Better get that GPS readjusted because it is more likely wrong than the guy in the 1880's.
all other field of work accepts that their field of work keeps on improving and present technology are better than previous ones. in surveying in the US, it's the reverse. even with present findings that previous survey measurements are off, courts won't accept that fact. that in itself is bewildering.
discrepancies in several inches are acceptable but when these discrepancies are off by 1/2 foot or more then you need to adjust to present day measurements. I mean doctors have abandoned shock therapy right? surveyors need to also update their measurements. accepting position of monuments is ok but to not update the deed description to reflect present position and area is a form of professional dereliction of duty.
here in Singapore & Japan where I work in the past, the reverse doctrine is used, the description of a lot takes precedence over existing monuments. so if a monument is off just be several centimeters (>15cm) then surveyors need to look for reference corners from several adjoining lots (>3) to determine correct position of the lot being surveyed.
this approach then solves erroneous previous survey markings because the shape/area of the lot is fixed and as survey technology improves then your layout gets better until in the future maybe 1mm discrepancies would be the norm.
FrancisH, post: 395399, member: 10211 wrote: all other field of work accepts that their field of work keeps on improving and present technology are better than previous ones. in surveying in the US, it's the reverse. even with present findings that previous survey measurements are off, courts won't accept that fact. that in itself is bewildering.
discrepancies in several inches are acceptable but when these discrepancies are off by 1/2 foot or more then you need to adjust to present day measurements. I mean doctors have abandoned shock therapy right? surveyors need to also update their measurements. accepting position of monuments is ok but to not update the deed description to reflect present position and area is a form of professional dereliction of duty.here in Singapore & Japan where I work in the past, the reverse doctrine is used, the description of a lot takes precedence over existing monuments. so if a monument is off just be several centimeters (>15cm) then surveyors need to look for reference corners from several adjoining lots (>3) to determine correct position of the lot being surveyed.
this approach then solves erroneous previous survey markings because the shape/area of the lot is fixed and as survey technology improves then your layout gets better until in the future maybe 1mm discrepancies would be the norm.
Then what do you do when people have built improvements based on the monuments? Keep making them move a fence every 10 years when a 'better' measurement is taken? Whenever a new surveyor comes along they rebuild their fence because his new measurements reset the monuments?
Seems like the boundaries wouldn't be fixed, they would be moving all over the place based on who was measuring with what.
FrancisH, post: 395399, member: 10211 wrote: all other field of work accepts that their field of work keeps on improving and present technology are better than previous ones. in surveying in the US, it's the reverse. even with present findings that previous survey measurements are off, courts won't accept that fact. that in itself is bewildering.
discrepancies in several inches are acceptable but when these discrepancies are off by 1/2 foot or more then you need to adjust to present day measurements. I mean doctors have abandoned shock therapy right? surveyors need to also update their measurements. accepting position of monuments is ok but to not update the deed description to reflect present position and area is a form of professional dereliction of duty.here in Singapore & Japan where I work in the past, the reverse doctrine is used, the description of a lot takes precedence over existing monuments. so if a monument is off just be several centimeters (>15cm) then surveyors need to look for reference corners from several adjoining lots (>3) to determine correct position of the lot being surveyed.
this approach then solves erroneous previous survey markings because the shape/area of the lot is fixed and as survey technology improves then your layout gets better until in the future maybe 1mm discrepancies would be the norm.
"When the division line of adjoining owners is designated in their respective deeds as a line beginning at a specified distance from a fixed object, the only method of ascertaining the location of the line on the ground is by measuring the required distance from the object. Experience shows that such measurements, made at different times by different persons with different instruments, will usually vary somewhat. The position of the object or monument at which the course begins may also be changed and the change may not be known to the parties, or there may be no means of ascertaining its original position. If the position of the line always remained to be ascertained by measurement alone, the result would be that it would not be a fixed boundary, but would be subject to change with every new measurement. Such uncertainty and instability in the title to land would be intolerable."
