Rich, I (speaking from experience from a handful of years back) think you'll find that you may only be able to photocopy law books, or, photocopy and have it output to PDF on your USB if it's a new enough machine. Of course, this is dependent on the technological capabilities of the law library you use.
Bring a lot of quarters ya big spender 😉
kjypls, post: 363411, member: 9749 wrote: Rich, I (speaking from experience from a handful of years back) think you'll find that you may only be able to photocopy law books, or, photocopy and have it output to PDF on your USB if it's a new enough machine. Of course, this is dependent on the technological capabilities of the law library you use.
Bring a lot of quarters ya big spender 😉
The Sacramento County Public Law Library allows its patrons to insert a USB flash drive into the computer. In Westlaw, select print, select the options you like, then print, they have a PDF printer installed on their computers so I print it to my flash drive. The also have Lexis Advance which I haven't used very much but there is an export function. Some of the secondary sources are only in one or the other. So getting material that way is free.
They did have one article I wanted that wasn't in the computer so I had to pay 15 cents per copy, four pages plus the magazine cover.
WarrenWard, post: 362930, member: 8338 wrote: i was really stumped by some monuments that I found in one survey - definitely original monuments with caps a little beat up, but identifiable to the plat (from 1970). Stayed up all night. NOT a matter of precision - I do not expect to match 1970 numbers on a plat with my tools, even with the tools used in 1970, it just didn't SEEM right. So, confessed to the landowner that there seemed to be a big problem.
Landowner's reply: "Oh heck, you mean those red colored pins? I moved those about 5 feet out so I could meet setbacks with my new house!" You don't need THOSE do you?
Case solved. Be ready for anything when doing a retracement. I have been accused of "blindly accepting every monument I find". I disagree!
I've had the same thing happen to me... I was surveying a 100AC parcel for 3 owners who wanted it equally divided into thirds. The rear monuments matched the old plat, but the front monuments were off 10'-30'. I mentioned this to one of the owners, and he responded "Oh, we moved those pins when we were doing our preliminary layouts..."
I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you...
If it has not been noted yet on this topic. I try to know what iron belongs to what survey. I don't mix a 1915 iron with a 1982 iron when I am retracing for a boundary survey if I can help it. The 1915 survey may have had block corner monuments in place or original irons. then in 1982 after years of fences built, street construction including sewer, water and everything else irons begin to not fit with each other.
A surveyor could have found two irons to the north of the lot he is surveying and just had to extend that alignment to the south. Lets just say it was a short back site. We all know what errors that causes when extend line is longer.
DELETED USER, post: 363437, member: 8983 wrote: If it has not been noted yet on this topic. I try to know what iron belongs to what survey. I don't mix a 1915 iron with a 1982 iron when I am retracing for a boundary survey if I can help it. The 1915 survey may have had block corner monuments in place or original irons. then in 1982 after years of fences built, street construction including sewer, water and everything else irons begin to not fit with each other.
A surveyor could have found two irons to the north of the lot he is surveying and just had to extend that alignment to the south. Lets just say it was a short back site. We all know what errors that causes when extend line is longer.
Is the property owner that detrimentally relies on a rebar set by a Licensed Professional charged with knowledge of these items?
Dave Karoly, post: 363439, member: 94 wrote: Is the property owner that detrimentally relies on a rebar set by a Licensed Professional charged with knowledge of these items?
Between 1915 and today there could have been a number of surveys. Some with a steel tape and some with EDM and some with a degraded multipath GPS.
Is mixing surveys a good ideal? I should say mixing monuments when apportioning is not possible
Rich., post: 363082, member: 10450 wrote: No based on other evidence as well.
It's not that I don't accept monuments. But just bc I see a pin doesn't mean I have to accept it.
We aren't talking about old pins here. I just talked to the owner. This was set a couple weeks ago. Does that mean if I had went 2 weeks ago, my pin would be first so now the corner would be different?
I'm going to look into it more and see if I can find more things.
