Grasshopper, you have proved nothing.
Making a grand statement and expressing a point of view is mere talk and nothing more.
This is a place where the beginnings of what tomorrow will hold are brought to light.
Wendell has given us a soapbox to talk surveying and express our thoughts in the open and among professionals.
Today we work within today's laws and regulations.
Cooley was a Supreme Court Justice and his remarks come from the highest level and that part of our legal system and resound across the BOR of each state and and our mentor's lead for everyone to follow.
The other concepts are simply that, concepts of future thought and not anything set in stone for any to follow today.
Doing so at this time would be beyond the duties of the surveyor.
You can fight your cause in the courtrooms and among others with heart as you wish.
Until the time your quest has made your concept the law of the land, your are simply practicing surveying outside of the existing guidelines and beyond your duties you have sworn to as a licensed surveyor.
What you are preaching may be the way of your land, more voices from your country would give more insight.
We have laws that prevent removing ancient monuments set with the intent they mark the limits of ownership between neighbors because the math does not fit the deed.
There are books on shelves in reference libraries that instruct how to reconstruct the location of where missing monuments fall.
These do not give any instruction to ignore original monuments and move them when the math of a deed differs.
Herein we find ourselves at an impasse sitting between your concept and all other surveyors following "laws of the land".
Francis,
I quoted Cooley from a Michigan Supreme Court case. His point then - and it is still valid - was that when retracing boundaries, math cannot trump evidence of those boundaries. Other State Appellate Courts cite "Diehl v. Zanger" when adjudicating similar cases. As surveyors, we are being instructed in the States we practice how to approach and execute our retracements.
The essay you quoted was an address to a group of Michigan engineers. He was referring to extinct, or missing corner monuments. There is, indeed, a presumption regarding the work of the Contract U.S Deputy Surveyors that, in the absence of extrinsic evidence of the location of a missing corner, the field notes and plat are determinative.
The Manual of Instructions for Public Land surveys has been revised and updated periodically, most recently in 2009. The relevant sections for today's private surveyor relate to retracement principles.
The point I am trying to convey is that it is far better to have a somewhat faulty measurement to where a corner is than a precise measurement to where it isn't. I have seen that quote attributed to a number of illustrious surveyors, but it addresses a longstanding concern about maintaining harmony among dissonant components.
It may be that you have not had to trace any of your clients' or adjoiners' boundaries back in time through multiple subdivisions to a parent parcel of questionable diligence as to monument placement, but this is what U.S. Surveyors do. Who else, after all? The Courts depend on that expertise.
Who else, after all? The Courts depend on that expertise.
Very poor source of expertise. If you as surveyors have enough experience then you as a group whether on state or federal level would have suggested that you cannot have both monuments & deeds correct at the same time when evidence based on today's measurements show there is a discrepancy.
You as a professional surveyor whose main job is to measure the earth cannot turn your back and say monuments are correct. The 2 corners measure 100ft and the deed is also correct as it describe the line between the 2 monuments as 110ft.
The courts base their decisions on positions of those who do it for a living. You cannot have a situation where existing monuments are always correct even if the present surveyor cannot know for certain if it was moved intentionally or not.
You believe that your present system settles disputes between neighbors .But because of the difficulty to prove actual positions of monuments you also place a certain degree of distrust between them. Boundaries are based on where people think they are. Isn't that a silly concept? So a person who inherited a lot and has never lived there will have to trust that his neighbor who he has never met to tell him where his boundary lie? Why can't he turn to his deed description and have a surveyor lay it out based on this written record?This way you rely on a third party who has no interest in both neighbors and thus free to layout boundaries based on a written record?
Also saying that there are precedence in court cases means that it is final means that you have never heard of supreme court reversals?
FrancisH - You really just plain can't get your head around the fact that the laws and methods pertaining to boundary surveying in the US are different from the laws and methods of boundary surveying elsewhere, can you?
Kudos to all the polite and professional posters who tried. Your patience and willingness to assist others, even those who obviously seem to resist assistance, is why I frequent this forum so much.
I just can't see making a match to a minimum of three other monuments your threshold. If you find three monuments that were set erroneously (say from a false point of beginning) your whole boundary survey may be flawed. I think you would find that even more often if the three monuments were set by the same surveyor. I also would guess that I could find a series of monuments where three neighboring monuments matched well with each other, and another surveyor could come along and find some monuments I didn't find, and/or not all of the same exact monuments I did find, and end up in a different position for the same corners I set.
FrancisH, post: 397190, member: 10211 wrote: you can't be convincing to anyone when your initial concept itself is flawed.
Agreed.
I just can't see making a match to a minimum of three other monuments your threshold. If you find three monuments that were set erroneously (say from a false point of beginning) your whole boundary survey may be flawed.
Usually you get 3 points from 3 adjoining lots - left, right, top/bottom lots. The premise being these 3 lots surrounding your lot would not be erroneous at the same time since over time, these were surveyed/resurveyed by different surveyors. If those 3 lots surrounding you are in agreement then your lot won't have any gaps/overlaps with those 3 and you get the same peace from your adjoining neighbors. Only in our country, peace is brought about by actual measurements that agree with deeds. So if any of the 3 neighbors complain, then you show to that neighbor that the position of the lot surveyed was also referenced from a corner of his lot.So if he is saying my survey is erroneous then it also means his lot is erroneous.
You tie your lot to only the lots that abutt your lot? I'm done.
RSAsurv, post: 397188, member: 10950 wrote: Ok sorry if I am uneducated in this. Firstly I am not a LS but Engineering Surveyor. I only do cadastral stuff maybe 1 time a week if that much. Please make me understand this. We have a diagram for a property (unless it is a subdivision,that diagram is the general plan of said township).
