I'll try to simplify the story.
Last year I performed a survey of an existing tract. The landowners had convinced themselves that their only adjoiner had been claiming part of their land. They have owned their tract of about nine acres for 40 years. The adjoiner is the third generation owner of the much larger parcel from which this tract was cut about 50-55 years ago. His family has owned their tract for roughly 40 years also.
Something went horribly wrong more than 40 years ago. The rather simple description presents no obvious problems. Nevertheless, fences do not match words. Remember this is only about nine acres. The south fence is 48 feet further from the north section line than what the deed reports. The east fence is about 15 feet too far east from the controlling railroad track on the west boundary. The original measuring effort was either incredibly bad or someone intentionally tried to cheat someone else. I believe all of the original players in this sad story are long dead.
Skip one year ahead to today. Former client's adjoiner found a very good lawyer. Former client thought that if they did nothing the problem would magically go away. Eventually, the former client hired another very good lawyer. I'm certain the value of the disputed land has been surpassed several times already in legal fees. I do not know if any agreements have been hammered out. Today the former client calls and says they need to hire me to come out and survey it out a different way. I advise that they have their attorney contact me directly. That should happen tomorrow. As I have worked repeatedly with the attorneys for both sides of this little mess, they know that I'm not going to do anything impetuous. Going to do my best to insure that curiosity doesn't kill this cat.
"Today the former client calls and says they need to hire me to come out and survey it out a different way."
That is so funny and typical of a response when the property has been surveyed the correct and only way it should be and the also just as typical findings that it does not agree with what is on the ground.
Hopefully, your task will be to define what they have agreed upon.
Come Tuesday the 28th I will sit with an attorney to assure him that I am clear and do understand the placement of and agreed boundary in a 10+yr ongoing dispute between RR Company, My Client and his neighbor and the Title Company and the idiot that sold RR Company land to other people.
This sit down is an hour and half away in Longview.
At least I can have a choice of where I have lunch before heading to Lone Star to meet with another client whose new neighbor is wanting to tear down her existing fence to build a more suitable fence.
This one may also involve lawyers before it is over.
BTW, both of these have an ample supply of record monuments in place that fit original information of record including the location of RR and existing Government lake and DOT boundaries. Both are also problems brought on by idiots wanting more and trying to sell and build on more than they have.
B-)
About to get drawn into a different project involving the complete removal of trees, including grinding out the stumps. Will be mighty tough to prove what fraction of each tree falls on each side of the property line unless the fresh dirt circles added to fill in for the missing stumps fall entirely on one side or the other. Said dirt circles are about five feet across because these were very old, big trees. Each owner has two 50-foot lots total so there isn't a huge amount of room to play with. This is in a 120 year-old subdivision of the largest city in the county so there is plenty of existing monumentation to reference, including a survey I performed about seven months ago directly across the street from the specific lot line in question.
Holy Cow, post: 328849, member: 50 wrote: About to get drawn into a different project involving the complete removal of trees, including grinding out the stumps. Will be mighty tough to prove what fraction of each tree falls on each side of the property line unless the fresh dirt circles added to fill in for the missing stumps fall entirely on one side or the other. Said dirt circles are about five feet across because these were very old, big trees. Each owner has two 50-foot lots total so there isn't a huge amount of room to play with. This is in a 120 year-old subdivision of the largest city in the county so there is plenty of existing monumentation to reference, including a survey I performed about seven months ago directly across the street from the specific lot line in question.
I actually got messed up in an extremely similar circumstance working for the power company.
I staked and flagged both sides of a transmission easement for clearing crew. Our stake intervals were 100'. Clearing crew got a little zealous and completely removed trees and trunks if any portion of the tree trunk was within 5' or so of the easement line. Retired attorney had over 1000' feet of property common with the trans. line and sued the pants off the power company for removing trees not actually within the easement.
The court awarded damages based on the size of the trees (that were hauled off to the wood chip pile). Three levels of damages were awarded by tree size of 6" and smaller, 6" to 12", and 12" or larger. We actually probed the "dirt circles" to determine their diameter and depth, recording all the shots. Thankfully it was up to someone else to determine what size tree fit in what size hole we located. It took a day or two. We turned a drawing over to the attorneys showing the easement line and all the sixty-something holes we located. They hashed it out 'mongst themselves.
Really surprising was the "ignorance" of the clearing crew. They all had some crazy idea if a tree was within 5' (on the private property side) of the easement line they had the "right" to remove the offending tree. This wasn't just one crew. They all would spit this nonsense out as "procedure". Someone (their supervisor?) had planted that idea in their head. It cost them some money. I understand some "directives" were published after that and circulated throughout the maintenance division.
Apparently I attract this kind of project like BS attracts flies. Another neighbor fight has come my way.
The typical phone message is found on the answering machine. I sometimes mis-hear any phone numbers left so I tend to check these out on the internet. The client had mentioned this involved his restaurant. I check the internet for his name and restaurant for the city involved. Sure enough, he owns a place I've driven by a million times but haven't been in for over 15 years, when he didn't own it. One of the first hits was for a Facebook page for the place. Clicked on that and discovered the owners of the liquor store next door are feuding with him over where customers for the two places end up parking. Getting rather ugly.
I return his call. Nice chat. Time frame and projected cost are OK. Fortunately, he finally said that the neighbors will be very curious about my work as they have indicated they think his customers sometimes park on their side of the line. I suggested that he do a bit of research into his abstract/title policy to see if there is any reference to a shared usage agreement involving any part of his property or the adjoining property. Had to give him a couple examples from past work of how such agreements ares sometimes used where access and parking are rather limited.
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Back to the initial story. Talked with the former client's attorney. He is providing me with a copy of the "all but signed" agreement that will result in them purchasing the disputed area from the adjoiner and paying all expenses, including for a new survey to describe the disputed area such that they can end up with a deed with a description of said area plus be able to calculate the total purchase price based on some number of dollars per acre. My response will go to both attorneys involved, including a fixed fee for setting new corners. I will do no work until I receive the go-ahead from both attorneys.
In the local rural area, it would be best if the electric companies would get a wide enough easement to maintain to keep any tree from outside an easement from falling onto the power supply lines.
Every time any strong wind comes thru the electricity is going to be interrupted anywhere from momentary to a few weeks because of tall trees outside of the easement.
About tree cutters, they will cut whatever they want to cut if no body is checking on them. Once they are loaded and gone, it is hard to trace down who done the cutting cause by then no body knows anything.
:beer:
Dagnabit! The lawyer contacted me and said the former clients wish to be new clients. Supposed to do the second survey and prepare a description for the disputed territory. Time to doublecheck with the other attorney before proceeding.
We use to joke about the clearing contractors around here that they must have some kind of a test you have to pass, and if you passed you failed. Had one over zealous crew that whacked a phone pole down because it was in the clearing zone we flagged and we didn't flag it not to be cut.
