how about the following....
The CLSA forum debate:
Don't you just love it when a guy quotes the current version of Brown as some sort of legal book. The text is almost completely devoid of case law cites. It's opinion. Then the same guy complains that others are not backing up their posts with valid case law.
You don't have to be on the right side of the law to make a bunch of money in litigation. It's like declaring war, a blank check for the funds in the treasury. Just help yourself.
how about the following....
Bingo, you got it!
I can go broke winning lawsuits.
eapls thanks
Thanks for the cite.
The textbooks are not entirely consistent on the topic. The 5th edition of Brown claims that nether grantee has a claim to the gap and it can only be sorted out by the common grantor. Gurdon Wattles indicates in a 1976 version at 11.16 that there are three possible solutions depending on the relevant factset. Clark copyright 1959 indicates in section 232 "separate surveys and successive conveyances"..."the last would be entitled to all surplusages,if any and must stand the deficiency, if any there be." Adams v Wilson, 137 Ala 632, 34 so 831.
So I can conclude that this is a maater thsan may appear to be in a state of flux and is heavily FACTSET DEPENDANT...
how about the following....
> Unintentional, whether caused by metes and bounds cooked up from the GLO record or "of" type descriptions which unintentionally don't add up.
But the bounds portion of a metes and bounds description is a call for an adjoiner's line, which here in Maine anyway equates to a call for a monument. If it comes down to using the measurements (metes) versus the call for the bound, the call for the bound wins.
In a description which calls for bounds around the entire perimeter, and applying junior/senior rights, how could there ever be a gap or an overlap?
how about the following....
I see what you mean.
What we have here is a description that starts with a bound (the section line) then goes north a fixed distance with no call for the centerline of section. I don't know if the distance is the GLO record distance but at any rate it falls short of the measured distance by 50'. This is where the issue is.
Unfortunately in the PLSS there are a lot of these boundless type descriptions that probably intended to go to the land lines but they don't explicitly say so.
how about the following....
> Significant to who? The surveyor who "discovered" it. What about the "gaps and overlaps" along the south, west and east lines? I'm sure the section lines don't run "East" or "North" either. If the surveyor want's to get anal about it, there would be strips, gaps, overlaps, and triangles all over the place. Bearings and distances are low on the totem pole as evidence of the boundaries. The boundaries run out on the ground, monumented and occupied are what count.
Significant in that the dimensions of the gap result in a parcel that is useable as a separate parcel. i.e., there is a possibility the original grantor intended to keep this parcel for his own as it is of developable size.
> Your hat is on backwards. The presumption of law is that the intent was to convey the entire estate to the existing lines. You need to find substantial evidence that will overcome that presumption in order to prove that an intended third parcel was retained. The assessor doesn't have any evidence of it, there's no evidence of it in the title record, is there physical evidence of two fence lines isolating this supposed parcel?
At least my hat is on loose enough to let the blood flow and be objective and open to discussion. I'm not so sure that's true with self proclaimed experts who take such a hard stance one way during the analysis of a survey situation such as this. No the assessor does not have evidence of it, and would not have evidence because the assessor only had the aliquot part description of the parent parcel and never knew what the dimensions were. While separate fences for both sides of the gap would support the intent to retain the parcel, that does not equate to a lack of fences meaning the intent did not exist. For example, none of the deed partioned parcels were fenced within the parent parcel. Just because someone does not fence a remainder parcel does not mean he did not intend to keep it. And there is some evidence of it in the title record. The owner was careful enough to call out the east and west boundaries of the parent parcel in the descriptions contained in the deed partitions which abut those boundaries. However, he never called out the bounding line on the north end for any partioned parcel.
> Every rule of law regarding boundaries is designed for the very purpose of determining the intent of the parties. As a surveyor, you are expected to possess the knowledge, skills, and ability to determine boundaries. Determining boundaries requires that the surveyor determine the intent of the parties.
Boundaries and ownership don't always coincide. Where intent is not absolute, the surveyor is limited in his authority.
> Declaring that a third parcel exists when there is no evidence of any such intent is where the surveyor exceeds his authority, not the other way around. All the surveyor is expected to do is determine the boundary location and then show the record and measured values which perpetuate the evidence of that location.
As a surveyor, I'm not declaring that a third parcel exists. I'm identifying that there are alternative boundary solutions and that the owner of the partioned land does not have perfected title to the land contained in the gap. A surveyor's record of survey, in California, does not perfect title where there is an ambiguity of ownership.
how about the following....