"It's not that I don't accept monuments. But just bc I see a pin doesn't mean I have to accept it. "
Rich - about 25 years into this profession I discovered that my real task was that when I found a monument I had to prove why I couldn't accept it. I sleep much easier now...
Crew went out for a first pass. Subdivision from the 60's.
They found a record T Bar, a record CB and a non record CB.
We had tied into the adjacent road layout a couple years ago.
The record T Bar and non record bound match 0.08'.
The road layout and the record CB match 0.08'.
The two pairs don't match by 3-6 feet.
Time to go look for more monuments and prove what is right and what is wrong.
spledeus, post: 363535, member: 3579 wrote: Crew went out for a first pass. Subdivision from the 60's.
They found a record T Bar, a record CB and a non record CB.
We had tied into the adjacent road layout a couple years ago.The record T Bar and non record bound match 0.08'.
The road layout and the record CB match 0.08'.The two pairs don't match by 3-6 feet.
Time to go look for more monuments and prove what is right and what is wrong.
I've got something like that.
Everything in Section 5 fits in Section 5 within reason for El Dorado County (above Placerville).
Some capped iron pipes set in Section 4 as early as 1959 (per a Deed which calls for them but no Record of Survey) are shifted 3' north and 1' east :-). Good stuff. I think the first distance in the Deed is 3' short. I'm not sure how he got them shifted over a foot to the east. I will accept them as marking the boundary because there is no evidence of a 1' wide parcel or a 3' wide parcel. Then there is a road easement, the radius and arc lengths don't match but we quitclaimed the road to the County so it's their problem.
Tom Adams, post: 362897, member: 7285 wrote: It's a well-known "tenet" that if you accept another surveyor's corner, you accept any error it has.
[...]
Anyway, yes, if you accept someone's monument, I think you need to make sure its right. You're a surveyor. A landowner should be able to rely on a monument a surveyor sets as being correct, I mean it is called a "monument" it it is placed in order to mark and memorialize the property for the owner.
When monuments are placed, a major part of the practice of surveying is leaving an adequate record that will assist some future surveyor in knowing that he or she has identified the same monuments you set. When the monuments are from a resurvey, replacing markers no longer to be found, it is more than simple professional courtesy to leave a record describing the evidence and method by which the locations of the remonumented corners were determined.
When I see that information provided on a map or written description, it tells me that the work was probably that of a competent surveyor. When the record lacks the same, it makes the warning lights flash and I know it's best to assume that the work is seduced in some significant way.
DELETED USER, post: 363437, member: 8983 wrote: If it has not been noted yet on this topic. I try to know what iron belongs to what survey. I don't mix a 1915 iron with a 1982 iron when I am retracing for a boundary survey if I can help it. The 1915 survey may have had block corner monuments in place or original irons. then in 1982 after years of fences built, street construction including sewer, water and everything else irons begin to not fit with each other.
A surveyor could have found two irons to the north of the lot he is surveying and just had to extend that alignment to the south. Lets just say it was a short back site. We all know what errors that causes when extend line is longer.
One of the strengths of Transform software is the ability to weight each monument individually.
Jim in AZ, post: 363613, member: 249 wrote: One of the strengths of Transform software is the ability to weight each monument individually.
I like to weigh the research first and see if anything is strange, what did the surveyor before me do and was his or her work is good. I look at what time of year they did their work.
If the survey I am working calls for it I will research back to when an ape first cam out of the ocean and started to walk on land.
Now days a crew will go out and GPS the four quarter corners and sections corner they need and not even look for a center of a section that was set 100 years ago. And on top of that one or two of the quarter corner were set back with just a midway and on line deal. They don't even look for monuments in the section itself.
And then there is the construction survey crew after construction and set center line of the street control monuments. When they don't get them in the correct location and land surveyors start using them, old lot corner monuments start not fitting the old lot monuments.
I get the fact that monuments were not found back when all we had was those Aque dip boxes.
The more surveys made from a misplaced monument gets worse as time goes on and more surveys use monuments after that.
Jim in Az, I see you posted your comments a 1:41 PM. I hope it wasn't because of gilt for a survey you did.