Young v. Blakeman, 153 Cal. 477 (1908)
Then what do you do when people have built improvements based on the monuments? Keep making them move a fence every 10 years when a 'better' measurement is taken?
before any construction is allowed by city, a certified boundary survey is done. the boundary lines/bearings are verified and monuments (if not lost previously) are placed on the ground with knowledge of adjoining owners. adjoining owners may chose to get their own surveyor to verify the work of the other surveyor. so when the wall is constructed, both neighbors are happy of its position.
If the position of the line always remained to be ascertained by measurement alone, the result would be that it would not be a fixed boundary, but would be subject to change with every new measurement.
which is why there is a threshold of 15cm discrepancy of existing monuments. the surveyor has to collect 3 or more reference points from several adjoining lots for use as reference points. if a corner is off by more than 15cm after using the 3 other reference points then it is deemed erroneous and should be moved to correct position as measured from the 3 reference points.if no 3 reference points are found with less than 15cm discrepancies then surveyor will need to widen his area of survey of adjoining lots until he finds 3 or more agreeable reference points. the survey plat submitted for verification to the city contains the location, discrepancies and the reference points used in the survey together with the description of these adjoining lots. so in the future if another surveyor finds a lot that he thinks is erroneous then he simply gets a copy of the previous survey plat and find what reference points were used previously and connect his survey to these markers for a new verification survey.the use of 3 or more reference points from adjoining lots also ensures that as time progresses, newly surveyed lots will be connected to previously corrected surveyed lots thus ensuring that there will be minimal errors in adjoining lots. eventually you will have cases where reference points are propagated from 2 different places and will eventually have to meet up right? well if there are any errors then these will eventually be thrown into the road area and are chalked up to lost areas due to right of way which can then be reimbursed from the city as refunds for real estate taxes. convenient right?
paden cash, post: 394977, member: 20 wrote: The other day I had a crew bring in a bunch of data from a large commercial area developed in the early '70s. As one might imagine the existing property corner locations didn't fit the recorded plat worth a hoot. Something in the neighborhood of almost 4 tenths in three or four hundred feet. Not surprising for the time. But I noticed something else about the existing geometry; a good deal of the pins lined up very well although the distances between them was sloppy. It was apparent to me we were looking at an area that had been laid out with a chain (and bite me, I will probably always call it a chain) and transit.
My PC had done something he always does when searching for pins; he calculated a position by using the record plat and began his search at those "staked out" locations. Not a bad practice I don't guess, but I had to correct him on his terminology. As we discussed what he had located he kept referring to the existing pins as "being off" by this or that distance.
"By the time I got to the end, they were all off a half a foot" he said.
I remember the very same conversation over 40 years ago with a wise old surveyor, except I was the PC. We had just started working with electronic distance measurements...in a world that had been laid out without, and never knew of, such accuracy. A lot of us back then felt it was our duty to "fix" the world. "The plat says it should be 1321.64' to this point, and it measures only 1321.15'...we need to reset a 'correct' point..."
Thankfully I worked for a surveyor that understood the matrix within which we work. He carefully explained to all of us the sanctity of an existing pin and its positional relationship with the other pins, good or bad. I remember he told me, "You are always going to run into inaccuracies. How you deal with inaccuracy is what makes you a surveyor and not the simple fact you've merely located them."
What makes a good survey is the true and accurate mapping and recordation of what's been done and what is existing on a project. What makes a good surveyor is the decisions made working within those parameters. I passed this on to my guys. Those pins might not be where YOU would have set them today...but they ARE where they were set yesterday.I think I passed on something important. I hope my guys remember it as long as I have.
I guess I'd like to nominate this as the post of the year.
I have reduced this to:
"When there is fresh raw land, and you are setting the defining boundary marks, then where they landed, is where they should stay."
"When you are retracing, you are simply documenting WHERE THEY LANDED. "
This should be written on my wall....
Say it often....
