There are probably a dozen surveyors or more that hit the ground every morning in my county. We are all out trying our best to make a living and hopefully make a client happy at the same time. And I'd like to think the other eleven keep posterity as close to their heart as I do. While on one hand we really don't owe other surveyors anything at all, we owe every bit of our livelihood on the evidence and records left behind for the "next guy".
And even though I am a fair and honest man, I still growl a little and the fur on my back bristles when I see a crew working in an area that I consider "my woods". Poachers, plain and simple. They will be there long enough to make a dollar or two and then leave the guts for someone else to clean up. It happens a lot, but what can you do?
A good example is a stretch of highway east of here around the lake, most of it centered on the section line. Over the years the highway boys and the BLM have surveyed it to death. An unknown surveyor years ago set some good points on the section line where the RW intersects. Rather than try and get out in traffic and dig up a corner, these points are not only worth their weight in gold, they FIT everything that has been done out there for the last thirty years. AND a good number of descriptions have been prepared beginning "where the existing RW intersects the section line".
Oh, every time the tax payers cough up enough to "improve" the road the highway boys come out and reset the section corners. They try, but their "new" corners never really fit the old stuff by a couple of tenths, more in some places. Anybody that has been around here any length of time knows the "new" corners are just posers. The REAL corners are at the RW line.
And just the other day I was by there and saw a local crew working on apparently a new residential area. I saw little piles of asphalt debris and gobs of flo-pink pancakes at the section corners in the middle of the highway...and none of old "RW" corners had been uncovered. No doubt their work will fit the "resets", but won't fit much else.
Now 0.15' doesn't bother me too much. Maybe it should, but it don't. The part that bothers me is when I look at copy of what those guys were working on and they will have reported "fnd. 1/2" rebar, 0.15' south" at existing corners abutting their survey. It's almost like things have turned 180...where the NEWER corner positions usurp the OLDER corner locations.
I don't get as riled up as some of us here have with "outatowners" working in our area. I guess there are as free to swoop in and leave a pile of poop as the next guy. The real crime is the paper trail that is left for posterity. It blurs the lines that have been established and harmoniously existed for a good time. That leaves the "next guy" to scratch his head and wonder which is good. And it is a crime in my book to cast a shadow of doubt on historically accepted records and monuments that we've worked off of for years.
Apparently Kent is experiencing someone poaching down there in his woods. And whether you agree with Kent or not, common report indicates it is in an area that one needs to pay attention while they are there. Sadly they probably will not.
And I hope there are no Oklahoma surveyors that personally took Kent's jab at Okies as derogatory. I didn't. It wouldn't matter where the surveyors came from, they're still poachers. Kent just doesn't know the name of any other states to gripe about that border Texas...:pinch:
My granddad (an Oklahoma native) use to say that all Okies were folks that just ran out of gas on their way to California. B-)
Just to be a devils advocate...how do you know the "original" corners set by the "good" surveyor were actually good.
Obviously since they've been held as gold for 30 years they've become the "good" monumentation but just saying, what did the "good" surveyor hold that was so flawless? :-S
> Now 0.15' doesn't bother me too much. Maybe it should, but it don't. The part that bothers me is when I look at copy of what those guys were working on and they will have reported "fnd. 1/2" rebar, 0.15' south" at existing corners abutting their survey. It's almost like things have turned 180...where the NEWER corner positions usurp the OLDER corner locations.
OAC245:15-13-2 Minimum Standards
(13) Accuracy of measurements. The accuracy of the measurements for the survey shall be based upon the type of survey, and the current or expected use of the land.The accuracy of the measurements thus performed shall be substantiated by the computations of the traverse; the relative error of closure permissible shall be no greater than the following standards given below:
(A) Where there is or will be zero lot line construction on small tracts in a high density urban area, the allowable closure error is 1:10,000 or the allowable positional error is plus or minus 0.10 feet.
(B) In residential or commercial subdivisions where the length of lines does not exceed 300 ft, the area of tracts does not exceed 2 acres, and there is no plan for zero lot line construction, the allowable closure error is 1:10,000 or the allowable positional error is plus or minus 0.25 feet.
