@aliquot again, show me where, in any state, a Surveyor has the authority to depart from title lines based on occupation.?ÿ I am eagerly looking forward to see that statute because if an action or complaint were brought against you, it would not end well.
Having and offering a Professional opinion and expressing it to your client is one thing, altering title lines based on occupation is completely different.
Thank you for the example. Perhaps my question was bigger than I realized, but I am genuinely trying to understand your method, as what I am interpreting seems to be contrast with my current understanding.
In the example you gave, are you saying that even though the (senior) parcel to the south calls for a straight line, presumably between two monuments you've accepted or established, your boundary resolution will show that line passing through each of the "on-line" (junior) monuments accepted. Further, how do you know whether to accept these 'on-line' monuments without further surveying each of the adjoining parcels? Once accepted, even though some of the subdivision monuments may extend into your parcel, or lie outside, how do you reconcile the loss or gain in overall parcel area? Lastly, your senior line was previously described by a single call, but you now describe to be comprised up of several segments, correct? What is the legal basis for resolving to a "line in repose" as you call it?
I realize my questions might read as a challenge or critique to your methods, but please know I am genuinely asking with an open mind in an effort to be a better surveyor. I am grateful for the input.
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@tfdoubleyou If first a senior line is established, then junior monuments are placed on this senior line, they will always not be online. The line is infinitely small and there is always error in placing a monument. Are you going to annotate down to the 1/10000 or 1/1000 or just to the nearest hundreth, or tenth? Somewhere you have to accept that these monuments are "online" and no annotation is necessary to show otherwise. Maybe 3 feet is too much and you feel you need to annotate it and call the junior monument offline. Because the junior monument is not perfect is in itself not a good enough reason not to accept it as being "on line".
Because the junior monument is not perfect is in itself not a good enough reason not to accept it as being "on line".
Thank you, you are getting right at my initial question. I definitely understand that perfection is not required for accepting a monument as 'on-line'. My question is, how do you determine the threshold between 'imperfect' and 'unacceptable'? Once determined, if accepting an imperfect monument as online, do you still provide a passing call or distance along line to that monument in your overall call on your senior line? Or just indicate it as being present and let any surveyor following you determine where you found it from the records you referenced? When a non-controlling on-line monument exceeds your threshold of acceptability, do you show it on your map at all? If so, how do you annotate where you found it?
My question is, how do you determine the threshold between 'imperfect' and 'unacceptable'?
I asked the first PLS I worked under this exact same question and I felt like what I got was sort of a non-answer.?ÿ He said it depends on how old the monument is, the tools and techniques that were used to set it, the lay of the land in this area, etc.
I remember thinking OK, sure, past equipment was probably less precise but even considering that surely a monument that is 5 or 10 or 20 or 100 feet away from where the records indicate it should be must automatically trigger a rejection of the monument, right??ÿ RIGHT?
He didn't really budge from, or expound upon, his answer and I don't know that I came away from the discussion much wiser.?ÿ After having gained some real world experience I started to see where he was coming from, but even in hindsight I'm still not a very big fan of his explanation.
Anyway, the simple answer to your question is it's up to the discretion of the land surveyor.
Once determined, if accepting an imperfect monument as online, do you still provide a passing call or distance along line to that monument in your overall call on your senior line?
Yep.
Or just indicate it as being present and let any surveyor following you determine where you found it from the records you referenced?
My annotation would probably be the record bearing and distance so it wouldn't matter if the surveyor following me used my map or a previous map to navigate to it.
When a non-controlling on-line monument exceeds your threshold of acceptability, do you show it on your map at all? If so, how do you annotate where you found it?
Good question, imo.
I think a lot of guys just wouldn't even show it.?ÿ It's hard to make a blanket statement about this though because a given project might have conditions in the field that make it necessary to show the monument.
@tfdoubleyou In Manhattan, NYC a tenth is an issue. In Manhattan, KS it likely is not. Judgement has to be used. There is not a chart that you can follow. If you are making the decision it has to be your judgement. If you need to rely on someone else's judgement, you shouldn't be signing the work. You have to answer the question of whether or not it matters. Shoot in some instances a monument out of record position by 50' is to be honored in others it shouldn't. You will not find a defined threshold because it does not exist.
There probably isn't a court case exactly tracking your situation, maybe there is. There are famous ones such as Dykes v. Arnold that's always put out there. That C1/4 was set 70' (if my memory is correct, I'm not going to read it again) from the intersecting senior lines and the courts held it over the math.?ÿ
Also I mentioned above that the Manual in Chapter 7 gives guidance, which in my opinion does relate to your situation.?ÿ
Read that and understand they are dealing specifically with how to treat junior monuments on senior lines and when do those junior monuments control the line. Every monument I set on a senior line, every monument anyone sets on a senior line will be off the line by some amount. The line has 0 width and it's impossible to set them so the center of the dimple lands on it. Maybe there is 1 in a million that does.?ÿ
The manual gives us reasons to reject them or accept them. Were the endpoints of the line located in the survey that created the junior monuments, was it a faithful survey?