FrancisH, post: 395399, member: 10211 wrote: all other field of work accepts that their field of work keeps on improving and present technology are better than previous ones. in surveying in the US, it's the reverse. even with present findings that previous survey measurements are off, courts won't accept that fact. that in itself is bewildering.
discrepancies in several inches are acceptable but when these discrepancies are off by 1/2 foot or more then you need to adjust to present day measurements. I mean doctors have abandoned shock therapy right? surveyors need to also update their measurements. accepting position of monuments is ok but to not update the deed description to reflect present position and area is a form of professional dereliction of duty.here in Singapore & Japan where I work in the past, the reverse doctrine is used, the description of a lot takes precedence over existing monuments. so if a monument is off just be several centimeters (>15cm) then surveyors need to look for reference corners from several adjoining lots (>3) to determine correct position of the lot being surveyed.
this approach then solves erroneous previous survey markings because the shape/area of the lot is fixed and as survey technology improves then your layout gets better until in the future maybe 1mm discrepancies would be the norm.
I know of quite a few American "surveyors" that should move to Singapore or Japan, then the way they practice would be more in line with the law.
Sarcasm? maybe, maybe not........
In the US, surveyors do not have the authority/power to change a description, only the landowners can change it, here, changing the deed and/or description is a title matter, not a survey matter. From your posts, I assume the laws are different there.
Brian Allen, post: 395428, member: 1333 wrote: ... I assume the laws are different there.
I realize property laws are different all over the world. But for a moment my brain scrolled through the "what if?" of US courts acquiescing to blurry property lines as a "moving target". I really don't think we could ever get to a point where boundary lines are fixed by the deed and not by the physical corner....to much litigation would ensue. Not saying other ways are good or bad...we have just held with case law for so many hundreds of years that changing would turn everything upside down.
Possibly our laws were forged from the size of the physical task of surveying so many thousands of miles of our vast country, who knows? But moving corners is indeed an abstract concept to me too.
Yep. Radically different circumstances allow for radically different procedures.
FrancisH, post: 395415, member: 10211 wrote: before any construction is allowed by city, a certified boundary survey is done. the boundary lines/bearings are verified and monuments (if not lost previously) are placed on the ground with knowledge of adjoining owners. adjoining owners may chose to get their own surveyor to verify the work of the other surveyor. so when the wall is constructed, both neighbors are happy of its position.
This is the part you are getting right versus in the U.S most surveys are done for one owner without knowledge of the other.
If both owners are happy with the wall's position then that would almost certainly be a valid agreement here and the boundary would be fixed at that point even if a mutual mistake is later uncovered by a survey. Note U.S. Courts view this agreed boundary as having not moved in order to except it from the Statute of Frauds.
Yep. Radically different circumstances allow for radically different procedures.
the way I see it, as surveyors, our work is to measure accurately the metes and bounds of certain lot parcel & report its location & description for legal purposes. the word "accurately" I would admit is relative to how, when & what instruments were used in the survey. But no matter what technology was used,certain standards must be followed to ensure adequate & acceptable errors in measurements.
IF a surveyor is not able to do this then he is not doing his job. the way I understand US surveyors' work, it seems that they don't want to move monuments & they don't want to rewrite descriptions too, and they are using the laws to hide behind this.
so my question is, what's the purpose of your work for a client then?might as well hire a 5th grader and let him draw the boundary plat since any discrepancies from existing monuments & descriptions really has no bearing (no pun intended).
FrancisH, post: 395498, member: 10211 wrote: the way I see it, as surveyors, our work is to measure accurately the metes and bounds of certain lot parcel & report its location & description for legal purposes. the word "accurately" I would admit is relative to how, when & what instruments were used in the survey. But no matter what technology was used,certain standards must be followed to ensure adequate & acceptable errors in measurements.
IF a surveyor is not able to do this then he is not doing his job. the way I understand US surveyors' work, it seems that they don't want to move monuments & they don't want to rewrite descriptions too, and they are using the laws to hide behind this.
so my question is, what's the purpose of your work for a client then?might as well hire a 5th grader and let him draw the boundary plat since any discrepancies from existing monuments & descriptions really has no bearing (no pun intended).
