One of the best threads ever on this site has moved down to Page 4. This is the thread titled, "New to forum - need some advice". Two comments were added to it yesterday, but none yet today.
For those who missed it, this is a real world case from near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where the property owner is the one who started the thread asking us for help. She reported that two different surveyors working on tracts near her property had apparently started from different monuments, which, in turn, made her unsure of her own property lines despite having lived on the property for more than 30 years. Investigations online by regulars here discovered that the county GIS mapping shows a number of problems between apparent deed descriptions and actual occupation for her tract and others in the same general area.
This thread may be quite educational to some casual followers of this site. If you haven't read the entire thread, I encourage you to set aside some time to do so. I believe there are well over 100 posts to consider.
For the lazy like me https://surveyorconnect.com/index.php?mode=thread&id=234255
One of the things this thread reminded me of is the responsibility a surveyor has to get it right and chaos that can follow if they don't. Occasionally I run into situations, mostly in older hub and tack subdivision where various surveyors will come in years later to monument one lot out of a dozen. It must be that the client doesn't feel they should have to pay retrace the entire subdivision, to see the whole picture, and the surveyor lowers his fee and takes his best swipe at it. What we end up with is several sets of non original corners, none of which agree with each other, and no idea how they were set and what was held. Not too long ago I was approached to tackle such a lot in such a subdivision. After doing my homework I concluded I would need to retrace the entire subdivision, gave them a price and never heard back from them. I'm fairly certain that some other surveyor agreed to do it for less and the client will get exactly what they payed for.
Thoughts your Boviness?
You hit the nail on the head.......careless on the part of the so-called professional. A quick buck versus actually doing the job correctly.
One argument is that it is better to do something and then challenge anyone to prove you wrong. The other argument is that you should never do less than what it takes to arrive at the correct answer, regardless of level of effort required.
That was an interesting read. Thanks for the heads up.
This is one of the downfalls of this style of forum. A lot of great info gets buried.
Small parcels with big problems
Williwaw, the messed-up subdivision monumentation you describe is very common in Minneapolis - St. Paul. Until the 1950s, state law only required 3 monuments on any subdivision plat. These were normally set on outside corners, and the interior lots were monumented piecemeal by many surveyors.
The problem boils down to cost versus pay. Commercial property owners are generally willing, though not eager, to pay what it costs to unravel these situations. The average homeowner can't or won't. More than likely they end up with a low-baller who doesn't care if the problem is really solved.
At the 50-employee firm where I worked before retirement, we used to turn down all single-family residential lot surveys and refer them to solo surveyors or small firms with low overhead. There were three or four of these who did decent work, although naturally they weren't getting rich.
Minnesota has a boundary-commission statute. A city or county can set up a commission and direct it to straighten out all the boundary problems in a designated area, under court supervision. The cost is assessed against all the property owners in the problem area. I don't know how many other states have similar statutes. It works pretty well although it takes awhile to go through the process.
You don't miss the hot threads if you go to the top of the main page and click on 'Order' so that the top thread displayed is the one with with the latest post, instead of the last thread originated.
Thank you for the tip!:-)
Now on page 5
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