good point tommy
> Hate for anyone to waste your time. He should have brought up a paying subject, like that Fluke woman.
good point tommy. Andy, don't volunteer your time then complain about not getting paid.
Personally, I think it's wonderful that a property owner is interested in finding his bounds.
I do everything myself. I do drywall, automotive, painting, flooring, doors, windows, kitchen cabinets, plumbing and electrical. I like doing things myself because it's cheaper and you get the satisfaction that you don't have to depend on others.
I would consider "outsourcing" your property surveying needs. If you don't sooner or later you could be representing yourself in court against your nieghboor in court who hired a surveyor. Not every iron rod/rebar drivin into the ground is a property corner, sometimes they are used for staking curb forms and my all time favorite....... 5/8" for holding down a 8 man tent! I am just glad the tent was there or it would have been a real mess!
Glad you do much yourself, provides common sense and knowledge that will apply to everything in life, including the ability to apply common sense in what you discover during your corner search. Keep it up.
jud
good point tommy
Haha. Not getting rid of me that easily!!
I wonder what percentage 3K is of the cost of the property. For most people their property is the biggest investment they will ever make, but for some reason can’t bring themselves to pay 1% of that to find out what they have invested in????
My dad was the same way. When I was a teen, he decided we would build a swimming pool.
We hand dug the #@%$&*e!! thing.
Stupidest project I've ever been involved in. Several weeks of digging to save a little bit of tractor work.
Sometimes it more than pays to spend a few dollars instead of being cheap.
.
Oh yeah,
and don't forget, you're not just surveying your own boundary.
you're also surveying your neighbor's too.
He is not surveying, he is only looking for a record monument that was set by a surveyor. It is what is found and what he does after location that matters, he sounds capable of using better judgement than all the nay Sayers here.
jud
> What I'm probably going to do is get another metal detector and see if I can do a more detailed search.
not a bad idea... but only if you know what you are looking for. The plat does not describe the size, type, and markings. Maybe if someone is familiar with the area and knows what that surveyor meant when he said "xxx" on his plats it may give you a clue. Or perhaps the original surveyor will tell you the common use at that time and place.
> I'm also going to ask some of my neighbors questions to see where they think their line ends.
I would Start with that, and ask them all.
> If that dosen't work 'm going to have to find someone.
Selecting a professional is difficult, but at least you are getting educated, that is a plus.
> The company that did the original survey wants $3K to come out and re-set the pins!!!!!
Don't know what I would do if I had to come up with that kind of money at the moment... Price is often unrelated to the actual product. Ask around!
Now If you want to go beyond the mental exercise/arm waving phase you can share the exact location, company name, copies of drawings, etc. Someone here may have some site specific knowledge that they will share... it could be very important!
Looks like a duck, sounds like a duck....
> He is not surveying, he is only looking for a record monument that was set by a surveyor. .....
> jud
just might be a duck.
He's looking for that record monument for what purpose?? It aint' geocaching.
> I do everything myself. I do drywall, automotive, painting, flooring, doors, windows, kitchen cabinets, plumbing and electrical. I like doing things myself because it's cheaper and you get the satisfaction that you don't have to depend on others.
hope you are good at representing yourself in court too. cause if you screw the pooch on your homemade survey that is where you will end up. good luck anthrax!
> I do everything myself. I do drywall, automotive, painting, flooring, doors, windows, kitchen cabinets, plumbing and electrical. I like doing things myself because it's cheaper and you get the satisfaction that you don't have to depend on others.
Me too! I also do everything on your list except automotive. No reason why the landowner can't find his own pins. You are on the right track.
Larry, I have one in the drawer in the kitchen. I've had it around for over 60 years.
good point tommy
Just want to say I would totally agree IF the op had actually been totally up front with all the info. It's this game playing crap that gets old. Why not just post the survey map and ask your questions? Why go through all the hassle of posting one image snip here and a much larger but redacted plat somewhere else?? Why tell one part of the story here and another part elsewhere? It makes no sense.
Dude!! You are going to get a metal detector? And do what? So you find some metal rods. Are they your property corners? How do YOU know? Are you willing to defend your "evidence" in court?
Seriously, how silly are you?
Do you stitch up your own wounds when you have an "OOPSIE!"? Or do you go to a doctor?
When you build something on your lot that the neighbor thinks encroaches on his/her property, are you going to represent yourself in court? Better start hitting the lawyer websites too, because there's not ONE attorney that would represent you on such "evidence".
You have part of a subdivision plat, a "locator map"(not legal in my state) and you are now going to get a metal detector, YET you have absolutely no idea what the heck you are doing?
Let me ask you this, what do you do for a living? I suppose just anyone can do it as well as you with no prior traning or education. That's what you are telling all these surveyors.
If it's so frigging easy, go take the Professional Land Surveyor's Test and you too can soon be making the BIG BUCKS.
Just read through this whole discussion. Very interesting.
