Wouldn’t moving an existing pin to match your survey be tampering with evidence in the court of law?
I'm not sure about what the charge would be, but I've never "moved anything to match" my survey. When a monument's original position can be reliably determined based on physical evidence on the ground, the monument will be rehabilitated in that location and observed at that point - regardless of record bearings & distances between it and adjacent monuments.
In other words, the original position is never determined from a calc point or a stakeout point.
We’ll say your surveying a small 2 acre lot, and you notice one of the pins are bent and ~ a foot off. So you decide the pin must have been hit by something so you straighten it, locate it, and move on. Then the neighbor looks at the difference between the mow line between the yards and the straightened pin and complains that you moved the property corner. (Believe me ppl will go to court over a few inches of property and if the neighbor is mowing a few inches of their yard ) Also, what about if the surveyor for the adjoining survey who that set that pin held a different monument and was a foot difference to begin with. I would think you’d be further ahead to locate the bent pin where it is and set a new one with cap where you determined the corner should be then let the landowners decide.
...you notice one of the pins are bent and ~ a foot off.
If it's an original monument and the original location can be reliably determined, it's never "off". It is where it is, and remains the best available evidence of the corner.
Then the neighbor looks at the difference between the mow line between the yards and the straightened pin and complains that you moved the property corner.
Mow lines are way, way far down the priority list when it comes to occupation, and certainly do not overcome original monumentation.
Now, if both landowners have been relying upon that bent/disturbed monument for a long period of time, and the monument somehow migrated far away from its original location, and that original location can still be determined, there might be some practical location principles that need to be applied. But in practice, that would be a rare case, and easily solved by sitting the landowners down and discussing it with them.
Because that should always, always, always be our go-to move in such a situation. We don't just throw mons in the ground at odds with other surveys or with long-established occupation, and jet out of town.
Also, what about if the surveyor for the adjoining survey who that set that pin held a different monument and was a foot difference to begin with.
If that surveyor is disagreeing with me for over a foot on a small lot, they're getting contacted before I make my boundary decision. "Holding a different monument" shouldn't cause a discrepancy between our surveys unless one of us is just slapping math on the ground without regard to called-for and relied-upon monumentation.
I would think you’d be further ahead to locate the bent pin where it is and set a new one with cap where you determined the corner should be then let the landowners decide.
If we all did this all the time, we'd have a pretty jacked-up, pincushioned cadastre. "Where this existing monument should be" doesn't ever come into play on the survey side. First and foremost, and before we do anything else, we are concerned with where the original lines were run and the original corners were established.
I do it all the time. Especially when I'm a couple thousand feet in the woods, and I find a loose pipe or rod. I straighten it up, pound it in, and shoot it.
Many times I'll be the first to show it on a plan, so it's best to make it solid and reproducible. Doesn't seem much point in shooting something flimsy or ambiguous
Confession time. I used to routinely, in almost all circumstances, rehabilitate bent monuments. In the case of a leaning and bent monument, I would rehabilitate if the survey I'm retracing was fairly loose and the position couldn't be computed with any better certainty than the rough position of the damaged monument.
In recent times, due to the near unbearable strain of my workload, I've not been in the habit of rehabilitating bent monuments in most cases. I locate the point of verticality and move on. I'm not proud of that, just being honest. I'm taking this post as an opportunity to improve my procedures, as I do agree with Dave Karoly. It's an obligation and a privilege of being licensed. The general public doesn't know what to do with a bent stake.
this is probably something they need to teach in every single ABET program for surveying and have a practical to be checked out with this skill.
Honestly, I was shocked and pleasantly surprised when my younger than me surveyor jumped on a bent rebar we found to straighten it and I stabilized it with rocks etc when we reset it and then shot it.
Seems like it needs to be reintroduced for the professors teaching the books stuff and easy traverse around the quad classes before letting them loose into an office job they'll never even see a rebar in unless it's a photo....
Rehabilitation can come in different forms and for different reasons.
This one is a case of being found loose on the surface about six feet from where it had been placed prior to the construction of a nearby sidewalk. Can't tell from the photo but there is curvature in 3-D. A new bar and cap took its place
This one is somewhat typical. The setting surveyor hit impenetrable bedrock about three inches too soon. This was in a county crushed rock road that was very solid. The road grader caught the top of the bar, bending it such that it eliminated the problem. We pulled it out and put a shorter bar in its place. Why didn't the first guy do this?
This one has a square head a bit more than one-inch per side and a 3-D swirl. We weren't going to spend 30 minutes or more attempting to get it straight. Based on its condition, it had been in the ground for a very long time before a piece of heavy equipment got to it.
Having taught a standards/code of conduct course several times for my state surveying society, this one always generates both some surprise as well as some good discussion. Some people just rehabilitate because they believe it is the appropriate thing to do while others do not disturb the original evidence because they believe that is the appropriate thing to do.
Excerpt from Kentucky standards 201 KAR 18:150 Section 9.(8)
"All existing record monuments discovered during the performance of the survey shall be preserved and shall not be altered or destroyed."
During similar discussions on Surveyor Connect, I've posted it before. While it is easy to just guffaw and say that makes no sense if it contradicts one's world view - it is in the law. I don't know if any other states have similar language, but I know there are states that have language about disturbing corners and steps needed to be taken before or after to officially note any changes made as well as some language that does not differentiate between a surveyor or anyone else disturbing an existing monument.
There is usually about a 50/50 divide in the position taken by CPD attendees.
So the question becomes can I rationalize "shall be preserved" with "shall not be altered"?
Because rehabilitating a monument in danger of being lost seems to be both preserving and altering.
A great example of how "rules" can be so darned frustrating. Yes. No. Maybe. Only if.
You find a stone clearly laying on its side that has been reported many years previously to have some lettering on one side. You roll the stone back up to it's original vertical position and see the lettering. The stone fits the remnant of stone left below it. One argument says to lay it back down where someone someday will decide that it is either not a survey stone or that the center of the horizontal side is the historic corner. Another argument says to rehabilitate the stone so as to perpetuate well into the future.
Just out of curiosity I was throwing out some hypotheticals just for the sake of discussion and to get other ppls thoughts. I apologize if I offended anyone as it was not my intent to come across in an antagonistic way.
I would think you’d be further ahead to locate the bent pin where it is and set a new one with cap where you determined the corner should be then let the landowners decide.
Because as a surveyor were still doing our job of researching, locating evidence, and marking said evidence for the client and adjoining landowners. Ultimately it’s up to the landowners and the courts to decide what is the boundary based on the evidence available by a surveyor or surveyors depending on the dispute and if the adjoining landowner hired their own surveyor. I recall one property line dispute where there were 3 different surveyors hired to mark the disputed line and all three came up with a different line.
I see this far more often though which, in my opinion, makes the original location much less clear.
Must be an area of loose soil or sand to get dragged sideways like that. Even the softish volcanic ash/loams around here don't do that if something just catches the top. In a road bed or hard ground it would be very rarely see them like above, typically just the tip bent.
Level up a tribrach on legs over the vertical centre, grab small vice grips and clip on the side turning until the ribs are full of dirt, then slide out with gentle pulling. Then renew with the next sized up bar so it's not loose in the hole.
Especially when I'm a couple thousand feet in the woods
This is relevant also, rehabing a monument in the back of beyond where small changes when you whack it back in don't matter is quite different to doing it in a high value suburban area (going to assume here that in high rise areas the closest to rehab you might get is gluing a disk/plaque down that has come a little loose). I'm coming from a recording jurisdiction perspective.