Most definately
The job that went out the door in the last hour needed retracing to origins back to the 1930s.
Present client deed called for 1/2in x 1 1/2in iron bar on south margin county road at southwest corner of Block 25
Pulled all the adjoining deeds and they called for corner in center of county road, where a RR Spike was found and there were supporting evidence of reference rods called for and witness trees on south margin of road from surveys in the 1950s and 1960s and 1970s as the property was divided.
Kept going back in years and got to the original division of the School Land Survey into blocks that was made by John Rotan in 1930s.
The beginning point for SWC Block 25 called for 1/2in x 1 1/2in iron bar............record monument by original surveyor.
The 1/2in x 1 1/2in iron bar was about 2ft deep in the south marginal bank of the road without any flag on it and had apparently been overlooked for the last 60 years.
In this case with all the grumbling neighbors, they are gonna be arguing over 20ft that amounts to half of a county road.
Never fill that void with guesswork, keep researching for actual proof.
:gammon:
Rich,
You're starting to head down the right road. It's not easy to get the idea of the magnitude of the difference being the major factor in deciding to accept or reject. Most all of us have been trained to measure well, and have had it drilled into us that it is important to make measurements that are both accurate and precise. In most other areas of survey practice, that is one of the, if not the prime considerations of doing the job right. It's a major mind-shift to go to the more abstract world of putting the other evidence ahead of measurements.
Boundaries are different than anything else we locate in that they are legal entities which can be represented by physical objects, but are not physical themselves and have nothing to do with physical or scientific laws. Those are natural laws that work the same way everywhere, every time. Physical and scientific laws cannot be broken because if one tries, the consequences are immediate in that the law is self enforcing. Our measurements are subject to physical & scientific laws. The physical things that we locate, or stake out to be built exist or are designed to work with the natural laws. If, for instance, a parking lot is designed or staked incorrectly, the natural laws will enforce themselves as will be evident with the first rain after construction and everyone realizes that sloping the pavement toward a curbed in corner without a catch basin to take runoff was a violation of unchangeable natural law.
Boundaries are established by humans employing various kinds of reasoning and an endless array of different methods and tools. The laws governing how to later determine where someone first established a boundary are made up by people. There are at least a couple of ways that happens (to greatly simplify the matter). One is people decide the way certain things should be, and so they pass laws to require or prohibit certain behaviors that will hopefully result in making things the way the lawmakers wanted them to be. That can and very often does result in a very complicated set of laws that are applicable to specific actions or circumstances, can and often is extremely confusing and seemingly (sometimes actually) contradictory, and can often be contrary to common sense - just look at tax law for a clearly ambiguous example.
The other way that law is made is by experience - when a party takes this action, that is most often the result, or it is most often an indication of that intent. From that basic concept, over many generations of the common law forming and evolving in the courts, principles of evidence (what is or is not proper to consider to determine the truth or falsity of a circumstance or the existence or non-existence of a fact) and how & when to consider it (application of principles) have been formed. These principles have generally proven to be a good set of processes to discern past truths & facts that lead to the answers of whatever questions are being asked. Laws based on experience of hundreds of years of human interaction are easier to understand and easier to keep up with than are laws devised to affect future actions.
Fortunately for surveyors, nearly all of the legal principles we need to become aware of are based on the courts experience of human interaction, and therefore are by definition "common sense". So instead of getting wrapped around the idea of "how am I going to keep all of these concepts and principles straight in my head?", put yourself in the position of being a student and investigator of history. Ask the questions:
Does this boundary appear to have been previously established?
Who established it? Was it someone with training in measurement, or was it the original parties themselves?
Who wrote the description? Did they even realize what the most important information to include to reflect the parties intent was?
If there is a fence or other apparent line of occupation:
Did that exist prior to the 1st conveyance? Was it built afterwards?
Who built it? How did they determine the location to place it? What info did they rely on? For what purpose was it placed here?
