A while back I received a call from a land owner about property she wants to sell. Her and her neighbors descriptions are horrible, many with bounds only, but they all have fences. All the nearby lots appear to be 40' to 50' wide and around 150' deep. I turned down the survey and apparently so did several other surveyors.
Yesterday I get a call from her attorney who completely understands the problem so he suggest that I prepare plats showing the centerline/corners of the fence post to be used in boundary agreements. Apparently all the neighbors are in agreement so I agree to take on the job. I can set monuments along the road but several corners in the rear will occupied by chain link fence post.
Is it acceptable to use an existing fence post as a corner monument? Obviously they will be much larger than the minimum size monument in the standards.
Detailed notes on a recorded map. Maybe score/ inscribe the posts you use (and note on plat) or set reference monuments of your choice on-line (and note on plat). You've already said the exceed your board's standard so, good to go.
Lamon Miller, post: 364802, member: 553 wrote: Is it acceptable to use an existing fence post as a corner monument? Obviously they will be much larger than the minimum size monument in the standards.
Yes, fence posts make lousy boundary monuments. What seems to inevitably happen with fence posts is they tend to get used as marking corners "as close as you can hold a prism rod or rover pole to the post without actually spending any time carefully locating it".
You can improve the situation by carefully tying the centers of the posts at ground level where they are most apt to be stable and by setting buried reference monuments in some location that defines the actual corner more permanently and reproducibly than the post will.
"Approximate Center of 2-1/2 in. Galvanized Pipe Post (at ground level) at corner of Chain Link Fence, a Point from which a [identifiable reference monument] set for reference (6 in. down) bears [survey tie]"
[sarcasm]Yepper, a 2 1/2" diam. galvanized steel fence post, probably 8 ft. long and set 2-3 ft. in the ground in concrete is definitely an inferior monument to a 2-bit (now $1) piece of rebar.[/sarcasm]
Lamon Miller, post: 364802, member: 553 wrote:
... showing the centerline/corners of the fence post to be used in boundary agreements.Is it acceptable to use an existing fence post as a corner monument? Obviously they will be much larger than the minimum size monument in the standards.
All sarcasm aside, isn't the existing fence post what the property owners want to use as the corner? Who are we to tell them "No, you can't use the corner post as the corner, you must use ........."?
back-chain, post: 364805, member: 7900 wrote: Detailed notes on a recorded map. Maybe score/ inscribe the posts you use (and note on plat) or set reference monuments of your choice on-line (and note on plat). You've already said the exceed your board's standard so, good to go.
This is what I'd do. Of course, I believe there was to be some boundary line agreements done in the first place. Are they intending to prepare and record a plat of the survey and then reference that in the BLA? Are there going to be associated legal descriptions for each lot? And will said legals reference a recorded plat or just be "stand alone"?
I imagine that using the fence posts would be acceptable in some cases, as long as it was tagged or otherwise clearly identified so it is clear which fence corners were used for the BLA. If that fence comes down and the owners rebuild the fence "in the same place", it could cause issues for future retracement surveys.
Brian Allen, post: 364932, member: 1333 wrote: All sarcasm aside, isn't the existing fence post what the property owners want to use as the corner? Who are we to tell them "No, you can't use the corner post as the corner, you must use ........."?
Well, to be a monument, a thing has to have a definite position. A 24-inch Live Oak may have made a sufficient monument for 1886, but certainly does not for 2016 since no two surveys will locate the corner marked by the tree in the same position. So, a professional surveyor would discourage landowners from wanting to create a boundary defined by ill-defined markers. Just as a professional surveyor would improve the positional uncertainty of a corner marked by a tree by adding witness or reference monuments that are free of positional ambiguity, the same problem applies to fence posts, particularly as they lean and shift out of plumb over time.
I would expect that any surveyor who has actually dealt with fence posts as boundary markers will recognize that the practical problem of how surveyors (or their help) actually locate fence posts means that as a practical matter they are not a very good choice by themselves. They need accessories to fix and define the corner in a way that defeats the multiple-guess methods for locating the post. As well, fence posts get removed in residential areas, just as they do in rural areas, so it's a very smart idea not to imagine them to be some super-permanent marking.
Kent McMillan, post: 364991, member: 3 wrote: Well, to be a monument, a thing has to have a definite position....So, a professional surveyor would discourage landowners from wanting to create a boundary defined by ill-defined markers...
Kent, I rarely disagree with your posts (see tar-baby jpg...), but I have to disagree on this one. A monument, in my opinion, HAS a definite position, no matter how large, small or inaccessible it may be. Nit-picky surveyors may not be able to get a center-punch hole in their least-squared-presaxt calculated position, but in my mind, that's only necessary to a surveyor. A property owner could probably not only care less, but most property owners probably prefer obvious bounds markers.
Fence posts are fine with me. And just like everybody else here I've found a plethora of nails and bent 3/8" rebar, capped and uncapped, that have been crammed into the ground around the fence post by other surveyors (none of US would ever do anything like that...). And a large tree as a boundary corner is a great, long-lived and visible corner monument. There is usually NO problem distinguishing where the corner is at...it's the 24" live oak.
Our differences in opinion could be due to the fact that I place the needs of my clients before my desire for posterity to be able to exactly retrace my calculations. And I'm not saying either way is better than the other...really. If a property owner wants a fence corner to be the monument, hey, that's one less pin I have to set.
