Notice to Adjoining Landowners (Arkansas)

Quote from the bill:

"(1)(A) Five (5) days before conducting a survey notify each 31 adjoining landowner by personal delivery or posting on the front door of the adjoining landowner's residence that a survey of adjacent property will be conducted on or after a date no earlier than twenty (20) days from the date of the notice."

They need to decide if it's five days prior to the survey or twenty days prior to the survey. In any case, this will certainly put a stop to those clients who just have to have the work done tomorrow morning.:-D

lol...I read it as notice 5 days before and no later than 20 days after notice...

Mar.1 (Dear Sir...I'm gonna...)
Mar.6 (I started...)
Mar.21 (I better be done...)

Another question...do you now have an obligation to said adjoiners to provide them with the results?

DDSM

LOL, that may be what they intended, but by my reading, it isn't what they've written. As for responsibility to notify adjacent owners of results, my guess is they will add that next.
Tennessee's Right-of-Entry law does not require prior notice, but we are required to notify adjacent owners if we discover gaps, gores, or other adverse conditions.

Dear Sir...we will pick up any beer cans...

:beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer: :beer:

Sorry...my chain was wrapped around the tripod leg...

Hold my beer and watch this (GISGPSGNSSEDMTHEODOLITETOTALSTATIONCAD)...

DDSM

Just to clarify.

We now have to hire a title researcher, to FIND the heirs to ____ estate, and, then notify them. And, it MAY have to go to court, to FIND OUT who actually has good title, to the adjoiners land.

And, what if the out of state owners are in the rest home, but title is still vested in uncle toms name, as it has not been probated.

So, now we have the survey the land, to SEE where the adjoiner's deed comes to, and THEN notify them..... (we had to survey it first, to discover that they had a claim.)

Then since we are now working for the adjoiner, do we now have to notify the NEXT adjoiner, because we are working on the 2nd landowner's land?

When does it stop???
N

Nate,
Research...gathering evidence...adjoiner's information...should all be part of our Professional activities...

BUT IT DOES NOT NEED A LAW TO FIX A TIME LIMIT...

DDSM

I thought "the number to call is BR-549."

What a joke! I'd tell the legislators to kiss my patootie. Say the next door neighbor is Wal-Mart on one side and Sears on the other. Who in the world would you so notify by "personal delivery or by attaching to the front door of their residence"?

That's a trespassing bill. A couple years ago Utah passed bill that made it criminal to trespass onto ag and range land. Up to that time trespass was a civil infraction where you where responsible for damages but not necessarily criminal. So a bill was put together to try and get an exemption for surveys. When the bill got to the committee level at the legislature it met the same resistance, you must give notice. The bill was withdrawn for further work, I don't how or if it will be worked out.

I can see both sides as a surveyor and landowner. Surveyor needs access to do his work but landowners have property rights which include keeping folks off their land.

It appears maybe there is some bias against stealth surveyors that don't contact adjoiners and then complete a survey that causes boundary problems. I can understand that also, when a survey is being done there is another landowner besides the client.

The profession needs to step up and propose ways to deal with these issues. If not some legislator will and it might not always be purdy.

Some stupid legislation went through the legislature in Utah this year concerning boundary line agreements. I protested but the surveyors organization in the state just rolled over and let em stick it to us, didn't want to make waves. I'm no longer a member of the organization and the law is waiting the Gov's signature. So now all written boundary line agreements are conveyances of title requiring quit claim deeds. This throws them all into a land use application for a boundary line adjustment requiring public review and approval. Yeah, that's going to make it easy to work through the problems. Let's have a public meeting and let the neighbors vote on it! You can't just work out the problem with the adjoiner, now you need to get the government's permission. Stupid!!!!!! The folks that wrote this legislation didn't have a clue what problems they were creating, but they got it passed, no sweat.

Bill,
1056...in feet is a fifth...of a mile...or sweet sixteen chains...

it is also my PS#

Dan B. Robison
AR PS1056 (1985)

The profession needs to step up and propose ways to deal with these issues. If not some legislator will and it might not always be purdy.

Leon,
I agree.
Be assured that the phone lines, email, etc. are smoking...