This is a severe mischaracterization of U.S boundary practice.
This is a severe mischaracterization of U.S boundary practice.
but correct me if I am wrong?if you discover 2 monuments that are not consistent with their bearing/distance on the plat, you leave them as-is right?
then you don't report/update the legal description on the plat right?
so what was the purpose of the boundary survey then?the client paid you to :
1. NOT correct the position of the monuments based on the legal description
2. NOT update the recorded plat lot description
So to put everything in simple perspective, the client would have gotten the same result if they DID NOT hire a surveyor in the first place?
present surveyors are passing the blame on the erroneous survey to previous surveyors and not doing anything to correct this error. these errors will just keep on propagating while you get paid to propagate the error?
FrancisH, post: 395502, member: 10211 wrote: but correct me if I am wrong?if you discover 2 monuments that are not consistent with their bearing/distance on the plat, you leave them as-is right?
then you don't report/update the legal description on the plat right?
so what was the purpose of the boundary survey then?the client paid you to :
1. NOT correct the position of the monuments based on the legal description
2. NOT update the recorded plat lot descriptionSo to put everything in simple perspective, the client would have gotten the same result if they DID NOT hire a surveyor in the first place?
present surveyors are passing the blame on the erroneous survey to previous surveyors and not doing anything to correct this error. these errors will just keep on propagating while you get paid to propagate the error?
The task of a boundary surveyor in the U.S. is to conduct an investigation into where the boundaries are located. This includes review and analysis of the relevant Deeds and search for evidence. Measurement of boundary evidence is a technical task but analysis is more art than strictly technical. If the boundaries are found to be physically established then record vs measured data is provided. If the boundaries are not established or prior attempts not accepted then new monuments are set in conformance with the Deed. In many States Surveyors are required to file the Survey in the public records. In other States a new description is provided which will be recorded at the next transaction.
The U.S. operates under ancient common law rules so boundary practice definitely is not an engineering problem. I realize in other countries the law allows for more corrections to the boundaries despite detrimental reliance by innocent property owners but that would be contrary to law here. It is not a matter of hiding behind anything. A professional's job is to serve the society he operates within.
FrancisH, post: 395416, member: 10211 wrote: which is why there is a threshold of 15cm discrepancy of existing monuments. the surveyor has to collect 3 or more reference points from several adjoining lots for use as reference points. if a corner is off by more than 15cm after using the 3 other reference points then it is deemed erroneous and should be moved to correct position as measured from the 3 reference points.if no 3 reference points are found with less than 15cm discrepancies then surveyor will need to widen his area of survey of adjoining lots until he finds 3 or more agreeable reference points. the survey plat submitted for verification to the city contains the location, discrepancies and the reference points used in the survey together with the description of these adjoining lots. so in the future if another surveyor finds a lot that he thinks is erroneous then he simply gets a copy of the previous survey plat and find what reference points were used previously and connect his survey to these markers for a new verification survey.the use of 3 or more reference points from adjoining lots also ensures that as time progresses, newly surveyed lots will be connected to previously corrected surveyed lots thus ensuring that there will be minimal errors in adjoining lots. eventually you will have cases where reference points are propagated from 2 different places and will eventually have to meet up right? well if there are any errors then these will eventually be thrown into the road area and are chalked up to lost areas due to right of way which can then be reimbursed from the city as refunds for real estate taxes. convenient right?
Slowly in Singapore, we are moving to a coordinated cadastre where your lot corners are defined by coordinates fixed to the national GNSS system. Thus even if the marks are gone, they still can be planted back with the coordinates.
Sacrilege!
Coordinates = Boo, Hiss
Monuments = Yea
FrancisH, post: 395502, member: 10211 wrote: ...present surveyors are passing the blame on the erroneous survey to previous surveyors and not doing anything to correct this error. these errors will just keep on propagating while you get paid to propagate the error?
In a strange fashion you appear to have described our cadastral system rather well. There is nothing like a fresh point of view to get one wondering...