I could go on with a far longer list, but the point is that a large part of what you need to try to do is determine what the circumstances were when the parcel was first conveyed, and if the remaining physical evidence are things that were placed after that conveyance, were they placed in reliance of some other evidence that indicated the location of the boundary for them. Was what they relied on something that a reasonable person, exercising reasonable diligence and care should have been able to rely on?
About the only time that magnitude of the difference between the found location of a recent monument and the location where you would establish a monument according to the best set of evidence you can find to point to the boundary's original location counts for anything is when that magnitude is within reasonable differences of measurement or of interpretation of available evidence. You may be working in a very high dollar area where the price of land is reckoned in hundreds or perhaps even thousands of dollars per square foot. That certainly raises the pucker factor, no matter what criteria you're assessing previous surveys by. But the same basic principles apply regardless of land value.
If in assessing the previous survey, you find that the surveyor took the proper evidence into account and otherwise used proper methods (considering when the survey was done and the conditions at that time), then you accept the monuments where they are even if out of your special comfort zone. On the other hand, in a situation where the property was selling for what amounted to roughly $1500 per sq ft on the buildable area of the lot, a very knowledgeable and diligent surveyor I know rejected existing monuments that were between 0.25' and 0.9' of the positions he came up with based on best available evidence because 1) the map of the previous survey showed that the surveyor had re-established the points based upon calculations through several older records from points that had no direct special connection to the PIQ, 2) the monuments disagreed with the long-existing improvements of a prescriptively located RW and disagreed with the locations of certain corners & lines as reported on even earlier (but unfiled) survey records, and 3) there was no indication of substantial reliance on those monuments.
In that instance, the surveyor felt a bit queasy about rejecting the monuments because 1 was positionally close to the position he determined, and others were a few hundredths to a couple tenths from the sidelines, or projections of sidelines. He reasoned that since he would have had to reject the corner locations that fell several tenths into the public improvements that fit the prescriptive RW even if he accepted them for line only, he should reject the survey in whole because the methodology was entirely wrong. I can't disagree with him.
Point is, magnitude means little or nothing. Whether or not the previous surveyor recognized proper evidence and made a proper effort to discover and mark the same locations where the original lines and corners were established is of paramount importance.
DELETED USER, post: 363437, member: 8983 wrote: If it has not been noted yet on this topic. I try to know what iron belongs to what survey. I don't mix a 1915 iron with a 1982 iron when I am retracing for a boundary survey if I can help it. The 1915 survey may have had block corner monuments in place or original irons. then in 1982 after years of fences built, street construction including sewer, water and everything else irons begin to not fit with each other.
A surveyor could have found two irons to the north of the lot he is surveying and just had to extend that alignment to the south. Lets just say it was a short back site. We all know what errors that causes when extend line is longer.
I assess each prior survey independently and together. Sometimes surveys can be separated by several decades yet both surveyors have used same or similar evidence and proper methods. At that point, it's a matter of allowing for expected positional/measurement differences given the equipment, field methods and conditions existing at the time of each prior survey and those of my survey. If the iron set in 1915 is 2' from where I expected it to be, but I know from experience that such differences are not uncommon between modern surveys and those of that era in the general vicinity, then in my estimation it's right on. Similarly, if the 1982 mons disagree with the 1915 mons by 2' and mine by several tenths, it may well be within the limits of commonly found differences due to measurement and site conditions, they too are right on. At that point, I'm mixing surveys and monuments to determine locations for the property I'm surveying.
If I find positions that are significantly outside of what is considered normal given the era of the previous surveys, it prompts me to take a closer look at all of the surveys, including and most especially my own. Like Jim in AZ said, rather than needing a reason to accept a found monument, I need to find a reason to reject it. I don't start the analysis presupposing irreconcilable disagreement between past surveys. In fact, I go into it with the presumption that differences that will be found will have a valid explanation that can be discovered.