(C) In suburban or rural residential or industrial tracts where the length of lines does not exceed 1000 feet and the area of tracts is between 2 and 40 acres, the allowable closure error is 1:10,000 or the allowable positional error is plus or minus 0.50 feet.
(D) Rural tracts of 40 acres or more where the corners of the tract may be connected with traverse legs in excess of 1000 feet, the allowable closure error is 1:10,000 or the allowable positional error is plus or minus 1.0 foot.
(E) Rural tracts of 40 acres or more in rough or tree covered terrain where the corners of the tract must be connected with short traverse lines because of poor visibility between the corners of the tract, the allowable closure error is 1:7,500 or the allowable positional error is plus or minus 1.5 feet.
I'm not sure why one would bother calling something out 0.15' when the allowable positional error is 0.5'. Still, someone ought to call the perp and offer him a slice of his wisdom that comes with years.
> Obviously since they've been held as gold for 30 years they've become the "good" monumentation but just saying, what did the "good" surveyor hold that was so flawless? :-S
You may have helped me make my point. I probably didn't do a very good job of making an example, though.
My point being: Consider a parcel surveyed off of a section line (or any other control) and monumented at the corners. My complaint is someone coming back in 30 years later, resetting the control, and then reporting that those (still existant) four corners are somehow "off" or in an erroneous position.
Doesn't that go against the grain of the hierarchy of calls? Doesn't a monumented senior line have any weight against newly set control?
My point was not whether something was "good" or "bad". My point was that once a property corner has been established, monumented and accepted I, for one, consider it to be THE corner. Reporting its position as "so-much-north and so-much-east" from a black dot on a newer survey isn't following the rules and statutes that common law and our profession have presented us.
Monumented corners are not "moving targets". :bored:
That must be why fifteen hunnerts doesn't bother me too much..;-)
> Monumented corners are not "moving targets". :bored:
I couldn't agree more. I work in the northeast so sections aren't an issue, but all the same...monumentation is THE CORNER. It seems so many surveyors in my area do just what you are talking about; they hold what they determine to be "the best" line and rack the boundary to that. All monumentation that doesn't hit is "offline X amount". It seems to be hard for some surveyors to distinguish between distances on paper and actually boundary occupation lines on the ground.
That said, do you show a deed vs. ground distance when you record a survey map? What about writing a deed? (I'm an SIT - thanks for the help).
I agree completely. To me it is absolutely ridiculous to show a "computed" corner as .1 feet north and .1 feet east of an existing monument. If the monument is shown on the original survey, it controls. If it has existed and been accepted by adjoining owners, it controls. Who is to say it is not the original monument? Why is some computed corner better than the existing monumentation that may have been set on the original survey and from which the deed measurements are coming from? You can not do a survey more accurately then it was done originally. Measurements in chains and links are plus or minus 7.92 inches....so corner is 0.15 feet off center of the existing monument? Get real!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Use some common sense when doing your surveys. Preaching to the choir, I know..but it is Friday afternoon and I enjoy a Friday afternoon rant.
Recent seminar presenter stated "Deeds at evidence of title only, boundary location is determined by many forms of evidence, one of which is the deed". Just food for thought.
WOW, those are some loose min. standards!
>A) Where there is or will be zero lot line construction on small tracts in a high density urban area, the allowable closure error is 1:10,000 or the allowable positional error is plus or minus 0.10 feet.
Oklahoma is apparently a paradise - because you can't possible have both a standard that "eh...a tenth is good" for zero lot line construction and lawyers.
On June 15, 1990, when the garage was already three stories tall on the side adjacent to Levering's property, Levering filed suit in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City alleging a permanent encroachment and seeking an injunction and damages. Levering then hired Greenhorne & O'Mara, Inc. ("Greenhorne") to survey the site and determine whether the garage encroached on its property. The Greenhorne survey determined that the garage encroached in a triangular area, from zero to 1.5 inches over nine feet.
Urban Site v. Levering, 340 Md. 223 - Md: Court of Appeals 1995
> That said, do you show a deed vs. ground distance when you record a survey map? What about writing a deed? (I'm an SIT - thanks for the help).
