Duane Frymire, post: 395537, member: 110 wrote: 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.
You were involved in Singapore's Cadastre? Interesting! How were you involved and how was it formulated. I heard it was based off Australia's Torrens System.
Curious to find out about Singapore's Cadastre history. Nice to know how we all started.
Within the Public Land Survey System there is no way to conform to the Singapore goal. Start with our baselines and meridians. The initial point isn't where the powers-that-be at the time thought it was. Any tiny error in the bearing or measurement along the baseline and meridian lines introduces the second level of so-called error. The standard parallels and guide meridians created the third level. The township and range lines introduced the fourth level. The section lines are the fifth level. The initial retracing surveyor introduced the sixth level which leaves the current survey as at least the seventh level.
Nope. Monuments rule.
73B C.J.S. Public Lands å¤ 54.Generally:
"The boundary lines actually run and marked in the surveys returned by the proper official are established as the proper
boundary lines of the sections or subdivisions for which they were intended.
"The boundary lines actually run and marked in the surveys are established as the proper boundary lines of the sections or
subdivisions for which they were intended. 1 The section lines as laid down in the description and plat are binding on the
general government and on all other persons concerned, 2 and the length of such lines as returned is to be held and considered
as the true length thereof. 3"
Then when they become fully private lands you can pretty much toss out the cookbook unless specifically forced to use it.
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).
It's interesting you use the term metes and bounds.
In the US the bounds part of the phrase has supremacy while the metes part of the phrase is subservient.
bounds being short for boundary includes monuments, physically set by surveyors OR SET BY OTHERS, and a long list of other objects and calls in the deed.
So we are tasked to find the bounds (boundary) for the client and for the larger public.
We should do our job to protect and enhance if possible the existing boundaries.
This doesn't mean we don't report the findings of our measurement along the boundaries and the differences between record and measurement, and we will usually be tasked to report a measured area.
but the metes is of lessor interest to the law, to the client, and to the public.
the area is the lowest of the low as far as US law is concerned with a boundary solution.
The law wants stability and protects it.
This isn't unique to the US.
As far as changes to the title it's not under a surveyors ability to do that here, the landowners and the legal profession handles that. If I offer my services as an attorney I will have a problem.
sireath, post: 395538, member: 9370 wrote: You were involved in Singapore's Cadastre? Interesting! How were you involved and how was it formulated. I heard it was based off Australia's Torrens System.
Curious to find out about Singapore's Cadastre history. Nice to know how we all started.
Huh? Not at all. I'm sure there is much interesting history to it. My limited knowledge is from recollection of papers read over the years about one country or another. Title registration is usually one element. Perhaps it's more precise to say that modernizing in the U.S. is just more costly and difficult due to size/scope of the effort required. We do have areas similar in size that have developed similar modernization. But there usually is not a conflict in the cadaster (sorry, my spell checker keeps changing that word) systems. Title registration would normally recognize the boundaries, however badly measured in the beginning, and place the better measurements on them for use in the future. I take it you have only dealt with already registered parcels, tied to permanent reference marks. I'm currently dealing with a couple projects where the dispute of location is 30-40 feet, and I venture to guess there are millions like them around the country.
To throw my thoughts in here, as part of the 1800's way of doing things in Texas (yeah, I'll really mess things up here) part of the purpose of holding monuments over description is because they surveys were generally issued by field notes then the patents written from those field notes and they called to adjoin one another at, for an example, a stone mound being the common corner to the southeast/southwest corner of 2 sections, then running north 1900 varas to a set stone for the common northwest/northeast corner of the 2 sections, then west 1900 varas where the northwest corner of this survey now ties to the northeast corner of the next survey at a stone mound, and so on around, and thus a railroad block was built up. The survey crews might have busted an angle, or had a bad chain, and one section may be short 30 or 40 varas, but since the monuments hold, the surveys all will tie together. If we use modern GPS and try to go the 5280' called for, the monument wont be there on the line with a bust. But if you place a new monument without carefully checking the surveys in all directions and lots of research, you will have created an overlap, a gap, or at the minimum, a mess. Because even if the deeds said they were getting 640 acres square, they fenced and knew they owned to the stone mound, and they just fenced their 618 acres. In my mind I can scale that down to a lot survey and the same for placing lots with a pin at each corner, and then a modern surveyor comes along, places a new monument, and all of a sudden, there is a mess because the lots are not what everyone started with. This can get even deeper, because many surveys in Texas were done years apart, but still tied to the neighboring survey's corners (well, not always, but that's where surveyors make their money) or they weren't square, but that makes for a much longer post.