> "No proof of intent"? Are you sure? Have you looked at the deeds and/or patents predating these conveyances? Have you investigated the presumed size of the parent parcel at the tiime of conveyance, and the source that the grantor was informed by?
Yes, I have researched the deeds of all parcels involved back to the original patent. The original patent was an aliquot part conveyance.
> Let me offer a correction to one of your sentences which is likely to reflect the truth of the matter when all the facts the court would want considered are fully considered: "The assessor has never recognized it, primarily because no one has ever expressed or acted on the intent of creating, retaining, or separately conveying this additional 50 feet."
Offer rejected, the assessor never recognized it because the assessor never knew the parent parcel was not of the same north-south dimension as the deed partions. The assessor never had evidence of the parent parcels size as it was an aliquot part description with no survey data providing guidance as to its dimensions. The assessor therefor made an assumption contrary to a legal determination. Assessor's tax maps often fail to recognize the true ownership. When a person partitions out portions of a parcel, there is no record created of any retained portions, unless by mortgage, reconveyance etc. If the original owner never sold, mortgaged, or reconveyed the remainder, there is no action which alerts the assessor to its existance other than the assessors interpretation of lot dimensions. That does not negate the existence of a retained portion, simply because the assessor understandably failed to recognize its existance.
> Finding more land than was thought to be there at the time of conveyance creates a latent ambiguity in the described location of a boundary, it cannot create an additional parcel which was never intended.
If the original intent is not absolute, then we cannot assume intent because of the lack of evidence of intent. Particularly in this situation, where the apparent gap is of sufficient size as to be separate, legal and developable parcel.
> You should review the CCP again. I've recently pored over the Deering's California Codes Annotated covering CCP §§1856 to 1864. Generally, they are instructions to the court, but there is not a restriction prohibiting other professions from applying the laws contained there. Read it carefully. There are matters which are for the court alone to decide, but no prohibition for one who is expert in the subject matter (in this case, land boundaries and title) from offering a professional opinion. But it is important to form that opinion according to the same rules and precedents that the court will be guided by or must adhere to.
I have and am certain the intent of the original owner is not absolutely clear. A judge may rule otherwise, but then again he or she may not as the intent is not obvious.
> You are licensed under CA B&P Code §8700 et seq. Section 8726(c) & (e) says that locating "any property line or boundary" is considered to be within the licensed practice of land surveying. In order to fulfill your duty when practicing per those subsections, the surveyor must investigate the facts and must form an opinion of intent of the parties to the original conveyance in order to properly locate those lines.
Locating boundaries and locating ownership is not always one and the same. I have located alternative solutions, but as intent is not absolute, the result is the identification that the partitioned parcels do not have perfected title to the lands contained in the apparent gap.
how about the following...."alternative boundary solutions"
Isn't there really only one solution from the surveyors point of view? There is a remainder-man parcel in which the fee resides in the original conveyencor, or their heirs.
This is very simliar to one i just finished a few weeks ago. The original owner conveyed the northern third (roughly) by a metes and bounds description. Later he conveyed the southern third (roughly)again by metes and bounds....
But there was a strip in between that varied from about 150' at the road to a narrow slice at the rear, if the dimensions were held. This is significant because the remainder-man parcel is about the size of the others!
However, the descriptions did call for abutters, which as Newtonsapple mentioned, is the same as a natural monument!!!
My client has been using the remainder parcel, almost exclusively for the past 25 years +/-. He is making a claim for what he has used, with the knowledge that it exceeded his deed dimensions, and the balance is going to be claimed by the abutter...
Yes, I prepared a plan showing the proposed property line between the owners, and it is now recorded..
Dtp
clearcut....
What does the GLO record indicate the width of the south half of the Section is?
how about the following...."alternative boundary solutions"
> Isn't there really only one solution from the surveyors point of view? There is a remainder-man parcel in which the fee resides in the original conveyencor, or their heirs.
Lacking the call for abutter, or clear intent of the original owner, I tend to feel there is, at this point in time, no resolution as to whether the gap exists or doesn't exist. Therefor 2 alternate solutions. As a surveyor I can not positively make that determination as I lack evidence of clear intent of the original owner as to either solution. I can make assumptions, but not absolute claim as to how the courts would rule on this matter should the apparent heirs make claim to the gap and an action to quiet title is pursued.
clearcut....