Around here you will probably get as many different answers as surveyors you ask.
Yes, I always note recorded (or deed) distances v. observed on my surveys. And also on deed descriptions I prepare, but one has to be careful. I've had several title examiners question that practice on newly prepared descriptions.
If I am deviating from a record distance on a newly written description I make sure that both ends of the line have monuments described properly in the text.
> >A) Where there is or will be zero lot line construction on small tracts in a high density urban area, the allowable closure error is 1:10,000 or the allowable positional error is plus or minus 0.10 feet.
>
> Oklahoma is apparently a paradise - because you can't possible have both a standard that "eh...a tenth is good" for zero lot line construction and lawyers.
>
> On June 15, 1990, when the garage was already three stories tall on the side adjacent to Levering's property, Levering filed suit in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City alleging a permanent encroachment and seeking an injunction and damages. Levering then hired Greenhorne & O'Mara, Inc. ("Greenhorne") to survey the site and determine whether the garage encroached on its property. The Greenhorne survey determined that the garage encroached in a triangular area, from zero to 1.5 inches over nine feet.
>
> Urban Site v. Levering, 340 Md. 223 - Md: Court of Appeals 1995
MINIMUM standards 😉
>
> Around here you will probably get as many different answers as surveyors you ask.
>
> Yes, I always note recorded (or deed) distances v. observed on my surveys. And also on deed descriptions I prepare, but one has to be careful. I've had several title examiners question that practice on newly prepared descriptions.
>
> If I am deviating from a record distance on a newly written description I make sure that both ends of the line have monuments described properly in the text.
Gotcha.
I have seen that on maps, but I have yet to find a deed that lists the difference. Understandable, since this would require a new description to be written nearly every time a new survey was performed (pins can move slightly, different equipment used, random errors etc.). Since it is supposed to be understood that monumentation holds over numbers and letters on paper, changing a deed to match whats on the ground "perfectly" is almost like giving someone roadside directions on how to get somewhere and then how to park when they get there...it isn't really necessary.
Thanks Mr Payden.
You posted this in a much more professional fashion that I could.
I go to VPO too quick! (Very Pissed Off).
Your kind of leadership is good for the surveying community at large.
Nate
Your example is ironic. I literally just put a reverse example of that to bed.
My crew went to the other side of the State. They found a concrete nail purporting to be a section corner. The corner record was filed by a nice young man who grew up there.
Aside from the horridly inadequate nature of the monument, he ignored two adjacent monuments within 40 feet with record ties to the original stone. He hadn't contacted the highway department to get the plans. He didn't talk to a local title company or look at the BLM office. The information on the correct Corner location was referenced in ALL 3 of those (and on surveys at the recorder). They were found by the out-of-towner (that's me).
While I see my share of wing-nut travelers, not every multi-state licensee is that way. My clients use me throughout the northwest for a reason. I assure you it isn't price. We do thorough work they can trust. When it's beyond our reach we say so. And for the record, if a guy is a dirt-ball surveyor on the road, he probably stink things up at home too.
Nate
How's that baby girl?
> And for the record, if a guy is a dirt-ball surveyor on the road, he probably stink things up at home too.
:good:
> MINIMUM standards 😉
Trust me, it doesn't get a whole lot better in OK, much of the time. These standards where revised just a couple of years ago from still looser requirements.
If the monument is shown on the original survey, it controls.
And if it's an original then it has 0' of error, so showing how far "off" it is just shows what the surveyor doesn't understand.:-(
And I thought it was just a local problem, lol.
Many have ventured into this area and many have left with a big bite out of their a$$ and their assets.
Clients ask them to come and accept it in hopes to save a dollar down the road somewhere.
While I generally agree, consider this.
BLM sets 2 caps at tract corners 660 apart. Along comes Surveyor B and sets his pin 2 tenths into BLM land. Not bad for 1955. Around 2014 Surveyor C comes along and locates the Corners.
If Surveyor C files a map showing an angle point in the Tract line he will be promptly ripped a new one. The pin is 0.2 off line. Treat it as a closing corner and move on.
Point being, sometimes monuments are 0.2' north...