MightyMoe, post: 395222, member: 700 wrote: The BLM will not change areas during a resurvey for patented lands.
Right, just like a private surveyor wouldn't give an area for an adjoiner.
Holy Cow, post: 395558, member: 50 wrote: Then when they become fully private lands you can pretty much toss out the cookbook unless specifically forced to use it.
You can not toss it out. You certainly can and must consider other factors under state law, but the boundary doesn't instantly move once the property is privatized. That would be a taking. You must first establish where the federal created boundary was (unless you are entirely interior to a patent) and then evaluate how that boundary may have changed with the passage of time under state law.
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).
As boundary surveyors our primary duty is not to measure, it is to locate. The measurments are only tools to point to the location. Our purpose is to locate property boundaries for the client. The plat is a record of what we did, which is very important, but it is not the primary product of our work.
Measurments are primary in other work we do, like construction and engineering surevying.
[USER=2486]@aliquot[/USER]
The private owners can do as they like so long as it only involves private ownership. A prime example being a center corner that was never set, except in theory, by the Government. How the private owners decided where that was to be is where it is, not some perfect mathematical manipulation.
Duane Frymire, post: 395537, member: 110 wrote: 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.
I like to think that our modern subdivision law and subdivisions have created a local modern day cadaster within some historic boundary. At least in California and Oregon I know that is true. Other than some odd circumstances we typically don't have a lot of survey problems in post 70's subdivisions. There were a lot of durable monuments set and a lot of infrastructure built that adds physical boundaries (such as concrete walks, curbs, walls....). Typically we don't revisit the underlying section break down when working in a well-developed modern neighborhood. This is not so true in subdivisions that were plated up until WW2 at least in the Part of Oregon I work now. This is because other than occupation lines it is very hard to stich the boundaries back together from original or perpetuated subdivision monuments because the plats did not refer to any monuments being set and or the geometry was lacking along the curved streets or there were no map recording laws until the late 40's . Oregon does do a very fine job of perpetuating the original PLSS corners and Donation Land Corners so you will see modern filed surveys of 1920 subdivision lots utilizing PLSS monuments to reestablish a lot corner in a subdivision.
Interesting post, Keep it going. Jp
As boundary surveyors our primary duty is not to measure, it is to locate. The measurments are only tools to point to the location. Our purpose is to locate property boundaries for the client.
then why do you use 1" robotics & mm GPS for your survey?why not use compass & pacing for measurements?
it seems odd that the old surveyors measured the boundaries with chains & transit 200 years ago and present surveyors believe that output then are more accurate than today's measurements.
when the surveyor was hired in the 1800s, his job was to mark the boundaries and give an area to the marked off boundaries. he used what were available equipment then, maybe pacing,compass,transit,chains.it was the best technology then to give the best measurements for that era.
what really bugs me is that present surveyors with all the mm accurate equipment still can't believe that their measurements are better. i get that monuments has precedence over description, but if you can't update description or note that line 1-2 is 100.5m instead of 100m then the measurements made in 1800s will still be accepted present day even if everyone know it is erroneous.
T
Holy Cow, post: 395794, member: 50 wrote: [USER=2486]@aliquot[/USER]
The private owners can do as they like so long as it only involves private ownership. A prime example being a center corner that was never set, except in theory, by the Government. How the private owners decided where that was to be is where it is, not some perfect mathematical manipulation.
You are misreading "the cookbook" if you think it requires a perfect mathematical manipulation.
We have another cookbook corner causing chaos here.
Good conversation.
I just have a couple of thoughts. If you check with at least three other monuments outside the boundary you are surveying, and find three that are good to each other withing 15cm.....what about the ones that aren't? If three that match are set by the same surveyor they could match very well to each other but all could have been set from the "wrong" point of beginning. Matching to three monuments doesn't sound like it clears anything up of and by itself.
