improvements shown may or may not have been intended to be shown to the same accuracy as the survey monuments. Sometimes a surveyor will locate improvements near a boundary line for general reference. Assuming that the maps were made to portray the results of real boundary surveys, you should be able to clarify with your recent surveyor, and perhaps the 2006 surveyor 1) what did they base the boundary locations on? and 2) how accurate were the ties to existing improvements intended to be as compared to the other surveyed info on the map?
Sounds like 1963 and 2006 were in fairly close agreement and your recent surveyor is not in agreement. Assuming that none of the 3 are a worthless mortgage report, but instead are maps of real boundary surveys, you should be able to go back to your recent surveyor and ask him to review his survey in light of the older maps (he may or may not have had access to them before). If he didn't have them when he performed his survey, he may find that one or both provide very useful info that might cause him to alter his opinion so that his survey comes into closer agreement with the others. It could be that he did have them but has some valid grounds to disagree. If so, he should be able to offer a good explanation. If his explanation is all about measurements and very little about the objects he found in the field which mark the controlling corners, then you had better look for a surveyor who has more experience and a better understanding of the proper controlling elements and legal principles behind boundary location.
Either way, I wouldn't just jump into hiring yet another surveyor until after you have sought and gotten explanations from all the surveyors who have already surveyed these properties and are still available to offer an explanation. Only after the explanations fail to clear up the differences should you consider hiring another surveyor. If you do, realize that not all surveyors have the same knowledge and skills. There are many who practice mostly in construction surveying or large mapping projects for agencies and large corporations or for new housing developments. Most of them (not all) view lot boundaries as a similar type of project as their other jobs - that measuring is the primary aspect. That's true for construction and mapping for engineering base maps, but not for boundaries. Boundaries are more about investigating the history of the lines & points, finding physical & documentary evidence of that history, and knowing how the law would treat that evidence to determine the true location as intended by the person or persons who first created the boundary. find someone who specializes in those skills. Typically, you are more likely to find such a surveyor in a small or very small survey business.
Get it resolved before you build anything else near the line, or near any other line. Good luck.
If you can't get the surveyors previously involved to agree how the problem should be resolved, do what Spledus suggests. Figure out how you and your neighbor can arrive at a line that you both can live with, then get a knowledgeable boundary surveyor who can facilitate that solution. If there is actual uncertainty of location, that might be a Boundary Line Agreement to clearly identify where the true boundary will be recognized as being, or if there is not actual uncertainty and the surveyor says that there is sufficient evidence to locate the original boundary location, if that's not where you and your neighbor want it, the surveyor should be able to help you with a Boundary Line Adjustment, and should also be able to clearly explain the differences between those two processes.
[USER=589]@eapls2708[/USER]
Once a licensed surveyor places their name and seal on their work, it is a survey and nothing less and nothing more.
When you sign something that is yours, an other's or you mama's, it is now yours too and carries the responsible weight of a survey.
One can not disclaim their way out of being responsible for what our BOR requires our signature and seal to represent.
We do not sign and seal documents that are not surveys and what we are not trained to offer within our expertise.
Even a lowly house tie and/or grade mark is expected to be correct as shown.
A Harris,
I'm not sure how you are reading that I think a surveyor should or can disclaim away the liability for the service they provide.
Apparently you're not familiar with the scourge of mortgage reports and how they are often performed. Fortunately, we don't have them in CA, but they are a service (and I use that term loosely) that is or was provided in each of the states where I have previously worked in the East & Midwest. The one's that I've seen, I wouldn't do it or sign it either, but they occur. The map that is produced for them looks like a simple form of a boundary map and non-surveyors can be and often are fooled into thinking that they are real surveys. Landowners should be aware of them in states where they are performed.
As to certain improvements being shown on a boundary map for general reference as opposed to having been measured to a reasonable accuracy, I've seen that too on several occasions, and as best I can recall, in every state I've worked in. Typically, topo shots are not collected at the same precision or accuracy as traverse control or monuments, but a fairly well defined point such as a building corner should be located with sufficient accuracy to be able to report it +/- 0.1' to a nearby property line. However, it is not unheard of to learn that a surveyor has located such improvements by eyeball & rough taping.
If you read that I condone any of those practices, then you should read it again a bit more thoroughly. I do not condone them. But landowners should be aware that mortgage reports (which I characterized as being worthless) exist and that there are surveyors who might show certain improvements only for general reference, and should be given the knowledge to ask questions about it before relying on a map which is inadequate for their purpose either because the mapping product was never intended for that use, or because although a mapping product should be a reliable depiction of conditions, there are those who work to lesser standards, particularly when it comes to info not directly affecting their boundary determination.
Additionally, if you think that all surveyors practice by the principle of only working within their area of competence, you must have been hiding under a rock. Boundary surveying is one of the least understood tasks that surveyors do, yet almost all licensed surveyors think that they are qualified to do them. Many believe that because the measuring methods and the math involved are relatively simple as compared to many other types of surveying, that the task is simple. They view it like their engineering related projects in which the measuring and math are of primary importance. They are unaware of their duty as investigators and often as legal analysts when it comes to locating existing boundaries. And so they go out, treat it like a simple measurement exercise and proceed to screw up property lines by reporting them to be in some location where they never existed because the distances in the deed say so.
Based on my 36 years of experience, somewhere around 90% of licensed surveyors think they are qualified to survey existing boundaries, but those who are actually qualified are probably a lot closer to 25% to 30%. As far as I know, there are few, or perhaps no longer any states that provide a newly licensed surveyor with a breakdown of their performance on the licensing exam. I wish they would so that new licensees could get a realistic measure of the areas of practice they are competent in, those that they should continue to work under the guidance of a surveyor with more experience and knowledge, and those areas that they should simply avoid. Unfortunately, the state just says "Congratulations. Go forth and survey!" A major hole in the process of protecting the public, IMO.
[USER=589]@eapls2708[/USER]
I support you in view of so called mortgage sketches and deed stakers.
Just wanted to remind everyone and the members of the public that drops in "what is" and "what ain't" a survey.
We sign it , we own it.
I bring that info around to clarify and let everyone know that what we produce is real surveys no matter what it says in the title block.
We either produce a preliminary drawing as to where things are going to be placed or where things actually are.
Texas has drawn a line and there is no middle ground when it comes to us showing boundary calls on a drawing and offset distances to existing improvements and our BOR expects us to show it the way it is.
That information may be the best reliable means to relocate things one day.
CastorTroy, post: 425965, member: 12693 wrote: I am building a new 1 family house with a detached garage. The driveway to the garage is basically on the property line. The new survey I submitted to the building department with approved plans seem to be conflicting with the neighbors 1963 survey.
The problem is that the back of the neighbor's garage, on the my new survey, is less than a foot away from my property line. On his 1963 survey, it's 2 feet away. On the old survey, before I bought the house(2006), it shows that it is just under 2 feet. Now if I put in the driveway, which is virtually on my survey's property line, it will encroach on his property according to his survey. The garage is junk and he wants a new one, which he asked me to build which got me in this situation in the first place. New zoning requires the garage to be at least 3 feet away from the property line. On his survey, he would have to move it over only a foot. On mine, he would have to move it over over 2 feet. It seems small, but it makes a huge difference.
This house is already 85% built. His attorney seems to be taking his sweet time to contact my attorney to get this resolved. I have consulted another surveying company to get a different opinion, but that may take a while, and I'm bugging out now and don't want to wait that long to get quick advice. Is there anything I can do to move this situation faster? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks
In the interest of fun, can you scan and post a copy of said survey, please redact any trademark aspects, might be surprised at how much free surveying this board dishes out