I was always suspicious of the property lines on some of my family land. The land was originally my grandparents and split up between four kids and some of the tracts have been sold to others. I recently purchased some survey equipment and checked it out. This is what i found attached. Should i contact the original surveyor and tell him about my findings? Not sure how to handle this. Any advice?
Where ever that surveyor set the pins is where the property lines are. You can show the original surveyor your findings, but I'd say the plat is so old he's not obligated to do anything to fix it.
Tommy Young, post: 424776, member: 703 wrote: Where ever that surveyor set the pins is where the property lines are. You can show the original surveyor your findings, but I'd say the plat is so old he's not obligated to do anything to fix it.
30 years in Louisiana
Art. 796. Error in the location of markers; rectification. When visible markers have been erroneously placed by one of the contiguous owners alone, or not in accordance with a written agreement fixing the boundary, the error may be rectified by the court unless a contiguous owner has acquired ownership up to the visible bounds by thirty years possession.
guess i answered my own question.
What year was the original survey?
What did you find at those south corners?
Are they original monuments?
The edge of the plowed ground along west boundary appears to be in harmony with the survey, why?
Survey was done in 1994. About 15 years ago we went look for the corners and we found all 4 ips with tape around them. we put iron t-post on the west side. I knew where most of the pins are I watched them survey it when I was a kid. The fence on the east was constructed a few years after the survey and we found the ips near the base of the post.
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So is it worth going to court to rectify?
I take it you used your recently purchased GPS units to make the measurements, and rotated the plat to match your measured bearing along the northerly line.
The error probably originated in a mistake in recording his calculation of 344.57 as 244.57 as he worked from certain starting points, followed by using that in computing the final bearings and then laying out the rest.
Did you look for a monument at 344.57, just in case something is there?
I see the CSF does happen to be very close to 1 there depending on elevation, so maybe you have the luxury of ignoring the conversion from grid to ground or have applied it, as the calculation comes out very close. In general that's necessary for a fair comparison.
What I did was set a pin in the field and took 4 hour opus on the pin and NW corner and set my total station on the pin and used nw corner as backsight and shot everything in. I looked at 344 nothing.
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Sounds like you and your family may have identified a Recognition of Acquiescence.
You need more corners from that plat tied in.
Kris Morgan, post: 424789, member: 29 wrote: You need more corners from that plat tied in.
That's my plan once I get my rtk setup I didn't feel like cutting a bunch of trees. The tract on the east side is now over grown couldn't shot the corners
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cordgrass, post: 424778, member: 11027 wrote: 30 years in Louisiana
Art. 796. Error in the location of markers; rectification. When visible markers have been erroneously placed by one of the contiguous owners alone, or not in accordance with a written agreement fixing the boundary, the error may be rectified by the court unless a contiguous owner has acquired ownership up to the visible bounds by thirty years possession.guess i answered my own question.
It looks like you have a tracts created by a plat. If that is the case the statute you provided does not apply, the markers were not placed by "one of the contiguous owners alone", nor was there any written agrement fixing the boundary.
Maybe OPUS on another corner as a check on your TS work?
Thank God that there is only a little error made.
cordgrass, post: 424767, member: 11027 wrote: I was always suspicious of the property lines on some of my family land. The land was originally my grandparents and split up between four kids and some of the tracts have been sold to others. I recently purchased some survey equipment and checked it out. This is what i found attached. Should i contact the original surveyor and tell him about my findings? Not sure how to handle this. Any advice?
The first question I would ask is how you adjusted from true north GPS observations to magnetic north bearings from many years ago? Did you compensate for magnetic declination? It would most likely be more suitable in a case like this to do a site calibration. What is paramount is the intention of the original plat. If you are comparing GPS azimuths to magnetic azimuths you are not comparing apples to apples as you are working in a different datum, however slight or significant the difference is, it's still not the same datum.
The second issue is that things seem to be in harmony with the original plat as far as lines of possession and I doubt that any court would modify them as they seem to be in harmony with the intent of the plat.
The part that raises my eyebrow the most is where you say that you bought your own equipment to carry out this survey. I have 2 questions on that alone, the first being, before you used it on this retracement survey, did you check it against any known baselines to verify it's accuracy? The second being, what is your training and experience with this particular equipment?
Another question I have is are you a surveyor, it sounds as though you could be, but are you Licensed? These are important questions even is your findings are accurate.
If I had signed that original plat and set the corners and you called me to discuss your findings (which are essentially calling my plat wrong), I'm going to ask how you came to those conclusions. When you explain to me that you checked my work with equipment you just bought, I'm going to ask you many of the questions I noted above. If you are not Licensed to practice you are opening up Pandora's box as first, you are practicing without a license and second, no court would ever accept your findings or even allow you to be heard.
You can contact the original surveyor if you wish, but if he is prudent he will ask the same questions of you as I have, unless you are licensed. Then he may discuss the methods with you. After hearing that you came to your conclusions with equipment you just purchased and are not licensed the conversation will most likely end politely and quickly.
If you are not licensed the best approach would be to hire somebody who is to see if he/she will come up with the same results as you did, then you could have cause for action.
There's no law against surveying your own land without a license. And probably none against any surveying that isn't done for hire or used for official purposes.
How seriously the surveyor who produced the plat would take the "retracement" would probably depend somewhat on the amount ofcross-checking done on it. I'd want some redundancy, particularly an OPUS session on the SW corner pipe.
I have met the OP (Cordgrass) in person.
Just as his profile indicates, he is Licensed in LA.
I am licensed in LA. The intent of the original survey was to equally divide the land between 4 children. here is more of the plat probably should of included it in the beginning. Think they busted by a 100 on the south line of tract 1.
cordgrass, post: 424778, member: 11027 wrote: 30 years in Louisiana
Art. 796. Error in the location of markers; rectification. When visible markers have been erroneously placed by one of the contiguous owners alone, or not in accordance with a written agreement fixing the boundary, the error may be rectified by the court unless a contiguous owner has acquired ownership up to the visible bounds by thirty years possession.guess i answered my own question.
Absolutely not necessarily.