If so then the position will be to accept the junior monuments and "kink" the line. The default is to accept, if you reject your reason needs to be strong.?ÿ
Although the manual is written for federal surveys on federal lands the principles can relate to private land ownership also. In this case it's clearly something surveyors deal with daily.?ÿ
@tfdoubleyou In Manhattan, NYC a tenth is an issue. In Manhattan, KS it likely is not. Judgement has to be used. There is not a chart that you can follow. If you are making the decision it has to be your judgement. If you need to rely on someone else's judgement, you shouldn't be signing the work. You have to answer the question of whether or not it matters. Shoot in some instances a monument out of record position by 50' is to be honored in others it shouldn't. You will not find a defined threshold because it does not exist.
Yup. If all we needed were charts and calculations we'd be a trade and not a profession.
Expertise in the science of measurement and the tools we use to measure (as well as the tools those who came before us used) allows us to know with a high degree of confidence how much they are influencing our results. But it's a small piece of the puzzle.
The surveyors I have known to speak only in absolutes are pretty terrible at the judgment part of boundary resolution. They're usually more interested in appearing right all the time than they are at solving tricky problems. When faced with a non-standard problem they'll glom onto the first "rule" that pops into their heads and just run with it.
To loosely paraphrase F. Scott Fitzgerald, they can't hold two opposing thoughts (or boundary solutions) in their head at the same time.
@chris-bouffard I have several years of investigation and prosecution experience, including the study of past cases. I am unaware of any successful prosecutions for deviating from title lines. Please give me a real world example.
If first a senior line is established, then junior monuments are placed on this senior line, they will always not be online.
That's right. There has never been a straight line run and there never will be. If "on line" is the spec. in a retracement survey it has never been met and never will be thus making retracement surveys of no practical use for property owners. In general, the public is beginning to realize this. When land surveying licensure becomes a thing of the past there will be no one to blame but licensed surveyors in search of nirvana aka protracted lines on your local GIS
altering title lines based on occupation is completely different
Nothing about title lines or occupation was mentioned in the OP. But it always evolves to that when we leave the straight line. A retracement survey retraces a previous ground survey. It does not retrace paper title. Actually they are one in the same but point made.?ÿ
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When a non-controlling on-line monument exceeds your threshold of acceptability, do you show it on your map at all?
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The ethical thing to do when finding a conflict is to wait until it is settled before completing the survey. Much easier said then done sometimes.?ÿ
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The words in a deed are there to point us to the boundary.?ÿ I attempt to find the boundary as established by the actions of humans.?ÿ After I find the boundary, I measure it and maybe it's similar to the intangible deed math, maybe it's not.?ÿ I can defend my opinion because I have gathered sufficient evidence to assign weight to it and I document it in a summary of findings.
In my view, there's no such thing as a deed line.?ÿ There's a boundary line and that's it, and I'm going to use my extensive knowledge of the history and application of Roman and British and American common law to find it and mark it on the ground. Humans came before boundaries and deeds, and humans remain the controlling factor in establishing where a boundary exists at the time of a survey.?ÿ
Reading Justice Cooley, digging into the reasoning used to generate ALTA standards, and recognizing monuments are tangible and math is not all have led me to my actions and provide me with a means to defend them.?ÿ?ÿ
I can and do hold senior title where applicable and I don't hire an attorney to determine it for me despite it clearly being a matter of law. I have held deed math when there's no better evidence to be found on the ground.?ÿ
I actively work to keep my clients away from the courts. This doesn't mean that I practice law or provide legal council.?ÿ I don't fill people's brains full of AP talk.?ÿ I listen, look, take pictures, measure, catalog it all, assign weight to the evidence, then put my big boy pants on and make a solid, hang your hat on decision with full knowledge that I can be sued by anyone at anytime.?ÿ I also am aware that people lie, that I've met Eighth grade dropouts that know more about boundary law than many attorneys, that witnesses can be bought, and that there are places within the anglo-sphere where boundaries are surveyed by bounds only with no concern over metes.?ÿ I don't believe deed lines exist separately from the boundary line.
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The title of the post is illustrative.?ÿ
How best to deal with 'on-line'?ÿ monuments
They're on-line so treat the line as passing through the monument,,,,,,,,,,that's the best way.?ÿ
Sometimes language points to the answer.?ÿ
@murphy?ÿ
Excellent breakdown.
There was a very good thread on here a while back, where J.B. Stahl weighed in on similar issues. I seem to remember him saying that our task is to determine "where the boundary is - this time". Proper application of the boundary law by the surveyor will provide us with a professional opinion on "where" every single time. Full stop.
The "what" is up to title law. Our responsibility is the "where", and there's literally no other profession that is licensed to determine it.
our task is to determine "where the boundary is - this time"
And you don't think that meandering (non-water) boundary lines doesn't put doubt in the minds of most of the general public, who already have a low opinion on what we do?
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our task is to determine "where the boundary is - this time"
And you don't think that meandering (non-water) boundary lines doesn't put doubt in the minds of most of the general public, who already have a low opinion on what we do?
Upthread you mentioned following fencelines or stone walls if they are the best available evidence. How is that not "meandering"? I do the same if it is warranted. The evidence is the evidence, which is explained in my narrative on the face of the survey.