We need to realize that as long as the previous surveyor did something that resulted in points that a reasonable person (non-surveyor) should have been able to rely on, then I have no authority to call it wrong without darn good reason to support that opinion. If that's not the case, then there is no valid reason why a landowner should have to hire a licensed surveyor to locate their boundaries. If my opinion of where that corner is can be tossed aside by a future surveyor as easily as if it were a goat stake with no record of how it was placed, then what value do my services have to the landowners. Maybe we should put the following warranty on our invoices: "The results of this survey are certified to be a true and correct representation of this surveyors opinion of where the boundary is, which is deemed to be the correct and proper location of said boundary until the next surveyor arrives, at which point all representations, warranties, and guarantees, express or implied hereon shall become null and void." Good luck!
eapls2708, post: 363715, member: 589 wrote: I assess each prior survey independently and together. Sometimes surveys can be separated by several decades yet both surveyors have used same or similar evidence and proper methods. At that point, it's a matter of allowing for expected positional/measurement differences given the equipment, field methods and conditions existing at the time of each prior survey and those of my survey. If the iron set in 1915 is 2' from where I expected it to be, but I know from experience that such differences are not uncommon between modern surveys and those of that era in the general vicinity, then in my estimation it's right on. Similarly, if the 1982 mons disagree with the 1915 mons by 2' and mine by several tenths, it may well be within the limits of commonly found differences due to measurement and site conditions, they too are right on. At that point, I'm mixing surveys and monuments to determine locations for the property I'm surveying.
If I find positions that are significantly outside of what is considered normal given the era of the previous surveys, it prompts me to take a closer look at all of the surveys, including and most especially my own. Like Jim in AZ said, rather than needing a reason to accept a found monument, I need to find a reason to reject it. I don't start the analysis presupposing irreconcilable disagreement between past surveys. In fact, I go into it with the presumption that differences that will be found will have a valid explanation that can be discovered.
We need to realize that as long as the previous surveyor did something that resulted in points that a reasonable person (non-surveyor) should have been able to rely on, then I have no authority to call it wrong without darn good reason to support that opinion. If that's not the case, then there is no valid reason why a landowner should have to hire a licensed surveyor to locate their boundaries. If my opinion of where that corner is can be tossed aside by a future surveyor as easily as if it were a goat stake with no record of how it was placed, then what value do my services have to the landowners. Maybe we should put the following warranty on our invoices: "The results of this survey are certified to be a true and correct representation of this surveyors opinion of where the boundary is, which is deemed to be the correct and proper location of said boundary until the next surveyor arrives, at which point all representations, warranties, and guarantees, express or implied hereon shall become null and void." Good luck!
I posted another comment following this one.
eapls2708
I agree with all of your post. If there is a problem that comes up I try to find when and where and how much happened.
I was surveying on the north line of an old town (it was a 16th line) and found that a surveyor reestablished a 1/16 corner between the SE and E1/4 corner midway and on line. It was the NE corner of the old town.
Then a surveyor uses this new 1/16th line and stakes a subdivision north of this 1/16th line and placed his streets at record distances with the street of the old town plat.
I work on a survey south of this 1/16th line in the old town portion. When I started using monuments from the new subdivision and checking them with the old monuments to the south, the distances were off several feet. One other thing I was finding for iron along or near this 1/16th line, along with the new subdivision line monuments, was 3/8"x1-3/8" flat irons.
In the language on the original town plat the surveyor said he set 3/8"x1-3/8" flat irons at ends of the dead end streets. I checked them with monuments to the south and they all fit better then OJ's glove.
eapls2708. I think we are both thinking the same reasoning when retracing surveys. I agree we have to keep monuments that don't fit because its just a measurement problem. When we find monuments set that are just wrong, is another story.
eapls2708, post: 363715, member: 589 wrote: I assess each prior survey independently and together. Sometimes surveys can be separated by several decades yet both surveyors have used same or similar evidence and proper methods. At that point, it's a matter of allowing for expected positional/measurement differences given the equipment, field methods and conditions existing at the time of each prior survey and those of my survey. If the iron set in 1915 is 2' from where I expected it to be, but I know from experience that such differences are not uncommon between modern surveys and those of that era in the general vicinity, then in my estimation it's right on. Similarly, if the 1982 mons disagree with the 1915 mons by 2' and mine by several tenths, it may well be within the limits of commonly found differences due to measurement and site conditions, they too are right on. At that point, I'm mixing surveys and monuments to determine locations for the property I'm surveying.