DDSM

I have a situation right now where my research for a project turned up an illegal re-subdivision plat. Plat was accepted for recording by the register's office even though it lacked the surveyors signature, the signatures of several lot owners, and the planning commission's certification of approval for recording. The plat started out legit and pins were set in the field by the surveyor, however, the developer continued selling lots based on the original plat for several months before illegally recording the new map.

Now I have a situation where I am responsible to notify my client, his adjoiner, two other individual lot owners, and a bank who inherited the remainder of a lot after foreclosing on the developer.

I suspect this will be a thankless mission where no one will understand the issue and everyone will be angry that it can't and won't be fixed for free.

Why couldn't the surveyor just hand a letter to the store managers?

Quite frankly, I have always ignored our state's notification clause. I can rarely tell in advance where I'm going to have to go to find evidence prior to setting foot on the ground. Suppose I'm surveying a lot in a subdivision, and I send notices to the adjoiners. I get to the field and find no monuments, so I have to expand the search. I have to send notices to the next set of lot owners? Then when I don't find monuments there I just keep repeating this process ad nauseum? How ridiculous! Its a game I just won't play.

"Its a game I just won't play."

Don't you have to "play" the same game in AZ?

33-104. Right of person making land survey to enter lands; damages for injury to lands.

A. Any person who is registered as a land surveyor under title 32, chapter 1 or who is an employee of the United States government may enter upon lands within this state to perform necessary work relating to land surveys, and may establish permanent monuments and erect the necessary signals and temporary observatories without committing unnecessary injury. The person making a survey under this section shall make every reasonable effort to give oral or written notice of the survey to the owner of the land before entering the land.

> Quite frankly, I have always ignored our state's notification clause. I can rarely tell in advance where I'm going to have to go to find evidence prior to setting foot on the ground. Suppose I'm surveying a lot in a subdivision, and I send notices to the adjoiners. I get to the field and find no monuments, so I have to expand the search. I have to send notices to the next set of lot owners? Then when I don't find monuments there I just keep repeating this process ad nauseum? How ridiculous! Its a game I just won't play.

My state has no notification requirement; still its just good business practice. Your example of a subdivision survey - notice should be given to all lot owners of whose markers you might examine - could be the entire length of a block; especially block corners (both sides of block you're in) or other controlling monument locations. this really isn't that difficult, a form letter in the door or mailbox is fine. by & large, this ounce of prevention can do wonders towards avoiding irate home-owners berating field crews.

No, I don't have to. It's not death or taxes, and there is no penalty for not doing it.

Right of Entry Bill

> That's a trespassing bill.

No, it's a bill that will give the surveyors and their employees a right of entry upon lands that are relevant to the establishment of the boundary they are working on and will also provide immunity from arrest for trespassing. The notification procedures are simple and straight forward and appears to be a big leap forward in Arkansas for land surveyors

Right of Entry Bill

Why do you need "right of entry" or "immunity from prosecution." Because without it you are trespassing. In Utah surveyors don't have any of this immunity. If you are caught on private land without permission and the landowner wants to they can prosecute. Since a couple of years ago on Ag and range land it's criminal, if you're on the land without permission, your guilty of a crime. If you have licenses which prohibit persons with criminal records to hold them you lose them. The Utah law was passed because a large rancher was having problems with ATV riders, nothing to do with surveyors, but a problem for surveyors was the result. In a residential neighborhood it's easy to hang a notice on the door if nobody answers. What do you do out where a lot of land is government, and wide open, sometimes not even fenced with multiple roads in, hang a notice on a sagebrush? How do you prove you did it?

I haven't been caught yet, at least by someone who decided to prosecute. I don't always get permission (usually try to) or for that fact always even know who's land I'm on. Sometimes they won't give permission and if they have had a bad experience with a previous survey, absolutely don't want a surveyor near their boundaries. Maybe my surveying days are numbered. You don't always know where the evidence you need will take you.

I believe what is trying to be done in Utah is decriminalize a surveyors trespassing, keep to the civil penalties and hopefully stay away from very ominous notice procedures that in many cases would be almost impossible to meet. Don't know how it's going to come out, probably not good for surveyors and clients already believing surveys are expensive, let alone a potential doubling of the cost and long time periods to get it done. Maybe in the end the GIS will be the only answer, that can be done without going on the land, seems to be what some people want anyway, the earth will have to bend to the written record (good luck with that one).