I would support the right of a land owner to search for his own boundary markers. Jud and Perry are right on. The land owner will suffer or profit the consequences of his findings, and his actions thereon. If he is careful, and utilizes a good method, it is POSSIBLE using simple tools (300 foot tape, compass, metal detector, etc.) to come to a complete and accurate understanding of the boundaries of his land. Being careful, however, is a critical component of this. Another critical component is that the markers that are supposed to exist on the basis of the plat, have in fact been set and have not been disturbed.
To be careful will require patience and time, especially for the novice. Whenever I try to do something that I haven't done before, I spend lots of time doing it. Often too much. So, the answer to the question of whether steppinthrax should hire a surveyor has everything to do with how he values his time. This may be an enjoyable process for him, one that he's willing to spend lots of time on.
Parenthetically, if the land owner has a duty to possess his land, he must know where its boundaries lie. Before there were professional land surveyors, there were farmers, and they figured out the boundaries of their land, in many cases remarkably well. They had nothing but simple tools and their minds.
$3K for a retracement of this lot might be a good idea, or it might not. What if the value of this lot is $10K, and steppinthrax has no plans to build, would it make sense to spend $3K on a survey? Probably not. But, if the purpose of knowing where the lines are is a precursor to putting up a $300,000 house, I'd say $3K might be good insurance.
Steppinthrax, you're obviously not afraid to ask questions, and questions can't hurt. Be careful, and good luck.
good point tommy
😉
Just a couple of cautionary tales:
First was a job I did a couple of weeks back. owner wanted me to find his corners on his east boundary and set some intermediate points so he could build a fence.
Easy enough. I find the first one somewhat by luck and then take a hip chain and compass and pull out and find the one at the other end of the line. Both were set by a parcel map about 20 years ago by a reputable firm.
Seems good. So I set up at one corner and then proceed to traverse to the other one. I hit the other one about a half foot off in distance in a 1300 ft line. Not great, but not unheard of.
I then pull the offsets on the intermediate points and think probably everything is OK to build a fence.
But the half foot bugs me, so I go and decide to pull out the gps and tie in all the corners of the lot and see how they fit.
I find out that the north corner was off 45' east-west, but only 6" in northing.
I investigate further and find that several corners are off in the subdivision by large amounts in the same direction. I figured out that the original surveyor blew many of his corner moves big time. Not just a foot here or there but a whole bunch.
If I would have just accepted the 6" as being within reason I would never have known the true story.
Two weeks before that I did another survey where I found that the original surveyor from the 1990's had blown a corner move by 10' in north direction only on an east-west line. I took a solar on the line and it clued me in that the direction didn't match. I ran to the next corner to verify that that the error was in the monument.
I called him up and he found his bust in his books and went out and corrected it.
Both of these true stories show the importance of accurate determination of bearing. Neither would likely have been discovered by a layman with a 100' tape.
On another recent job I found a large commercial building that was placed 7' into a city right of way. That one's getting messy in court and it ain't looking good for the survey firm who made the mistake.
Long story short. Surveys need to be evaluated by a professional. Surveyor's make mistakes and they often aren't easy to discover. The one's I've presented here are mathmatical errors. Other types of errors exist, such as incorrect evaluation of the title documents, incorrect procedures, failure to recognize controlling elements or discover controlling monuments. That reminds me of the subdivsion that was mistakenly placed on federal lands because the original subdividing surveyor failed to discover an original GLO 1/4 corner.
I am amazed and disappointed in my breathern here who take this so lightly and suggest that a layperson possesses all the tools necessary to survey his own land.
It's an age-old discussion. Is looking for the iron in the ground purposely left by a land surveyor to mark the corner of the property land surveying? Why did the surveyor leave tracks?
Are you saying that if you set property corners for someone's property that they aren't supposed to rely on your determination? If the surveyor made a bust, it's on him, and not on the public for whom he marked the boundaries.
But having said all that, you're right. The guy should get a land survey before he goes and builds to the lines. I am just pointing out that the property owner has every right to rely on public information and information provided by a surveyor whose job it is to set corners.
I think surveyors should be very careful when providing mortgage surveys, ILC's or property reports. They are licensed professionals and the landowner is going to look at it and say to themselves that a boundary expert signed and stamped his document. I don't care the disclaimers; it is in many states that you are to sign and stamp work resulting from a land survey. I think you might have a problem if you're way off.
> ....Are you saying that if you set property corners for someone's property that they aren't supposed to rely on your determination? If the surveyor made a bust, it's on him, and not on the public for whom he marked the boundaries.....
No that's not what I'm saying.
For clairification, in the examples I've given the original surveyors are still practicing and were brought in to rectify the errors. In the first 2 cases there had been no reliance, rather the current owners wanted the lines identified so that they could establish reliance.
In the last example, there was reliance. That one is in court and it doesn't look good for the original surveying firm.
All of these examples were cautionary tales to the layman who is attempting to survey his own lands that the correctness of previous surveys is part of the analysis which may well require tools and knowledge beyond his current skill set.