A discrepancy of 15 cm is half a foot!
Your comment about what instruments are used being related to accuracy is all wrong. That refers to precision.
We like our accuracy here over your precision. The distance/bearing between any two original monuments may be reported as 10 chains in 1860, 658.14 feet in 1972, and 200.6015 meters in 2016, but the two monuments trump any and all reported measurements.
Your comment about what instruments are used being related to accuracy is all wrong. That refers to precision.
All current technology offers better accuracy standards than previous technologies. when those measurements were made using a chain/transit, the chain/transit IS the best technology around at that time. so if the error of closure of the traverse loops then came within 1/10000 (for cadastral survey standards) then 1 foot error in 10,000 feet traverse length is acceptable.
for example a 1 acre square parcel of land if surveyed in 1800s using chain/transit should also be within 1/10000 standard right?or you could double that to 1/5000 if you think surveyors then could not achieve that in 1800s.
so if the surveyor followed a square path traverse for the 1 acre square parcel, his allowable error would still be less than 6cm for it to fall within the 1/5000 traverse loop error limit.there is a term in surveying called Blunder. anything which yields positions that are way above accepted error limits are considered as such.
problem is that today, whenever you see 2 monuments whose relative distance is way above the 1/5000 survey standard of 1800s, you still believe that those monuments are correct.if ground monuments are correct then descriptions are wrong, parcel area is also wrong.
the way I see it, as surveyors for boundary work, you have to either do one of the following:
1. Correct the location of a found monument if it's way outside of surveying standards of 1800s
or
2. Correct the description of the plat to reflect correct bearings/distances and which will also affect final parcel area.
you cannot hold as correct ground monuments,legal plat descriptions and parcel area all at the same time. that would mean you as a surveyor did not do the job that you were hired to do.
FrancisH, post: 395531, member: 10211 wrote: All current technology offers better accuracy standards than previous technologies. when those measurements were made using a chain/transit, the chain/transit IS the best technology around at that time. so if the error of closure of the traverse loops then came within 1/10000 (for cadastral survey standards) then 1 foot error in 10,000 feet traverse length is acceptable.
for example a 1 acre square parcel of land if surveyed in 1800s using chain/transit should also be within 1/10000 standard right?or you could double that to 1/5000 if you think surveyors then could not achieve that in 1800s.
so if the surveyor followed a square path traverse for the 1 acre square parcel, his allowable error would still be less than 6cm for it to fall within the 1/5000 traverse loop error limit.there is a term in surveying called Blunder. anything which yields positions that are way above accepted error limits are considered as such.
problem is that today, whenever you see 2 monuments whose relative distance is way above the 1/5000 survey standard of 1800s, you still believe that those monuments are correct.if ground monuments are correct then descriptions are wrong, parcel area is also wrong.
the way I see it, as surveyors for boundary work, you have to either do one of the following:
1. Correct the location of a found monument if it's way outside of surveying standards of 1800s
or
2. Correct the description of the plat to reflect correct bearings/distances and which will also affect final parcel area.you cannot hold as correct ground monuments,legal plat descriptions and parcel area all at the same time. that would mean you as a surveyor did not do the job that you were hired to do.
In fact, we do update our descriptions to reflect modern measurement. Locations from the 1800's are correct, but if way outside the local surveying standards (as evidenced by relative positions of other monuments) then we would absolutely look into the possibility they are either not original or have been disturbed, in which case a new monument would be placed as near as possible to the location that was correct in 1800's. Same process as in Singapore, it's just that Singapore and other more recently developing nations have the advantage of having started a cadaster in the era of modern measurement, and with modern plans and regulations built from study of pros and cons of other nations' systems, so that discrepancies should normally be much smaller, and the use of coordinates for determination and a network of permanent control points were built into these systems precisions from the start. I think it was phd's in measurement sciences from Norway? had a hand in Singapore, along with attorneys, etc. setting up the system. Very good systems, but couldn't be done in late 18th early 19th century. So we have to make do.