If I find positions that are significantly outside of what is considered normal given the era of the previous surveys, it prompts me to take a closer look at all of the surveys, including and most especially my own. Like Jim in AZ said, rather than needing a reason to accept a found monument, I need to find a reason to reject it. I don't start the analysis presupposing irreconcilable disagreement between past surveys. In fact, I go into it with the presumption that differences that will be found will have a valid explanation that can be discovered.
We need to realize that as long as the previous surveyor did something that resulted in points that a reasonable person (non-surveyor) should have been able to rely on, then I have no authority to call it wrong without darn good reason to support that opinion. If that's not the case, then there is no valid reason why a landowner should have to hire a licensed surveyor to locate their boundaries. If my opinion of where that corner is can be tossed aside by a future surveyor as easily as if it were a goat stake with no record of how it was placed, then what value do my services have to the landowners. Maybe we should put the following warranty on our invoices: "The results of this survey are certified to be a true and correct representation of this surveyors opinion of where the boundary is, which is deemed to be the correct and proper location of said boundary until the next surveyor arrives, at which point all representations, warranties, and guarantees, express or implied hereon shall become null and void." Good luck!
Yes this is why I have taken to this stance and am on a mission to learn more and more. I just can't stand telling people to "ignore that one and go by this one" anymore. It goes against what a boundary truly is. It is constantly driving me nuts.
eapls2708, post: 363712, member: 589 wrote: Rich,
You're starting to head down the right road. It's not easy to get the idea of the magnitude of the difference being the major factor in deciding to accept or reject. Most all of us have been trained to measure well, and have had it drilled into us that it is important to make measurements that are both accurate and precise. In most other areas of survey practice, that is one of the, if not the prime considerations of doing the job right. It's a major mind-shift to go to the more abstract world of putting the other evidence ahead of measurements.
Boundaries are different than anything else we locate in that they are legal entities which can be represented by physical objects, but are not physical themselves and have nothing to do with physical or scientific laws. Those are natural laws that work the same way everywhere, every time. Physical and scientific laws cannot be broken because if one tries, the consequences are immediate in that the law is self enforcing. Our measurements are subject to physical & scientific laws. The physical things that we locate, or stake out to be built exist or are designed to work with the natural laws. If, for instance, a parking lot is designed or staked incorrectly, the natural laws will enforce themselves as will be evident with the first rain after construction and everyone realizes that sloping the pavement toward a curbed in corner without a catch basin to take runoff was a violation of unchangeable natural law.
Boundaries are established by humans employing various kinds of reasoning and an endless array of different methods and tools. The laws governing how to later determine where someone first established a boundary are made up by people. There are at least a couple of ways that happens (to greatly simplify the matter). One is people decide the way certain things should be, and so they pass laws to require or prohibit certain behaviors that will hopefully result in making things the way the lawmakers wanted them to be. That can and very often does result in a very complicated set of laws that are applicable to specific actions or circumstances, can and often is extremely confusing and seemingly (sometimes actually) contradictory, and can often be contrary to common sense - just look at tax law for a clearly ambiguous example.
The other way that law is made is by experience - when a party takes this action, that is most often the result, or it is most often an indication of that intent. From that basic concept, over many generations of the common law forming and evolving in the courts, principles of evidence (what is or is not proper to consider to determine the truth or falsity of a circumstance or the existence or non-existence of a fact) and how & when to consider it (application of principles) have been formed. These principles have generally proven to be a good set of processes to discern past truths & facts that lead to the answers of whatever questions are being asked. Laws based on experience of hundreds of years of human interaction are easier to understand and easier to keep up with than are laws devised to affect future actions.
Fortunately for surveyors, nearly all of the legal principles we need to become aware of are based on the courts experience of human interaction, and therefore are by definition "common sense". So instead of getting wrapped around the idea of "how am I going to keep all of these concepts and principles straight in my head?", put yourself in the position of being a student and investigator of history. Ask the questions:
Does this boundary appear to have been previously established?
