I suspect that recording states require more periphery details as a condition of plat approval and have much higher recording fees.
Nope, 5 bucks in Idaho!?ÿ It's the wild west out here.
@bstrand In Vermont filing a plat for an existing property is $25 to the town clerk. The clerk may review it for signature, seal, and size of the mylar, but does not review the content (other than to index it).
And that's the way we like it, dammit!
We're licensed surveyors, it's why we have the licensing law. We're expected to know the rules and our stamp indicates that we've complied.
Don't need the clerk or someone else reviewing the content.
Generally speaking, it sounds like a land owner who hires a PLS for a retracement in a recording state can ask the PLS to hold off on setting missing irons, and thus delay the recording of a plat, as long as the PLS is alright with holding onto to the invoice for months or years.
My understanding is that common law places a high weight on physical monuments, relative to measurements, because they are open and notorious, they are there for all to see. When I set monuments I flag the heck out of them whether they be original or the result of the weight of evidence of my retracement. The marking of the corner places interested parties on notice regardless of whether or not the plat is recorded. Once again, the PLSS's fundamental flaw complicates millennia of precedent as it does not seem reasonable that a land owner would be expected to know about a monument set on a nonadjacent parcel 4,500ft away.
Taking the PLS out of the equation, a farmer runs his own boundary, sets iron pipes, and runs a fence between them. The abutter never says a thing about it and life goes on for twenty-five years until the abutter finally decides they want to subdivide and they hire a PLS. The PLS finds two beautiful field stones ten feet inside the farmer's fence. Collected evidence leads the PLS to opine that the field stones were from the original survey. Which pair of monuments should the PLS hold?
NC allows me to punt and simply show it as an overlap. I'm not a fan of this. I read Cooley once a year to inoculate myself from the view that only the courts should establish a boundary based on possession.
Here the statute was written in the early days that the County Surveyor was the only one allowed to certify a boundary survey.?ÿ He could assign the term Deputy Surveyor to those he personally knew had the knowledge and skill to perform the work to his standard.?ÿ Surveying approval was thus assigned to each County as a function to be monitored consistently.?ÿ In effect, the designated reviewer today fulfills that role when appointed to do so by the County.?ÿ In our case the reviewer must be a licensed surveyor with experience in the County.?ÿ The chaos began with the onset of the licensing law.?ÿ The County Surveyor or appointed reviewing licensed land surveyor is used to conform to the statute.?ÿ Any other licensed surveyor is to submit those survey plats that are to be recorded to that person for their review.?ÿ That is the law.
There are places where ignorant people (County Commissioners) either ignore the law or hand off the review to someone with no practical knowledge of surveying.?ÿ That is a perversion of the law and should be stopped.?ÿ But, this is viewed as such a minor concern that no higher authority intervenes to either change the law or be concerned as to its effectiveness.
In many counties here there is a repository for surveys in the County Engineer/Public Works/Road and Bridge Office that charges no fee whatsoever.?ÿ A one-page survey officially recorded with the Register of Deeds is $21, the same as a one page deed.?ÿ Additional pages are $17 each, the same as for other documents.?ÿ Filing a section corner record with the State is $4 per corner.?ÿ There really is no such thing as a corner record here for anything other than a section corner.
Punting is the bane of our profession. That's why many see us as expert measurerers. They hire us for our opinion, and they get drawing of the problem instead.?ÿ
You are taking a very short term view of the value of your work. Sure, your flagging may be noticed by the neighbor a few weeks after your work, but what about 100 years from now. Nothing will be left of your flagging, the monument you held will be gone or deeply buried, and if you didn't record, there is a very high probability that no one will even know you existed.?ÿ
There really is no such thing as a corner record here for anything other than a section corner.
Not used for quarter or 1/16 corners? Iowa requires those.
Those are considered section corners as well. It is rare that interior corners get filed, though, as they were not part of the original Government survey here. Indian Treaty corners are also to be filed.
What I was referring to is the practice we read about here how in other States where any corner of any survey requires a corner report to be filed if that corner had to be set/reset.
My understanding is that common law places a high weight on physical monuments, relative to measurements, because they are open and notorious, they are there for all to see.
Just because they are there for all to see doesn't mean they haven't been disturbed. ??? I was told the reason monuments rank high is because of all the items in the priority of calls they're the least likely to contain error.