40.00 chains
clearcut....
That would seem to support the notion of a remainder parcel.
A patent, not latent, gap.
Not being a Title Company I would not insure my client's title in the gap. It is the client's problem to perfect their claim to the gap, I agree with you on that.
But on the evidence list would be old (possibly unrecorded) surveys that could have been the source of the 2500' distance. Some County Surveyors have a lot of unrecorded surveys. Santa Cruz, for example, has County Surveyor Field Notes that look just like GLO notes but these break down the Section. Amador has drawers full of old unrecorded County Surveyor plats. Sacramento pretty much has very little, if anything. These may be sources of where the distances came from. Sometimes old Record of Survey maps aren't indexed very well; you run across them just by browsing through the books.
eapls thanks
"Heavily fact set dependent"
That is what my research is indicating. Some gaps are real, and courts really tend to frown on QT actions which did not include the title owner of the real gap as a party to the litigation. By extension, the surveyor who does not recognize a real gap or who does not properly advise a client as to the condition of title can find himself in a lot of trouble in such a case.
Many gaps are imaginary, or as one court characterized, "manufactured". It is almost always a surveyor who first imagines such gaps and facilitates the manufacture of them by landowners and/or trial courts.
In the cases where the court found that imagined gaps did not exist, most were easily explained by looking at the record of conveyances of the parent parcel and those parcels which came out of it, and the other circumstances which would inform the court or the surveyor of the size and configurations of the affected parcels as they were believed to be by the parties at the time of first conveyance of the parcel(s) in question. That is something that the surveyor should be investigating, and as the boundary, and often title expert, the court should be able to look to the surveyor for an expert opinion on the existence and evaluation of relevant evidence.
For a good example of a case where an eloquent mathmagician imagined a gap and led the trial court to manufacture a gap, see:
Ski Roundtop v. Wagerman, 79 Md. App. 357 (1989)
Roundtop owned several parcels, between which Wagerman manufactured a gap with the facilitation of her surveyor's slavish devotion to deed dimensions and mathemagical wizardry.
Both surveyors had researched the conveyances back to the patents. Roundtop's surveyor discerned from the descriptions of the patents that the properties were intended to adjoin, and his survey reflected that. Each had called particular courses to be along the boundary of a previously surveyed boundary, although the common "along whatever line" language had gotten lost over successive conveyances and rewritten M&B descriptions.
Wagerman's surveyor, acknowledging the common calls, still contended that because the courses appearing to be common calls apparently started from a different point in one of the patents than for the other, that although the surveyor (same surveyor for both patents) intended to run the same courses, he instead ran two parallel sets of courses some 14 perches apart, creating a gap. Both patents had called for a starting point along the same particular course of another adjacent patent. One of the patents described the point in pretty good detail, and the other was rather vague, merely calling for a point on the line.
The mathemagician arrived at his conclusion by virtue of the bearings and distances followed back a few courses to where one of the patents made calls to points on yet another patented parecl several courses removed from the called out common courses and the "gap" area in question. Bear in mind that the surveys being retraced were conducted in the late 1700s.
But the mathemagician was apparently a more polished witness because, although the trial court seemed to acknowledge correct law, they ruled counter to it based upon its impression of the mathemagician being a better witness. The Appeals Court chastised the trial court for that.
With the Roundtop decision, we're kind of lucky that the Appeals Court even addressed the issue of the gap because there were also base title issues for Wagermann (original patent from which Wagerman's conveyance had derived had never been completed) that the court could have dismissed the case on and thus avoided dealing with the gap at all. Wagerman's title issues would make an interesting discussion on their own, but don't get hung up on their effect (or lack of) on the existence of the gap, which was resolved by an inspection of the conveyances back to the valid patents.
Nowhere in this case, nor in Allen v Boydstun does the court state that the surveyor was operating beyond his authority by arriving at the correct conclusion using the same facts and applying the same law as the court did.
I draw a few of lessons from these case:
1. It is proper for a surveyor to interpret intent from the same facts as the court would. Sometimes that interpretation might be the application of basic sense such as 75' to Grantee A + 25' to Grantee B = 100', being the entire parcel owned by Grantor, or it might be the recognition that clarifying calls had been lost in successive conveyances but the current courses can be otherwise definitively correlated to those courses in the original conveyances containing the calls.
