"A tragedy so often repeated" thread got me to thinking. If I were a private land owner without a survey license, and I properly referenced off a property corner, (say set several reference monuments of some sort and adequately measured to the corner monument) and set my fence corner right where the corner monument was.....Is that legal? Am I surveying without a license? Would you honor the fence post as the corner if you knew what I did?
Happens all the time (without the offsets). To answer your question - yes, no & maybe. That's where professional judgement comes in.
I have had many clients that have dug out around their rebars and cast concrete in coffee cans and pvc among other similar ways of upgrading their monuments.
It is nice to have located many nearby features like poles, posts, signs and other stationary objects to be able to cross chain and check things out.
One client had cast 4x4 concrete monuments with a 60d nail atop and placed them every 20ft along his lake lot boundaries.
He used a stringline and the results were within a 0.10ft±
Another surveyor used one of the on line monuments as control and confused the Title Company who sent me a note that I had botched a the original survey. It did not take much to prove the other surveyor's mistake. It was like passing a stone to explain to the title examiner (inlaw of the other surveyor).
😉
I would think that if it is a controlling monument for other properties that don't "touch" the monument, removing it would be legal no-no. If it's not controlling, I think courts would frown on it unless you had the OK of all the owners of properties that touch the monument. Of course, the average owner wouldn't know which is which, so the default rule is do-not-touch. I've recently heard it said here in the golden state that monuments, once set, become public. If true, it must come from common law as I don't see it in the statues.
Isn't he just referring to offsetting the corner and digging a hole and placing the post back where the original mark was using the offsets?
Not sure how else a landowner would place his post? Well, not without a surveyor to realign the new post as you erect it.
Thats what I advise owners that ask me where to place the post and should they pull the peg or leave.
If they fluff that then they'd fluff anything.
As to adopting such a post then how big is the post? If the monuments placed by owner still existed and I could prove by external means they had merit/ accurate meaning I'd make a note of their origin and would use them as a backup if they proved to be of value.
Even if I didn't use them in defining the corner because I doubted their accuracy then I'd show them as future references and again their origin.
> .... Would you honor the fence post as the corner if you knew what I did?
That would be a form of testimony of the position of a monument from a witness which is discussed in the Manual, quite acceptable, and perfectly legitimate. Yes. I would likely accept it.
Bingo. Be sure to back it up by following your state code regarding oral testimony by landowners. .
IBLA and fence posts
I can't remember the names of the people involved, but there is an interesting Interior Board of Land Appeals Case that hinged on almost nothing but oral testimony.
In a nutshell, the BLM had performed a Dependent Resurvey. In the execution of this survey a quarter corner was considered lost and reset with linear proportion. The reset corner was almost 100' from the corner posts that bounded the owner's occupation. The entire area was up in the air about the boundary.
It eventually made it to an IBLA review. An older man owned one of the parcels and had also grown up there. Although all accessories (bearing trees) to the corners were long since gone, he remembered their location. His recollections also included the markings on one of trees. It was a favorite spot for them to sit and rest on their way back from rabbit hunting when he was a kid. Even though he didn't have any idea what it meant, he was able to recite the scribing he remembered on a tree. He was also able to show where the tree had once stood. That location was congruent with the fact that the fence had actually been set where the corner had originally been located; NOT 100' away where the resurvey had placed it.
An interesting read if I could find it.
Oral testimony can be very powerful.
perpetuating TRAVERSE points
Several years ago we surveyed a pretty good sized wooded property with a fence around the perimeter with a mowed swath on the other side of the fence. This predated our use of EDM so the ability to pull long distances without cutting line was really appreciated. We completed the survey, calculated the location of the missing corners and went back to set them. WTF!!!! all our traverse points (60d nails) had been pulled up and replaced with car axles. The owner assumed that the nails we set were his corners and wanted something more substantial. Well at least we had preset traverse points for our SECOND go around.
Andy
The Fence Post Is A Monument To The Monument
The landowner has a responsibility to maintain his monuments. If he flubs it you still survey per the original, just a little harder to do.
A fence post surrounded by concrete, 0.3' from the corner is a monument that the original has been removed. It takes quite a bit more to turn it into the corner.
Paul in PA
The Fence Post Is A Monument To The Monument
I am a proponent of always making sure the control points, traverse points, etc. are never visible to an owner. I have seem too many problems arise out of this.
Visible Or Not...
...when building a fence on or near the line, they can be disturbed or destroyed.
Paul in PA