That diagram states a property is loacted in township X being situated on farm Y and was done by surveyor X in 19... and the will be referneced in some way with either angles and distances,cape datum coords or wgs84 coords (rarely other coords systems). Next township over will be similar,maybe 20 years later and the new township boundaries that are common should start and end at same coords,that surveyor should have found thise previous beacons. So that new township fits the next door. It might be off by 20mm or so but it all fits (mostly).
If I then buy a house my title deed refers to said general plan diagram,which defines my property as being X x Y distance. The distance is X and nothing can change that.
How can the deed and diagram differ? I agree to not move beacons, but if the diagram says my boundary is 100,00m long then is that not final? If I find all 4 oroginal set beacons,but the 100m line is measured as 90m from beacon to beacon then the beacons are wrong? Maybe set wrong,maybe moved, maybe not the original beacons. But if lets say I can with 100% confidense say they are the originals(maybe very unique description or age shows or something) then how are the beacons not wrong?
If my deed refers to diagram and diagrams defines my property as that length then thats what it is
Or am I missing a difference is way stuff is done?
Thanks
Sent from my SM-N920C using Tapatalk
The basic idea can be illustrated like this:
Your deed begins at a big oak tree on the north side of east-west lane. Thence it proceeds north 500 feet to the center of big river. You go out and find the oak tree, it's marked as the deed stated, a fence heading due north extends to a big bend in the river that sets in a gulch, the river hasn't moved for generations.
You find out that the distance only measures 455 feet.
The deed north of the river also calls out for the river to be the boundary, and if you extend the distance along your line to 500 feet you will be in their pasture.
The legal principal is to hold the oak tree and the river, then the surveyor would report the 500 feet record dimension from the deed and the measured 455 feet that was determined on the ground and show it on his drawing.
The controlling elements for the this line in the deed are the oak, the river, then the direction and finally the distance.
This kinda thing is what surveyors run into all the time, it's up to us to come to our decision on where, in our opinion, that line is, monument it with "newer" monuments such as a witness monument on the line as it projects into the river and report new dimensions and even write a new description if the landowners are so inclined to use one.
The law likes boundaries that can be seen, touched, found and followed on the ground, not so much numbers on a piece of paper.
But clearly other countries have taken a different approach, I'm not saying that it's better or worse, however, I don't follow how old measurements that are clearly substandard gained such authority over monuments that the monuments have to move. Seems like it would be an endless series of takings.
If the true legal standing of unwritten rights of property owners were understood there would be no mess. Unwritten measured distances between established boundaries win over the written time after time. Surveyors have no right to try to influence change in the way property rights are interpreted. Surveyors are licensed to protect property rights. Nothing more and nothing less.
I actually DID what Francis H says, one time.... I went to set a corner, and found a monument. I reached down, and tugged on it, and it turned out to be a 1/2" x 5" rebar, in the grass.... It moved easily! I knew the surveyor who had set it... and I saw what leaving it would do, and I RESET a "Disturbed" marker. I this ONE time! I have rejected a few, because they were disturbed, but that one above was crazy!
Unwritten measured distances between established boundaries win over the written time after time.
Then why bother to measure using a transit,total station,GPS all these recent years then?
You say one thing then turn around and get the latest mm total station to use for a boundary survey?
Now that is funny.
Surveyors have no right to try to influence change in the way property rights are interpreted. Surveyors are licensed to protect property rights
And yet the original surveys, subdivision surveys, town site surveys are all done by surveyors.....
The way I understand it, why hire a surveyor then? Or why is there a surveying profession in the US? If his job was that of a lawyer or landscape architect.
The way you describe your profession, you are phasing out the need of the public for a surveyor.
Let me see:
1. correct measurement of distance is not important - why use mm TS/GPS?a tape is much cheaper & lighter to carry around. hey just use your feet to pace out distances.
2. what ever the surveyor think is correct doesn't matter, just ask your neighbor where he thinks his boundary is and that's it.
3. as long as there is a monument somewhere in the USA, it's correct, no matter if it was just a cap that some kid in 1800s nailed to the ground to hold his cow in the pasture. hey, I can't prove that it's not a survey cap then surely it must be a survey cap.
that's funny in a sad kind of logic.
Nate The Surveyor, post: 397211, member: 291 wrote: I actually DID what Francis H says, one time.... I went to set a corner, and found a monument. I reached down, and tugged on it, and it turned out to be a 1/2" x 5" rebar, in the grass.... It moved easily! I knew the surveyor who had set it... and I saw what leaving it would do, and I RESET a "Disturbed" marker. I this ONE time! I have rejected a few, because they were disturbed, but that one above was crazy!
Nate, I just had a Section Corner that was lying loose on the ground. It was a brass cap that was set in 1994, typical 3" brass top on a pipe, it looked to me like the flanges were not flared and I'm guessing that it got frost heaved straight up and out of the ground. The flanges were still straight and it wouldn't be unusual for that to happen. It's possible for it to also happen to a rebar, but maybe not where you work.
A Harris, post: 397195, member: 81 wrote: Grasshopper, you have proved nothing.
Hey! As a Grasshopper First Class, (and one who still believes I still hold the most advanced Grasshopper rank on these forums), I suggest that your use of the term here, diminishes and demeans the position.
I thought a Grasshopper was one who knew little but wanted to learn; not one that knew little with NO desire to learn. Big difference in my mind.
FrancisH, post: 397213, member: 10211 wrote: Then why bother to measure using a transit,total station,GPS all these recent years then?
You say one thing then turn around and get the latest mm total station to use for a boundary survey?
Now that is funny
I agree with that comment in many ways. The latest mm total station is best suited for engineering survey. Of course if I had one I might use it for boundary measurements. Sometimes established boundaries are evident before the first measurement is made. I have found the most valuable surveying tool is a shovel.