Who established it? Was it someone with training in measurement, or was it the original parties themselves?
Who wrote the description? Did they even realize what the most important information to include to reflect the parties intent was?
If there is a fence or other apparent line of occupation:
Did that exist prior to the 1st conveyance? Was it built afterwards?
Who built it? How did they determine the location to place it? What info did they rely on? For what purpose was it placed here?I could go on with a far longer list, but the point is that a large part of what you need to try to do is determine what the circumstances were when the parcel was first conveyed, and if the remaining physical evidence are things that were placed after that conveyance, were they placed in reliance of some other evidence that indicated the location of the boundary for them. Was what they relied on something that a reasonable person, exercising reasonable diligence and care should have been able to rely on?
About the only time that magnitude of the difference between the found location of a recent monument and the location where you would establish a monument according to the best set of evidence you can find to point to the boundary's original location counts for anything is when that magnitude is within reasonable differences of measurement or of interpretation of available evidence. You may be working in a very high dollar area where the price of land is reckoned in hundreds or perhaps even thousands of dollars per square foot. That certainly raises the pucker factor, no matter what criteria you're assessing previous surveys by. But the same basic principles apply regardless of land value.
If in assessing the previous survey, you find that the surveyor took the proper evidence into account and otherwise used proper methods (considering when the survey was done and the conditions at that time), then you accept the monuments where they are even if out of your special comfort zone. On the other hand, in a situation where the property was selling for what amounted to roughly $1500 per sq ft on the buildable area of the lot, a very knowledgeable and diligent surveyor I know rejected existing monuments that were between 0.25' and 0.9' of the positions he came up with based on best available evidence because 1) the map of the previous survey showed that the surveyor had re-established the points based upon calculations through several older records from points that had no direct special connection to the PIQ, 2) the monuments disagreed with the long-existing improvements of a prescriptively located RW and disagreed with the locations of certain corners & lines as reported on even earlier (but unfiled) survey records, and 3) there was no indication of substantial reliance on those monuments.
In that instance, the surveyor felt a bit queasy about rejecting the monuments because 1 was positionally close to the position he determined, and others were a few hundredths to a couple tenths from the sidelines, or projections of sidelines. He reasoned that since he would have had to reject the corner locations that fell several tenths into the public improvements that fit the prescriptive RW even if he accepted them for line only, he should reject the survey in whole because the methodology was entirely wrong. I can't disagree with him.
Point is, magnitude means little or nothing. Whether or not the previous surveyor recognized proper evidence and made a proper effort to discover and mark the same locations where the original lines and corners were established is of paramount importance.
Amazing post. Thank you.
I guess the problem around here is as stated before there is hardly any existing monumentation at lot corners...
And surveys are not recorded. So all surveys used are unrecorded surveys that just show the lot or parcel with the improvements. Many times they do not even show anything found for evidence and definitely wouldn't if it was found outside of the surveyed parcel. And some surveys done by different surveyors work well together and in areas where no original monuments of any kind were ever set, surveys could be multiple feet out of agreement with each other.
We just had a job, shot 6 houses in a row and couldn't find 2 house corners out of the bunch that would agree. It was a patched up mess.
That's one thing I've been doing more is documenting much more on the actual plat of what was found and used to do the survey.
I also have been taking a different approach to 'finding the lot' lately. Even though I have not fully lept into showing lots as they may actually lay on the ground (as in showing a square platted lot as not actually square etc) I have been taking a different look at 'seeing' how the lot might have been originally laid out on the land due to the evidence along the boundaries.
My confusion at first was that by surveying like this, one was pretty much just doing an 'as in possession' type survey which would only do just that, and not really take the deed into consideration. But maybe by a hybrid of using 'the math' to find the evidence may be the way to go. Which is obviously the way anyone would survey, however it's taking that extra step of using the evidenced lines and not just the platted lines where one would be just re-laying out the lot instead of retracing it...that's the biggest jump.
Hopefully that made sense... :-/ and hopefully I'm starting to understand a bit better.