I'm not going to compromise my professional responsibilities because Joe Blow doesn't understand what I do. I take every possible opportunity to explain what I do to folks (client or otherwise) who are interested and ask.
If they don't ask, I don't know, and if they have a poor opinion of me or the profession because I did my job, that's too bad. I don't blow off the public, but if they blow me off I can't help that.
@rover83?ÿ
Sorry, I was using it as a verb, not as a noun or adjective.?ÿ Yes, some walls and fences were set on a meander, but they aren't still moving, so the boundary isn't actually in flux, it's fixed.
What we're talking about above is a line that's fixed, defined by the end point monuments.?ÿ It exists like that for years, maybe decades.?ÿ Then somehow it's supposed to change when someone else does a bad job of setting monuments that are supposed to be along that boundary line?
I think as a profession we should start to care what the public thinks and how we're perceived.?ÿ It's part of the reason we're losing members, with fewer to fill our ranks.?ÿ
@jph?ÿ
You're focusing on the wrong action. The boundary isn't altered because a surveyor missed his mark or was sloppy, it's altered because adjoiners relied on the physical marker for many years without pushback.?ÿ Absent the latter, the senior boundary holds.
?ÿIf only I had enough land that someone would think it unrealistic that I take pains to secure it.
I agree (except with the losing members thing; I don't think that's a problem at all ????).
Something that is somewhat frustrating to me is the flip-flopping, mocking, and dismissing of either record or physical evidence to suit the whim of the surveyor on a given project.?ÿ Here are some examples from this thread alone:
When faced with a non-standard problem they'll glom onto the first "rule" that pops into their heads and just run with it.
Then why have rules at all??ÿ Let's just have chaos.?ÿ Every surveyor for himself.?ÿ Make your decision, draw your pistols, and tell the world "Come at me bro".?ÿ Yes, I am exaggerating for effect, and yes I think I understand the reasoning behind the comment.?ÿ But at the same time I find it mildly irritating because it seems as shortsighted as the guy who "gloms onto the rule" in the first place.
A retracement survey retraces a previous ground survey. It does not retrace paper title. Actually they are one in the same but point made.
Then why do we even bother with the paper trail??ÿ Let's dispense with all of this bookkeeping nonsense if we're going to randomly ignore it anyway.?ÿ People shop for land by observing where the fences are anyway, and then surveyors swoop in behind them and develop a death grip on the occupation, so why are we screwing around with deeds and title reports and all of that clutter?
After I find the boundary, I measure it and maybe it's similar to the intangible deed math, maybe it's not.
Sure, of course, but the public doesn't necessarily know that.?ÿ Maybe I throw out a monument here and ignore deed calls there, and then vice versa on the next project.?ÿ After a while we start to look like a bunch of little land Napoleons running around doing whatever we want, and then you know what maybe the public starts to notice and take issue with it.
Again, I'm not saying these comments don't make sense, but what concerns me is the amount of whimsy that can go into the decision-making.?ÿ For a field that makes such prominent use of technology and scientific principles, and is also paired with government institutions that contain decades worth of records I think it's important that there be some degree of consistency in the decision-making for surveyors to fall back on.
@rover83?ÿ
Sorry, I was using it as a verb, not as a noun or adjective.?ÿ Yes, some walls and fences were set on a meander, but they aren't still moving, so the boundary isn't actually in flux, it's fixed.
What we're talking about above is a line that's fixed, defined by the end point monuments.?ÿ It exists like that for years, maybe decades.?ÿ Then somehow it's supposed to change when someone else does a bad job of setting monuments that are supposed to be along that boundary line?
I think as a profession we should start to care what the public thinks and how we're perceived.?ÿ It's part of the reason we're losing members, with fewer to fill our ranks.?ÿ
I must have done a poor job of explaining myself earlier.
While I still stand by the precept that boundaries can and do sometimes change over time, the mere fact that a surveyor slammed a rod in off line doesn't automatically change an established boundary.
Around here it's not uncommon for one or more larger lots of a very old plat to be "replatted" in the past few years and subdivided further. It's not uncommon for the monuments set along the back line to be poorly located. In a case like that, I'm likely going with the original controlling monuments for the senior parcel. If the junior monuments fall within acceptable tolerance, they will be called out as on line; otherwise, they are getting passing/offset calls.
On the flip side, some of the tracts we survey are rural, and it's not uncommon for us to find the same sort of situation, except that the junior parcels have been fenced and maintained for 20-30 years. The senior parcel has been maintaining their side up to the occupation lines and is clearly honoring the location of monuments and fencelines. In that case, I'm likely not going to upset the boundaries that are already being honored and maintained.
I'm with you; a recent crappy resurvey of a junior adjoiner with crappily set new monuments does not have the same weight as original monuments set for senior lines.
My annotation would probably be the record bearing and distance so it wouldn't matter if the surveyor following me used my map or a previous map to navigate to it.
In a situation where a standard for relative positional tolerance is required to be met (such as an ALTA), would annotating only the record bearing & distance instead of the actual not create a problem? Assume you have accepted the monument in question, even though you found it's actual position to be say 0.3' off line.
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