Taking the PLS out of the equation, a farmer runs his own boundary, sets iron pipes, and runs a fence between them. The abutter never says a thing about it and life goes on for twenty-five years until the abutter finally decides they want to subdivide and they hire a PLS. The PLS finds two beautiful field stones ten feet inside the farmer's fence. Collected evidence leads the PLS to opine that the field stones were from the original survey. Which pair of monuments should the PLS hold?
As far as which monuments hold - the original monuments, most likely, assuming they are undisturbed, called for, etc.
Considering that, legally speaking, land surveyors are the only ones qualified to physically locate boundaries, I am not sure that I would say that the farmer actually ran a boundary, per se. Any landowner can throw up a fence or put stakes in the ground, but that doesn't make it a valid survey in the same sense as a land surveyor performing the same task. But then, of course, unwritten rights may or may not be transferred depending on subsequent actions and time period.
This was discussed in another thread recently - how far can/should we go in resolving issues before bringing in outside help (i.e. attorneys). I don't know how we can justify anything beyond the options that are firmly within our professional realm - a land swap, easement, boundary line adjustment, quitclaim.
Now, sometimes that can extend to honoring occupation lines if, as Cooley himself says, the original monumentation or its location is impossible to determine:
"A long-established fence is better evidence of actual boundaries settled by practical location than any survey made after the monuments of the original survey have disappeared."
But despite what some (often arrogant) articles in professional publications have said, we should not mindlessly honor occupation while screaming about "placing math on the ground" or "college surveyors" or "GPS wizards". Cooley also said:
"Long practical acquiescence in a boundary, between the parties concerned, may constitute such an agreement on it as to be conclusive, even if it had been erroneously located."
That doesn't sound like an absolute to me. While we should honor Cooley's dictum to avoid "confusion of lines and titles...[which] would cause consternation in many communities", honoring occupation without regard for original monumentation might sometimes (not always) deprive a landowner of full enjoyment of his or her property.
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Ok think we??re getting a bit off topic I work in a recording state and I record my surveys but I don??t like that a client who is paying for a survey has no say in whether it is recorded or not. ?ÿ
I tell people they are going to be recorded whether they like it or not.?ÿ It's the law.
Makes me wonder what they have to hide.
The recording can be postponed pending a court action, though.
Very difficult to overcome the original monuments therefore hold the stones.
at least in California it is a bad gamble to expect a Court to accept a subjective boundary, they may do it but I wouldn't count on it. In the cases I have read their reasoning on accept/not accept a subjective boundary is very nuanced and seems to depend on the Justice's mood that day. If the stones are absolutely lost then there is a much higher probability they will accept the pipes and fence.
The purpose of recording is not necessarily for today or tomorrow or two weeks from now. It is for 60 years from now when most of today's actors are dead so the future Surveyor knows why the heck this pipe is here, who set it, why, what evidence they used, their reasoning. It's a message to the future when we are gone.
A common question I get from clients when I hand them their plats is,"Should I record this at the courthouse so others know what I know?"?ÿ They want to put notice out there.?ÿ I think I could count on one hand the clients who have specifically hoped they could hide what they had just learned via the survey.?ÿ They may not really like where things came out, but, they want to lead the way in correcting things rather than hoping no one ever discovers the facts.
Absolutely. That is why most of our counties have free filing for any plat they can get in an office that is not the Register of Deeds Office. I have added many copies of surveys done by others in years and decades past that I have been provided by clients. The more information available, the better.
Not letting all who are concerned have access to a survey is like getting a court judgement against your neighbor, but not telling him.?ÿ
That would be true if boundary surveys were legally binding and not simply opinion.?ÿ
Ah yes, the quasi-administrative function of the land surveyor. Are you required to record a plat of a retracement survey even if you don't reset any corners?
We are not required to do so. However, most file them in the second office where we all do our serious research. That office may be in the County Engineer/Public Works/Road and Bridge office. For one local county that means in a different city than the courthouse about ten miles away. In most, it is somewhere else in the courthouse or, at least, the same city.
Are you required to record a plat of a retracement survey even if you don't reset any corners?
In Washington, no:
RCW 58.09.090
When record of survey not required.
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