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dave-o · 2020-08-04T22:49:00Z

A quick story and opening for comment, since you all seem knowledgeable and opinionated (great characteristics if you're generally right, IMO). A local land planner asked me to get existing grade in a little area in front of a house he was helping with an addition to. It's fairly complex, on a steepish slope with several terraced rock retaining walls and rock stairways, hand built, meandering up the property. I'm currently ready to take the FS but the testing location nearby is closed for covid until the end of the year (at least), so I think I know what I'm allowed to do and what not. I have her record plat map created in 2007 by a very good local surveying firm and I sought out neighboring corners as control knowing that I may not be able to get to her corners to orient the instrument. So I get oriented by resectioning off one of her corners and two others found outside her property. Residuals came out good. I spend four hours shooting maybe a 4000 sf area. One of her corners at the bottom of the property (which I did not use to orient) was just outside of the corner of a rock retaining that makes a 90 degree turn. It was a 3/4" pipe in concrete. It's pretty common here for a property to have retaining wall built 4"-6" off a line or corner, so the pipe and rock wall made what looked like a corner. When I got down there during the topo I shot it as a check. I get back to the office, bring everything into CAD and that shot of the pipe and the rockwall corner (and presumably everything else) are 4' off of the drawn CAD boundary on that side but fine on the other side. I went through all kinds of thought as to how this could be and what to do about it, starting with me possibly screwing something up (quite possible), the instrument out if whack (not likely), record map mislabeled or monuments mislocated. I did notice the record map called that corner out as a found RR spike in concrete, not a pipe, but a pipe in concrete is pretty significant work to have done wrong by a professional so I'd though it more likely a typo on the drawing rather than someone actually hammering into rock, hand mixing a bucket of concrete and specifically placing pipe. But whattaya know? I did the easy thing first, just rode back out with a 100' tape and pulled it from one corner (that I did use) to the pipe and it's 4' short. I dragged the tape out another 4', almost to the neighbors concrete driveway, and scraped around by hand for a bit and there's the RR spike in concrete. Mentioning it to the sweet 84 yr old owner, she asks 'what do I do about that?' I told her that even if I were licensed, it wouldn't be wise to give her legal advice, but that a general thought is that it would depend on how much you dislike your neighbor and how much 4' of dirt behind a rockwall is worth to you. Question is, I believe this state uses both English Common law and Torens systems of land recording. I think there's a difference between them RE adverse possession or recognition and acquiescence (see, I half way learned enough to probably make myself sound stupid to the right people). I'm not going to advise her beyond recommending a good (expensive) land attorney I know, but this neighbor has been really mean to her, yelling at her, demanding she leave the property when she came over to talk and was the one who nicked her to the county for starting to build a little 10x12 pop out. What would you tell her?

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murphy

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If I were in the same position as D.Drahn, I would let the lady know that there might be a problem and that she should talk to a PLS.?ÿ?ÿ

I'm not a licensed electrician, but when I noticed a spark coming out of an outlet at a neighbor's house, I risked a litany of plausible negative outcomes and informed him that he might have a problem with his wiring.?ÿ?ÿ

While a candid concern from a quasi-professional has the potential to set off a deleterious chain of events, there are infinite other outcomes as well.?ÿ I prefer people who voice concerns over those who use reason to justify inaction.

Posted : August 11, 2020 10:17 am

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