Lamon Miller, post: 364802, member: 553 wrote: A while back I received a call from a land owner about property she wants to sell. Her and her neighbors descriptions are horrible, many with bounds only, but they all have fences. All the nearby lots appear to be 40' to 50' wide and around 150' deep. I turned down the survey and apparently so did several other surveyors.
Yesterday I get a call from her attorney who completely understands the problem so he suggest that I prepare plats showing the centerline/corners of the fence post to be used in boundary agreements. Apparently all the neighbors are in agreement so I agree to take on the job. I can set monuments along the road but several corners in the rear will occupied by chain link fence post.
Is it acceptable to use an existing fence post as a corner monument? Obviously they will be much larger than the minimum size monument in the standards.
Yes, I would use a fence post, marking them if at all possible, with a unique number.
Also, some sort of very robust tie to centerline monuments, or the like, such that the location of the fence corner can be easily reproduced on the ground when the fence needs to be rebuilt.
Kent's comments have merit, and a line stake, if it could be set (likely falling under a fence) is a great idea. I would refrain, myself, from setting some sort of monument as a reference on some random bearing and distance, say 2' from the corner. This will confuse the general public, and be of no greater use to a surveyor than suitable centerline monuments. IMHO
I have had to call a couple of fence posts the section corner because the monument was pulled out and a substantial post was put in its place by the fence contractor. In this case I noted that the corner falls in the post and then set a capped witness point, sometimes two points, on line and note the distance to the corner. The witness then provides an exact distance to the corner position should the post start to lean, get moved, or later get torn out.
paden cash, post: 364996, member: 20 wrote: Our differences in opinion could be due to the fact that I place the needs of my clients before my desire for posterity to be able to exactly retrace my calculations.
Actually, I hadn't considered that in Oklahoma landowners don't really care where their boundaries run. It would make sense that since mobile homes can be easily relocated (unless the skirting is in place, which is why you don't see much skirting there, I suppose), there wouldn't be any need for land boundaries to be less than a pace or three wide.
In the context of property in normal cities, though, that strategy pretty much falls apart. There is a need to determine boundaries to construction tolerances. So saying that the corner is marked by a fence post leaning two inches out of plumb is sort of like a real estate agent waving his or her hands and saying that the corner is "over there". It just doesn't pass the laugh test to say that anything that would fool a landowner is necessarily in his or her best interest. Guess that's why land surveying is organized as a profession, eh?
J. Penry, post: 365003, member: 321 wrote: I have had to call a couple of fence posts the section corner because the monument was pulled out and a substantial post was put in its place by the fence contractor. In this case I noted that the corner falls in the post and then set a capped witness point, sometimes two points, on line and note the distance to the corner. The witness then provides an exact distance to the corner position should the post start to lean, get moved, or later get torn out.
Yes, exactly. That is the professional solution. It's also why fence posts make such lousy boundary markers. they increase the cost of surveying the boundary in the same way that happens with any other unmarkable corner requiring witness or reference monuments.
One of my favorite examples of why fence posts make such lousy monuments. The corner post is about an 8 inch cedar (Juniperus ashei) post that was used as the boundary monument on a prior resurvey of the tract. Note the 60d Nail marking the "exact" center of the post.
Lamon Miller, post: 364802, member: 553 wrote: Is it acceptable to use an existing fence post as a corner monument? Obviously they will be much larger than the minimum size monument in the standards.
YES, It is perfectly fine. So long as you Flag them, or paint them real well. And, shoot them with RTK!!
It is nice and handy though, to place a reference monument, somewhere good, with a brg and dist to it, so that somebody can "Get on your system".
🙂
N
To use a practical example: who among us wants to claim that the fence post in the photo below would be a better choice for a boundary monument than the rod and cap (which actually marks the boundary corner)? Setting aside the fact that the rod and cap is actually the true corner of the tract as described in the written titles and the fence post appeared later, which actually serves the purpose of a boundary monument?
Yes, I know that the real estate lady will want you to tie plastic ribbon on the fence post so she can point to it from her SUV. From a surveying standpoint, though, which works and which really does not as far as actually objectively defining the location of a corner in way that no two surveyors should have difficulty identifying, now and in the future when the post is listing 20å¡ off plumb?
The boundary monument itself:
Here's a type of boundary monument that you would think would not require a shovel. You would be wrong, though. This monument is set about 30 inches into the dirt, but lists off plumb over time. As a result, to get the best tie to the point on the boundary it marks (the line between the Texas counties of Travis and Hays) you WILL need your shovel as well as a pry bar and a tamper. To get a good tie to this monument requires actually plumbing it up, and that means digging, straightening, and tamping backfill.
After it's all done, though, yes, you can get a tie to the top center of the post. You will wish that the actual marker hadn't been an unstable post, though.
At first I glance at the monument, I thought Travis Hays might be a Texas surveyor. 🙂
but wouldn't the point for the county division be the corner of the post closest to the camera, I don't think the center would work, then some of the lettering would be in the wrong county.
J. Penry, post: 365070, member: 321 wrote: At first I glance at the monument, I thought Travis Hays might be a Texas surveyor. 🙂
Travis Hayes would have to have a Texas-sized ego to set monuments like that