2. It is proper for a surveyor to apply the same rules of construction for deeds (and one might need to look also to the rules for construction of written instruments) to the facts discovered that the court would to explain latent ambiguities.
3. The courts recognize that a deed which appears plain on its face might prove to be ambiguous when relevant extrinsic facts are introduced, and does not fault the surveyor for recognizing it when it's the case.
4. It is not enough for the survey to be correct on the technical and/or legal aspects of a survey if one cannot adequately communicate why and how one is correct. A well spoken and polished presenter offered as an expert witness, even if wrong on the basic principles, can convince a court of their position when opposite an expert who is right on all points but can't put two coherent sentences together or otherwise appears less credible.
how about the following...."alternative boundary solutions"
Where I work if clear intent is the rule I couldn't make but very few boundary determinations. I agree that where there is ambiguity that the surveyor can't resolve by doing his job then the survey can't be completed.
If there is a remainder parcel belonging to the original grantor (gap) then how can the adjoiners (on each side of the gap) make any claim to it? Why would they fight each other for it as it doesn't (couldn't) belong to either.
The forum posters can only deal in the general principles. I suppose in this situation what needs to be done is a complete history of the original grantor. Are they still alive? Do the own other adjoining land? Do they still reside locally? What do current and past owners and neighbors know. Lots of interviews with lots of people required to sort it out and get to the original intent. I say the minute this ambiguity revealed itself the four corners of the deed are blown out. Extrinsic evidence is now required to sort it out (deed is deficient). A surveyor should be the one to do the work, the court can't do it, maybe attorneys could find someone other than a surveyor or get another surveyor to find the evidence.
Be nice to hear the evidence collected to clear up the original intent of the long ago grantor. Then maybe it would be clearer whether there is indeed a remainder parcel (gap) or whether the grantors hacked some descriptions to sell their land, took the cash with intent to dispose of all of it and left town. Isn't this what needs to be done to resolve the problem?
how about the following....>clear cut
I am of the opinion that the surveyor is supposed to be a "public servant" as well as the "eye's of the Court" in situations like this.
They will listen to us, and they respect our opinion as well as our texts. I cannot recall how many decisions that I have read where Clark and Brown are mentioned.
I think that a decision needs to be made, by a land surveyor, and one that they are willing to defend in court if necessary. The judge will listen, and if they disagree then that's their job. It doesn't make you "wrong" and it doesn't impact your liability.
Make a defensible decision!!
how about the following....>clear cut
I agree with foggyidea.
Here's my spin on the whole subject in general. The is no pat answer. Professional land surveyor answer questions that there is no definitive answer to. that is what makes you a professional
These specific legal descriptions that we discuss are often written poorly. if you have a parcel that is 410 feet wide and the seller sells the east 200 feet and later the west 200 feet without being more clear on his intent, you can stake it with a 10' gap and be correct within the four corners of the document. Yet you know there is ambiguous information there; especially if you have visited the site and see that there is no ground evidence of (apparent) intent by the seller to hold on to 10 feet. In fact I can usually see enough ambiguity in every legal description I have ever seen, that I could stake it more than one way. One of the worst, most violated problems is the huge number of poorly-written legal descriptions. The primary factor for a legal description to be valid is that it must be clear enough to be staked out on the ground. Most descriptions are such that there is ambiguity. (Maybe I am wrong using the term "most" and "almost all", but it is a lot). People can write legal descriptions for conveyances that do not meet the primary test for validity and get away with it. It never comes back to the scrivener and often comes back to the surveyor. Surveyors are always solving problems and dilemma's of ambiguity. Even if you are making unwise choices, once you drive that corner in the ground, odds are that your decision is going to be taken as gospel. Yes many times the surveyor's decisions are questioned, but more often, fences are built to the surveyor's mark and the owner says "I know where my corner is because I had it surveyed".
Okay, I have rambled a bit. But my point is that there are often circumstances around almost every property that are unique to that property. Anyone who says that you "always" take the corner pin that's in the ground, or you always hold a bearing and distance, or that you always follow the magical "order of seniority on calls" is fooling themselves (in my humble opinion).
how about the following....>clear cut
My unscientific feeling on things like gaps and monuments is that they are heavily fact dependent and you won't find a Case which lays down a simple rule in absolute terms because it is impossible to do that. I don't know of an Appellate Case in California that directly deals with the gap issue but even if you found one it may not be applicable to another similar case due to differences in the facts and circumstances surrounding it.
