A little back story, my neighbor and I disagreed on the property line. So I decided to have the property surveyed. The property is around 25 acres and the line in question is around 1600 ft.
So I hired a surveyor and had the land surveyed.
There were no pins on the Northwest, or Northeast corners, there were 3 pins in the southeast corner (they were within about 17' feet of each other). There was a pin in the southwest corner. At onetime there was other pins in the southwest corner but they went missing. Amazingly the missing pins were all in my favor.
The line in dispute was on the western side.
This is the email that received from the surveyor on how they determined the hold point.
Jim,
I was able to determine by the tree line evidence and from testimony by Mr. ***** (the neighbor) that the iron pin located at your southwest corner has historically been respected as the common corner between your property and Mr. *****'S (the neighbor) property. Therefore, I held that iron pin as the common corner.
If you have any additional questions or desire further information, please do not hesitate to contact me.
My issues, why would you use the neighbors in question testimony,
Here is my issue, there is a matching iron pin on the south east corner, the new survey pin is now about 15' from that old iron pin. Why is one pin better than another?
Why would use my neighbor's testimony? They new about the dispute.
My suspicion is that there was a whole lot more (or there should have been) than a conversation with the neighbor that went into his decision. So, from the information given I am unable to answer your question.
What I can say is that you deserve a whole lot better explanation than a short email. I would expect him to sit down with you and give you a complete explanation and a review of all the evidence he used to arrive at his conclusion.
Just using the information given I would say he used the neighbor's testimony because it is corroborated by the tree line evidence.
It is difficult to answer your questions without seeing the survey.
Although you pay the surveyor he is supposed to be impartial. Obviously he thinks the neighbor is credible.
The crazy thing is, had he just said all of the evidence said the pin was correct, I would have paid the bill and moved on. Assuming that my neighbor was correct. But his email implies they took my neighbors word for basing the property line.
A little more to the story, the survey started about 3 weeks ago, they didn't finish it until Wednesday (hunting season and weather delayed them). About two weeks ago I was talking to my other neighbor, who used to be the care taker of the property before I bought it. He laughed when I told him about the old iron pin, because he knew that pin has been moved several times over the years, and the previous land owner had a disagreement over the property line. I did not share this info with the surveyors, since I couldn't prove any of it.
Now, I wasted a bunch of money, and I'm not sure I know the true property line
Could you post a pic here on the forum, for us to see your surveyor's plat?
You could email it to any of us, and we could post it for you.
We could probably answer you better that way. IF I were your surveyor, I'd have an explanation on the plat, so others would respect it.
Nate
Is your Surveyor supposed to read your mind?
Surveying boundaries is not magical, it is an evidence gathering process. I try to detect if a found monument has been moved but can't always tell.
The Surveyor Should Not Represent Your Best Interest
He should present the facts, your interest not withstanding.
You did not waste money, you paid for (I hope) and received a professional opinion.
If you want another opinion, hire another surveyor.
If you want an advocate, hire an attorney.
Paul in PA
But the pin and the tree line don't agree with each other. I know the pin holds more weight then the tree line. But why does the eastern pin hold more weight then the western pin.
Honestly, I don't care how the property line falls, I just want to know how it falls.
> Is your Surveyor supposed to read your mind?
>
> Surveying boundaries is not magical, it is an evidence gathering process. I try to detect if a found monument has been moved but can't always tell.
No kidding. That's like being on trial for murder and expecting to be acquitted without telling them that you were in another country when the murder occurred.
If I were doing the survey, the tree would hold more weight than an iron pin. Trees are much harder to move around by owners.:-P
Going by the name "subvet" begs the following question be answered.....Coner or Nuke? 🙂
You could make an appointment to meet with the surveyor. Look at the drawings, field information, and records that he used, and have him explain how he arrived at the boundary location. Ask questions when there is something you don't understand.
As Dave and Paul have said, it is not the surveyor's job to represent your best interest. An attorney is required to do that, but a surveyor's role is different. A surveyor's duty is to act impartially, like a judge.
A surveyor is supposed to weigh all the evidence as found in the records and in the field, and locate the property lines accordingly. He should run the lines according to the evidence he finds and the laws that apply, regardless of who is paying him. That's the law, as laid down in many court decisions over hundreds of years.
