Don't feel the least bit of sympathy for them. I hope this story makes national news, but it won't. I can share many similar examples just from my experience from the last 5 years.
What is really interesting is to read the comments left by folks who read the article. I must have read 30 before I found one that mentioned the word "survey" and some of those comments were from realtors with 30 years experience. They all seem to think it should have been appraised - is that what they call surveying in other parts of the nation? Read the comments if you really want to see what we as surveyors are up against.
Just posted that to FBook. That is crazy!!
I like the comment in the article
"The actual property was directly to the right of the house she bought"
Now is that "right" if you are looking at the front or back of the lot ?
Are we the only ones who know the direction of North, South, East and West ?
(Yep, North is always to your right, had one newbie convinced of that)
Similar story. I had one several years ago where the folks bought 10 acres from a guy on a land contract. Then they paid cash for moving in their dream double wide, septic, well, driveway. Never a bank involved. It actually was a nice place nestled in the woods.
Now the balloon was due on the land contract so they needed a bank. The bank required a survey. They hired me. The land contract described X, when actually these folks built on Y. About 660 ft off.
Luckily, the original owners still owned the farm so I just fixed things in the description. But talk about a cluster eff. Everybody from the bank, title company, county environmental, well guy, driveway guy.... all the way down the slippery slope.
Again, us mere surveyors are the hero. Pay now or pay later. These folks paid later.
Did one about 10 years ago, the assessors maps showed a lot from across the street encroaching in the lot I was surveying. Obtained all of the subdivision plats, 4 in a small area and discovered that the same surveyor did all of them. There had been two other surveyors that had done work within the subdivision that was superimposed across the street, one just used the occupation lines and did nothing about researching out the whys, The other measured everything up and determined that one house was to close to the sideline, so he set new monuments and a boundary line adjustment was done. Those surveys did nothing to explain what took place. Doing closures around all of the subdivisions and found the math well within expected tolerances so that didn't explain much other than something was wrong. Many head rubbings later and a whole bunch of talking to those who lived there trying to track down a clue. I finally got to the point of finding out which house was the first built. It was built on the wrong lot and everyone who followed used it as control. Everything fell into place then and the old boy who surveyed it originally did good work. I showed my finding and had a very long narrative on the survey, but nothing has ever been done to exchange deed documents, the last guy on the row who thought he owned the street really had a deed document for the lot his neighbor was occupying and had occupied almost a hundred years and it followed suit down the line. Someday one of those owners will need a loan and this problem will need to be addressed, I have talked to one attorney representing the owner who thought he held a claim to the street and nothing was done. The evidence was in place to support my findings, the surveyors beliefs about time and money is where I place the blame for not resolving this sooner.
jud
Great sleuthing, Jud, and an interesting story.
