Looking for input and help

Short answer.

Check with your state regulations. The PLSS are pretty straight forward, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Look to your states rules where the survey is at. Most likely they will govern what is and what isn't. Notwhithstanding local practices, of course.

Don't over complicate your clients issues. By all means, do not make them your problems.

Good luck.

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> "The surveyor ... needs to determine if the found monument was set using practices, procedures, and accuracies that were acceptable at the time the monument was set. If acceptable practices, procedures, and accuracies were followed to establish the found monument, the monument marks the true location of the corner, even though it may be some distance away from the dimensions arrived at by the individual conducting the resurvey."
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I would say the original (undisturbed) monument holds. Even if it was set by pacing.

It depends.

For Example, if the monument was set by a Government surveyor that didn't follow procedures it might be considered fraudulent.

Or, if the monument was set by Pappy eye-balling it in order to show Bubba and Willie what he was giving them that is something entirely different.

It goes back to what the standard was for who set the monument.

The first line gives me pause for the simple fact of who is to say what is an acceptable accuracy or procedure? Sure there are certain standards for leveling etc but there is still some degree of wiggle room within them. Regardless of how the monument was initially established, short of actual fraud being the issue at hand, the location of the monument is where it is, even if a plat says it should be 500 feet away, if it's 400 well then crap but there it sits and stays as monument to the real property line, as has been established by multiple court cases.
I suppose the quick answer is that if a good faith effort was made to put the monument where it should be, then all is good, phantasmagorical calculations be damned.:-P

>>For Example, if the monument was set by a Government surveyor that didn't follow procedures it might be considered fraudulent.

But if the surveyor thought proper procedures were being followed would it still be fraudulent?

Agree. There may be a few exceptions. One exception being if there is other evidence suggesting the original marker has been moved from its original location.

It is very rare that I have not accepted a legitimate monument set by a reputable surveyor.

I started in the days before total stations. I understand how "feet" of alleged error could occur in measurements of less than one-half mile.

PLSS Had Written Standards Of Accuracy In The Past

In Colonial States the standards are much more recent than the majority of tract creations.

Factoring in normal chaining error, slope chaining and chain count blunders, the gap can be quite large. However most iron monuments in Colonial States date from a time more recent than the original tract creation, so more modern methods "may" apply.

You cannot "Hang Your Hat" on someone else's blank statement, you hang your hat on your own head, your experience and knowledge.

Paul in PA

I'm with Perry..

PLSS Had Written Standards Of Accuracy In The Past

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> You cannot "Hang Your Hat" on someone else's blank statement, you hang your hat on your own head, your experience and knowledge.
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> Paul in PA

I agree. As always, the contrary may be shown.

Act of February 11, 1805
(1) All section lines shall be surveyed and all quarter corners on those lines established
(2) The corners set by the Surveyor General are unchangeable.
(3) The lines marked by the Surveyor Geneeral are unchangeable

Section 1-29 2009 Manual of Surveying Instructions
General Rules:
First. That the boundaries and subdivision of the public lands as surveyed under approved instructions by the duly appointed surveyors, the physical evidence of whic survey consists of monuments established upon the gropund, and the record evidence of which consists of field notes and plats duly approved by the authorities constituted by law, are unchangeable after the passing of title by the United States.

Second. That the original township, section, quarter section, and other monuments as physically evidenced shall stand as the true corners of the subdivisions which they were intended to represent, and shall be given preference ove recorded directions and length of lines. (empahasis mine)

I seem to recall a discussion regarding the acceptance of corners done to the standards applicable at the time the survey was originally done in either Boundary Control and Legal Priciples or Evidence and Procedures for Boundary Location.
DJJ

PLSS Had Written Standards Of Accuracy In The Past

> You cannot "Hang Your Hat" on someone else's blank statement

I also agree, particulrly if it is a blanket statement 🙂

Don

Questions

Where would one find the "acceptable practices, procedures, and accuracies" for a given time and place, and what level of proof is required?

What if a state had no licensing requirements or statutes for surveyors to follow until many decades after the passing of federal land to private citizens, what "practices, procedures, and accuracies" would apply?

Don't forget that not all PLSS work was accepted and platted. The rejected surveys were later contracted out again and were usually approved as submitted but the monuments set during the rejected survey are still in place. Hard to find anything about the rejected work but the monuments which will not match the platted work usually remain. Need to know the origin of the found monument or that it fits the surrounding evidence before you hang your hat on it. PLSS corners or corners set later intended to be in that system even with some error but relied upon will usually hold for the PLSS system, Ownership lines may rely on conflicting evidence.
jud

The first thing that must be established is whether the land was surveyed by gov't survey or was the land in private ownership when the boundaries of a particular part were created.

For instance, the NE 1/4 of a section was patented and occupied by three families, a young couple and their parents. After a period of time when three women were in the same household, one couple wanted a separate area of the NE1/4 so they could establish their own houshold. They bought some 1/4 mile rolls of fencing and cut out a 1320' x 1320' quadrilateral in the NE corner of the NE1/4, doing their own 'surveying'. The lawyer in the county seat wrote the deed calling their surveyed area the 'NE 1/4 of the NE 1/4' which was clearly the wrong description.

As long as the fences were in place or could be re-established, the fences were the controlling physical evidence of the legal boundaries and the parcel should have been, and now must be, described by M&B, not aliquot part descriptors so that future surveyors would 'follow in the footsteps' of the owners, not the nonapplicable procedures for creating an aliquot part.

In other words, are you retracing an actual survey or a 'lawyers deed'?

These types of land parcels are the ones refered to in Black's definition of Alienation:
Alienation
In real property law, the transfer of the property and possession of lands, tenaments, or other things, from one person to another. The term is particularly applied to absolute conveyances of real property. The voluntary and complete transfer from one person to another. Disposition by will. Every mode of passing realty by the act of the party, as distinguished from passing it by the operation of law. See also Restraint on alienation.
Restraint on Alienation
A provision in an instrument of conveyance which prohibits the grantee from selling or transfering the property which is the subject of the conveyance. Most such restraints are unenforceable as against public policy and the law's policy of free alienability of land. See restrictive covenant.

It is always possible that adjoiners can, and do, establish their own common boundaies and those established boundaries are the legal boundaries that need to be accurately described.

Deed staking is not the land surveyor's professional work product, deed interpretation is.

Remember Wigmore?
From Wigmore;’s compendium on “Evidence”, 2nd. Edition, Vol. 5 Section 2476:
“It is not necessary, and it is not humanly possible, for the symbols of description, which we call words, to describe in every detail the objects designated by the symbols. The notion that a description is a complete enumeration is an instinctive fallacy which must be got rid of before interpretation can be properly attempted. …”

There is nothing 'confrontational' in this post!

Richard Schaut