Someone is actively pushing the effective doctrine that no Surveyor can ever determine an apparent gap doesn't exist which seems unreasonably rigid to me. Obviously some gaps do exist. But where they don't I don't see why a Land Surveyor can't opine there is no gap. We do in all sorts of other areas, monuments, descriptions that don't close, monuments that don't line up, overlaps, and so on.
Clearcut
> > Have you investigated the presumed size of the parent parcel at the time of conveyance, and the source that the grantor was informed by?
>
> Yes, I have researched the deeds of all parcels involved back to the original patent. The original patent was an aliquot part conveyance.
You sidestepped the issue of presumed size of the parent parcel at the time of original conveyance. The answer may explain the use of 2500' or it may tend to confirm the intent to retain some portion. It's an important question that needs an answer for your complete analysis.
>
> > Let me offer a correction to one of your sentences...
>
> Offer rejected, the assessor... never knew the parent parcel was not of the same north-south dimension as the deed partions. ... aliquot part description with no survey data providing... dimensions. The assessor therefor made an assumption contrary to a legal determination. Assessor's tax maps often fail to recognize the true ownership.
>
The Assessor's knowledge is immaterial to the conveyances. Their maps may or may not be accurate (for assessment purposes) as to the configuration or existence of parcels. Was there some legal determination to be contrary to? APMs are not intended to recognize true ownership, they are intended only to be a basis for taxation.
What is of importance is what the parties to the original conveyance knew at the time of the conveyance.
If the parent parcel was an aliquot part then it did have record dimensions. The GLO plat & notes for the township has all the info to determine nominal dimensions of aliquot parcels. Many old deeds out of aliquot parcels were written based upon dimensions on the GLO plat or assuming all directions cardinal and distances as even divisions of a mile (2640', 1320', etc.). 2500' is an odd distance unless the adjoiner to the south is described as the southerly 140' or something like that.
These are things you need to check. You are the expert who is supposed to investigate to determine if there is evidence to explain the gap. There is no other whose role it is to do that. In court, a judge makes decisions based upon what the parties bring to court and will not conduct his own investigation, but will expect that the experts for the parties will have already done so.
>
> If the original intent is not absolute, then we cannot assume intent because of the lack of evidence of intent. Particularly in this situation, where the apparent gap is of sufficient size as to be separate, legal and developable parcel.
>
Right, we can't assume intent. But then, neither can a judge. Both surveyor and judge work by the same law. If you, as the surveyor know the law by which the judge must evaluate the evidence, then you should strive to form your opinion by the same facts the court will consider and by the same law it will apply.
As a surveyor, you should never make assumptions w.r.t. professional decisions. In knowing the law, particularly the rules of construction, and perhaps also knowledge of local history or of the original surveyors, one can make presumptions which are then supported or refuted by evidence found during investigation. By the time your investigation is complete, most, if not all of your presumptions will either be supported or negated by the evidence. Your final opinion should have few, if any presumptions (hopefully only those considered as judicial notice), and no assumptions.
When there is a question as to intent, particularly when discovered extrinsically, you look for evidence to explain the ambiguity. A surveyor can get into a lot of trouble by assuming rather than using evidence to support a statement.
You may shy away from offering an opinion due to a fear of liability or a lack of confidence in your knowledge of the law and ability to apply it to the facts. OK, that's understandable and even advisable when one feels they are beyond their knowledge and capabilities, but it does not relieve a surveyor of properly investigating facts and circumstances which may explain an ambiguity. Investigation is required if you are claiming to have performed a boundary survey of such a parcel.
Nor do limitations of one surveyor's knowledge and abilities define the limits of legal practice for all surveyors. Such personal limitations fall under the Board Rule (§415 in CA) restricting any given professional to practice only within one's area of competence. The surveyor cannot presume to adjudicate intent among several plausible interpretations, but nothing in the law prevents the surveyor from offering an opinion of intent.
If you have evidence of differing plausible interpretations of the boundary location, you should disclose those locations and the evidence supporting or contradicting each. Nothing prevents the surveyor from offering an opinion as to which of those alternatives is the most supportable. IMO, when one location is clearly more supportable, the surveyor should let that opinion be known.
> > You should review the CCP again...
>
> I have and am certain the intent of the original owner is not absolutely clear. A judge may rule otherwise, but then again he or she may not as the intent is not obvious.