Asking long-time residents about where corners were located is a legitimate practice. It's called parol evidence. Because memories can be faulty, and because some people have a personal interest in where the boundaries are located, parol evidence is generally not enough by itself.
In this case it's very important to tell your surveyor what your other neighbor said about the pin having been moved. The surveyor would have had no way of knowing that other neighbor knew something about the pin.
A tree line can be very good evidence of where a property line has historically been located. Trees can grow up along fence lines because the ground there isn't cultivated or mowed. They live a long time and, as Vern says, they don't move. None of us here can say how reliable this particular tree line is, not having seen it, or any of the other information your surveyor would most likely have used.
It is impossible to answer your question from the information given.
Whether to hold or reject a pin is a question of fact to be answered from the evidence.
By their nature such determinations of fact are an opinion. I don't even know if I would agree with your surveyor's opinion without a lot more information being given.
Nuke MM, ssn 755, you
Surveyors are not supposed to represent the best interest of their clients in the way that a lawyer does. Their ethical code requires them to disregard who is paying, who they like, etc.
A surveyor's goal is to find the boundary line in compliance with the best survey practices and the law.
If you disagree with the professional opinion (and we have no idea how good that opinion is from here) I suggest the following:
1. Contact the surveyor and discuss the findings. Attempt to learn, since it is likely that you have less expertise.
2. If you disagree, hiring a second opinion might be a good idea. Let the original surveyor know this, if you do.
3. If you provided specifics, including exhibits that you have, and the location, you are likely to get a lot of advice from this forum. But, while seemingly filled with detail, the facts in your post are too incomplete to allow any real opinions.
Same, SSN 690.
The Surveyor Should Not Represent Your Best Interest
One of the things I've taken a while to learn is that clients often withhold information from me or just outright lie. I now sometimes try to get across to them without insulting them that I need to know everything. If they hide something I will likely find out later, but it hurts both of us. Mostly it wastes a lot of my time. The last one was a disputed line where my potential client had signed an agreement years ago that settled the issue, and now he wanted to contest it again, BUT HE DIDNT TELL ME ABOUT THE AGREEMENT.
This one sounds like less than optimum communication on both sides.
The Surveyor Should Not Represent Your Best Interest
To property owner,
Since you knew before the survey was finished, that the iron was moved as told to you by the caretaker and the fact the two previous owners had a dispute about where the line was , Surveyor should have been told . and then its caretaker word against the adjoiner . But the more information to the surveyor the better .Talk with the surveyor about this new information , see if he will re-look at the solution . Surveyor is only as good as the info he has ... Sometimes it hard to come by..
I have excepted parol evidence from elderly people on the character, of a corner in question . Specially when they walk you to it and its 1' in the ground .
Sorry for the poor choice of words, I probably should have said, does it sound like the surveyor was "impartial".
The surveyors came out 11/23 and I had the conversation with my other neighbor around 11/27
I probably should have told the firm about the conversation I had with my neighbor,
Like has been stated, there's a lot of ambiguity in your original question. And the surveyor is there to act in the public interest and not in the interest of the paying client. I know you're not saying "I paid him, he should determine in my favor" and don't mean to insinuate that, I'm putting that out there to help explain some answers you may receive.
As for asking the neighbor and using his/her "testimony....not unusual, but I personally don't like that you don't appear to have had any input. Then again, it's back to too much ambiguity here. He may have asked you, may not, but all parties spoken to should have been noted in his explanation.
This is the part of surveying that the client rarely gets to see. They see you on the property for whatever time it takes to perform the field work, but do not get to see the time spent researching, compiling and planning prior to the field work or the drafting and possible further researching and compiling warranted by the evidence discovered in the field.
As you can see, all of this is either or and will remain so without more information. He may well have the best possible solution marked or he may well have stopped short of doing his due diligence by going so far as to survey the surrounding properties to verify the line in question, but with what we have to work on so far it's simply impossible to tell.
I do think, and this is my personal opinion, that communication is the one aspect of our profession that lacks the most, but that's another subject entirely.