Also, how do you "correct" a deed? If landowner "A" sell to "B" with a description, and twenty years later you find the description to be "wrong", you can't go and change the original deed/contract between A and B. That is the "legal description" of the property you are surveying. Especially when we are professionals who are trying to find the correct position of the property that was described in the original deed. Record a document that says "Here is a new description of what the original scrivener of property AB meant to say". You still have that cloud of what the original deed says vs. your "correction".
FrancisH, post: 395894, member: 10211 wrote: then why do you use 1" robotics & mm GPS for your survey?why not use compass & pacing for measurements?
it seems odd that the old surveyors measured the boundaries with chains & transit 200 years ago and present surveyors believe that output then are more accurate than today's measurements.when the surveyor was hired in the 1800s, his job was to mark the boundaries and give an area to the marked off boundaries. he used what were available equipment then, maybe pacing,compass,transit,chains.it was the best technology then to give the best measurements for that era.
what really bugs me is that present surveyors with all the mm accurate equipment still can't believe that their measurements are better. i get that monuments has precedence over description, but if you can't update description or note that line 1-2 is 100.5m instead of 100m then the measurements made in 1800s will still be accepted present day even if everyone know it is erroneous.
I'm a bit confused, if the old measurement are of lessor quality, why should the monuments be shifted to hold the old measurement?
Wouldn't it be better to locate found monuments and report the measured numbers and the record numbers.
It seems to me that shifting monuments around to meet less accurate measurements isn't logical.
Mike Moe asks the right question, above. Think it through.
Along those same lines.... (no puns intended) IF you are going to "Correct" the corners, you HAVE to have a basis for it. So, what is the BASIS of it? That is, you have to HOLD something. What do you hold? Do you select the largest markers, and hold those? Do you select the Markers to the East, or to the West? How do you do this? IF you are going to "Correct" the corners, HOW do you go about it?
Thanks! I'm listening to CAR TALK, and they are describing how to extract the motor from a car. The guy took a front end loader, and parked it over a car with no hood. He took a chain, and hooked the chain to the front end loader, and to the car's engine. He then LIFTED the front end loader, and the car by the engine, until it is at 45å¡. He then, calmly walked under the car, fired up an acetylene torch, (with sparks flying, in glory), and proceeded to CUT the motor mounts. As he cut, the CAR was FALLING to the ground. The guy wound up STANDING in the hole, where the engine was. He did not get hurt. He then climbed out of the hole, and got into the front end loader, and calmly drove away with the front end loader, with the dangling engine, and transmission attached to the bucket on the front end loader.
This is known as the theory of relativity. It is the SAME issue you are facing.
Do you move the motor out of the car, or the car off the motor?
WHAT do we hold, and what do we shift?
(Here is the car talk episode, if it will HELP you solve this dilemma!!! Fast forward to 18 minutes)
[MEDIA=youtube]Ww5LTkys1YE[/MEDIA]
Really, it's a great illustration of relativity.
Thank you!!!!
Nate
FrancisH, post: 395894, member: 10211 wrote: .... it seems odd that the old surveyors measured the boundaries with chains & transit 200 years ago and present surveyors believe that output then are more accurate than today's measurements.
YES!! The old measurements and the original corners are more ACCURATE. New measurements are usually scientifically more PRECISE.
There is a significant difference between ACCURACY and PRECISION.
You can have very PRECISE measurements to the wrong corner (PRECISE, but INACCURATE).
You can have IMPRECISE measurements to the correct corner (IMPRECISE, but ACCURATE).
Yes, it always better to have PRECISE measurements to the correct corner (PRECISION and ACCURACY).
Far too many boundary surveyors get hung up in confusion between the science of measuring and the science and art of the law. The science of measuring is always changing with technological advances, but the science and art of the law (which is what is controlling when finding property corners and boundaries) is still based on centuries old logic and common sense.
Brian Allen, post: 396172, member: 1333 wrote: Yes, it always better to have PRECISE measurements to the correct corner (PRECISION and ACCURACY).
