The land is patented about 1890, four aliquot 40's around a quarter corner. It's farmed and grazed, about half cultivated and half foothills (Junipers/Gamble oak). Part irrigated with water rights. The whole thing is fenced, how they measured it way back when nobody knows. Eventually the farmer gives up and sells it in three parts (1) 5 x 40 chains, (2) 32.5 x 40 chains and (3) 2.5 x 40 chains. Probably no survey here just a clean unambiguous metes without bounds, anybody can pencil whip this simple problem. The parcels end up owned by some rich city folks that want country weekends at the “ranch”. So they decide to do a subdivision, save the best lots for themselves and sell the others to finance the whole deal. Basically it seems to have worked, its a very nice place.
So they get it surveyed (GIS) and naturally all the fences are off. The south fence seems pretty good, the north fence is short and the east and west fences are way off (75-80 feet). So other than deal with cranky old farmer/ranchers that don't care much for the new city slickers, they decide to leave common area on the east and west sides of their new lots and stop at the northerly fence short so they don't need to deal with that feller. I've seen this before, other than deal with boundary issues lets just buffer it with common area and don't mess with the very ancient fences (actually a nice work around).
Somewhere in the process though they decide that they really want the extra land on the east side up to the old fence. I don't know, maybe they tried to claim it and decided it was cheaper to buy it than fight it. I'm sure the guy that sold it to them told them he owned all the way to the fence, never was an issue. The landowner on the other side was a big developer with financial problems so they were able to buy it.
OK I'm getting there. How did they buy the land twice. Well the fence was not really much off (under the law it's probably spot on). The survey had some sort of bust in it. So they purchased based upon a survey based description that now calls to the fence. The POB is a fence corner (actually a Juniper tree) North 1278 feet and East 4041 from a section corner. Then the line runs along the fence a few calls (basically south) 2644 feet to another fence corner, then westerly 78 feet along a fence, then back North 2635 feet and then easterly 81 feet along a fence to the POB (I rounded to even feet).
I measured it and actually the POB at the fence corner is about North 1277 feet and East 3966 feet. The fence corner at the Southeast corner of the parcel is almost exactly 3960 feet east of the section line. This section is pretty dang close to 5280 East/West. So the fence when it was built must have been measured in by somebody sometime (Yeah, an unrecorded survey - can't rely on that).
So there you have it, these guys bought their land twice. At least they settled the line. At best they got a boundary line adjustment and gained maybe a half acre paying for 5.75 acres (250434 square feet on the deed). This was 12 years ago. I don't think they can claim an extra 80 feet to the east. There are calls to the fence and there isn't any other fence in the area. This one is only about half standing. They couldn't get their money back either, the developer they bought it from went bankrupt.
Should I tell them, cause I don't need to as part of the work I'm doing?
They should have called you about 12 years ago to survey then. I don't feel bad for people that get burned by trying to "work around" needing a surveyor. 9 times out of 10 you are probably OK, but that one time that you are not, you usually get burned.
When I first read the header I thought the answer to the question was going to be, "Get married."
stopping short of the actual fence is the sensible thing to do. i think the city slickers have had experience with long and costly litigation process over there in America. Losing a few acres and using the existing fence lines as the boundary assures that the new buyers will not have any issues with the adjoining parcels. I think they already made a profit from selling the subdivided lots less the problem areas so why risk going into litigation with adjoining owners right?
