Okay in Kents post I notice they went to the ten thousandths of an acre.
What is the common acreage in your neck of the woods?
In WV for new stuff, it's generally hundredth of an acre and old stuff is to nearest pole or whole acre. once in a while you'll see to the nearest rood but that's not really common.
It depends upon the land value and the survey methods. Obviously, if it is rural land worth $400 per acre, then a tolerance of +/- 0.01 acres amounts to a tolerance of only +/- $4.00 worth of land. If it's worth $1.5 million per acre, then a tolerance of +/- 0.001 acres amounts to +/- $1500.00 worth of land.
Generally, on the suburban fringes of cities, it's prudent to anticipate changes in land use and to survey as if the land will eventually be worth considerably more. That means better methods than might be entirely sufficient for rural agricultural cropland and more accurate results.
Generally hold it at 0.001 acre. That's generally $1 to $3 worth of ground in our rural areas.
It depends... Kent's comment on the value of the land and survey methods are two good factors. The size of the parcel is another factor. But in every case you should limit the stated precision to that which you (and other surveyors in your area) can reproduce. It looks bad (and could cost you money) if you state precision that you and others can't repeat on a second or third survey in years to come.
There are acreage minimums around here for building permits and the such. One that gets tricky is an ordinance for property within the watershed of our water supply reservoir. The ordinance states a "10 acre minimum". Being a PLSS state, there are numerous tracts being aliquot descriptions. Over the years Council has rejected applications where the survey stated 9.9957 acres. A few years ago they finally hashed it out to where most near everybody understood that a quarter of a quarter of a quarter was meant to be 10 acres according to the "government survey" and have allowed slightly smaller parcels to be developed.
In these cases I round to the nearest acre because that is what the ordinance states. Only once did someone in zoning and permits question this. I explained if they wanted to be that picky, they needed to rewrite the ordinance to read 10.0 acres or 10.00 acres, etc. Most of them understand, but every couple of years we get a new guy at City Hall...and then we go round and round again...