>
Absolutely clear is a pretty high standard, and one I am sure a large percentage of descriptions would fail. Reasonably clear and/or reasonably explained by the record and circumstances surrounding the conveyance that you are able to determine is the standard a professional should work by. If a surveyor of average intelligence and ability is able to reasonably interpret intent from the deed itself and legally permissable extrinsic evidence, then the surveyor should attempt to do so.
> > You are licensed [yo locate] "any property line or boundary"...
>
> Locating boundaries and locating ownership is not always one and the same. I have located alternative solutions, but as intent is not absolute, the result is the identification that the partitioned parcels do not have perfected title to the lands contained in the apparent gap.
Boundaries, ownership, not always same. Yeah, OK, there may be some unwritten rights issues, but those are separate from determining whether there is a real gap in title. If there is a real gap, unwritten rights may have accrued and serve as the basis for a remedy, but the issue of a gap is one of title and interpretation of record first.
Earlier, someone brought up a case where the W 70' and the E 60' were conveyed from a parcel known to be 140' wide. He thought he conveyed it all, but he hadn't, not due to extra land being found by measurement at a later date, but because of a typo or poor addition. The circumstances at the time of the conveyances were that it was known or believed that the parent parcel was 140' long; he sold the W 70', which left him with the E 70' according to the record (we as surveyors know it's more correctly the whole parcel except the W 70', but to the rest of the world it's the same thing); he then sold the E 60'. It is plain in the record that 140 - 70 - 60 = 10 feet remaining. That's a real gap in title.
A different example, which may or may not reflect your situation: Smith owned the SW 1/4 of Sec 10. The only survey on record is the 1858 GLO plat which says the section is 80 ch x 80 ch with 1/4 posts at 40 ch. Smith sells the south 140' of the SW 1/4 (Parcel 1) to Jones, and later sells about 5 to 7 years apart, (Parcel 2) the E 660' of the N 2500' of the SW 1/4 to Brown, (Parcel 3) the N 2500' of the W 1/2 of the E 1/2 of the SW 1/4 to White, (Parcel 4) the E 660' of the W 1/2 of the SW 1/4 except for the S 140' to Black, and finally (Parcel 5) beginning at a point 140' N of the SW corner of Section 10, thence N 2500', thence E 660', thence S 2500', thence W 660' to the POB, to Greene. The conveyance to Greene was 40 years ago.
There were no other record surveys prior to Greene's deed, but there have been a couple since that have shown that the SW 1/4 of Sec 10 is approximately 2690' N-S by 2590' E-W. At first glance, one might think that there are gaps and overlaps all over the SW 1/4, but once the whole record has been gathered, the experienced surveyor realizes that there isn't a single gap or overlap of title in this 1/4 section. They were all described differently, but all described such that they fit together perfectly in a standard section of 80 ch x 80 ch, which was the circumstance believed to exist at the time of the conveyances. A surveyor claiming to have found gaps and overlaps here is sorely mistaken.
Absolute is probably not the right adjective. The original parties intended to identify particular and definite lines. They may not have described them well, and at first glance, it may appear that they described different lines entirely, but once an ambiguity is detected, you then must attempt to define and explain it.
To a surveyor who says "I don't have the authority to figure out whether a gap exists or not, and certainly not to figure out who owns it", I say "Well then who does?!"
The answer is almost always "That's for the judge to decide."
Well Tarzan, who do you think the judge is going to want to rely on to have gathered all of the relevant facts and be able to explain how they relate to each other?
To borrow a phrase, "If not the surveyor, then who?"
Dave
> Someone is actively pushing the effective doctrine that no Surveyor can ever determine an apparent gap doesn't exist which seems unreasonably rigid to me. Obviously some gaps do exist. But where they don't I don't see why a Land Surveyor can't opine there is no gap. We do in all sorts of other areas, monuments, descriptions that don't close, monuments that don't line up, overlaps, and so on.
I agree with everything you said.
as to the second paragraph quoted above, I would reiterate that I think that surveyors "opine" that there is no gap often. They not only think about it but they (we) often do it in the field and on our plats. More often than not, I suspect that many a surveyor fixes problems on the actual ground, the land owner and their neighbors accept the surveyors marks, and they go on about their business. The ones that don't are just the ones that get our attention. It's like seeing thousands of people passing each other every day, and greeting each other in the stores, etc.; but naturally we take note of the less-often violence.