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(@kent-mcmillan)
Posts: 11419
 

> 10. The Director may order the removal of any monument that conflicts with any boundary confirmed under this Act. R.S.O. 1990, c. B.10, s. 10.

I hope that no Ontario Land Surveyor ever sets a new monument in ignorance of an existing monument that legally defines the corner in question. It sounds as if it takes an act of Parliament to remove the wild shot. I'm sure you have diligent and learned practitioners in Ontario who would never send their unlicensed employees out with instructions to spend as little time as possible on a survey, but in other parts of the world, it is almost the norm for residential property surveys.

 
Posted : August 6, 2010 12:22 pm
(@georgiasurveyor)
Posts: 455
 

Ah, but unless your law does not recognize Adverse Possession the surveyor who removes said monumentation under the assumption that they are doing a public service, are in fact acting maliciously because they are removing evidence that may be used to argue Adverse Possession. Remember, unless your property owner owns all the parcels adjoining the iron in question, then you are affecting the claims of ownership that another has without due regard to whether they have a legal interest in said property. You can only give opinions, even if they may later prove correct, that the neighbor does not now have a good faith claim to said monumentation. I believe, and I am sure that you will correct me if this is an incorrect understanding of Texas law, that a person may claim adverse possession if they have cultivated the land for 10 years without paying tax on land and in as little as 5 yrs if they cultivated and paid taxes. Certainly, if he has a survey showing that he owned to the rebar you decided sucked, he would be able to claim color of title. Certainly if he had been mowing to said iron, he would be considered cultivating. Say, how many years had that iron been in the ground/ Doesn't Texas law say that if that neighbor had been occupying with color of title for 3 yrs that your client would be SOL. Heck, he cannot even legal retake the land (say by someone yanking said iron) without bringing suit. Yeah, you screwed up if you moved an iron that had been there 3 years.

 
Posted : August 6, 2010 12:51 pm
(@duane-frymire)
Posts: 1924
 

Well Said, Kent

Kent, ordinarily the "clear" meaning of statutes does not apply in NY. We are allowed to interpret them in an artful, or boundary surveying sort of way:)

For instance, I have been told by attorneys that our also recently passed right of entry law that requires "reasonable notice" is satisfied when (if discovered) I am asked what I'm doing on someones property, I merely reply "surveying". My concern was that under previous law we were not really trespassing if there were no signs and no one asked us to leave. So, if we did not send letters to all adjoiners under the new law we would be trespassing.

At any rate, we have informed all personnel that the little card with the law on it is not made of kryptonite.

 
Posted : August 6, 2010 1:02 pm
(@steve-gardner)
Posts: 1260
 

Kent - All of a sudden the whole discussion has been about quickie-dickie surveyors (or whatever the term is) tossing two-bit rebars out the window hoping they stick without looking for the original monument that's still in place? This whole time I thought it was about removing a marker that was placed through a different analysis of the evidence and that one believes is incorrect. Or pulling out markers that you have no idea where they came from but don't match your analysis.

Either way, in California, I wouldn't do it. I'd show the found original monument or the one that I place in what I believe to be the correct position and if there's something nearby that I disagree with, I'll show it on my plat that is readily available to any future surveyor. What the property owner does with it after I leave is not in my control.

 
Posted : August 6, 2010 1:25 pm
(@kent-mcmillan)
Posts: 11419
 

>All of a sudden the whole discussion has been about quickie-dickie surveyors (or whatever the term is) tossing two-bit rebars out the window hoping they stick without looking for the original monument that's still in place? This whole time I thought it was about removing a marker that was placed through a different analysis of the evidence and that one believes is incorrect. Or pulling out markers that you have no idea where they came from but don't match your analysis.

Well, I guess a few other people haven't followed this topic either. The whole subject has been removing survey markers that are erroneously placed in ignorance of the still existing original.

 
Posted : August 6, 2010 2:07 pm
(@kent-mcmillan)
Posts: 11419
 

> What the property owner does with it after I leave is not in my control.

BTW, that is I think a terrible choice to make, to expect the landowner to remove the incorrect markers. That is something that, in my opinion, should only be done by a professional surveyor (and not by his or her unlicensed employees). The surveyor is the person with the facts before him and the surveyor will be able to do it right.

 
Posted : August 6, 2010 2:13 pm
(@steve-gardner)
Posts: 1260
 

After review of the thread, I see that Dave K used that as an example at 10:17 where the surveyor points out the original and there's another surveyor's monument nearby, but I thought the basic theme of the thread was removal of monuments in general and the state laws that deal with that. In my world, there aren't original monuments to be found at all or even most of the property corners that we are asked to establish.

At what point do you see the thread veering in the direction of a situation where there is an existing original monument?

 
Posted : August 6, 2010 2:14 pm
(@kent-mcmillan)
Posts: 11419
 

No, Steve

> After review of the thread, I see that Dave K used that as an example at 10:17 where the surveyor points out the original and there's another surveyor's monument nearby, but I thought the basic theme of the thread was removal of monuments in general and the state laws that deal with that. In my world, there aren't original monuments to be found at all or even most of the property corners that we are asked to establish.
>
> At what point do you see the thread veering in the direction of a situation where there is an existing original monument?

Steve, this thread is a continuation of a discussion in a thread a day or so ago in which the subject of removing another surveyor's markers was discussed in the context of the other surveyor's marker being an erroneous marking of a corner for which the original monument remained in place. Here is where you may pick the trail up:

http://beerleg.com/index.php?mode=thread&id=9297#p9788

If you survey in an area where there are no original monuments, I can see how everything would seem to be an airy-fairy exercise in the ethereal realm of subjective opinion. Where I survey, it isn't that much of a challenge to identify the original monuments and to say with certainty where the boundaries marked by them are.

 
Posted : August 6, 2010 2:25 pm
(@steve-gardner)
Posts: 1260
 

Birthday Boy

That's it, I'm moving to Texas. On second thought, why do they even need surveyors in Texas then?

 
Posted : August 6, 2010 2:28 pm
(@kent-mcmillan)
Posts: 11419
 

Surveying in Texas

> On second thought, why do they even need surveyors in Texas then?

Well, most likely because no one else knows how to find and identify original corners and to form reliable opinions of the land boundaries based upon them.

 
Posted : August 6, 2010 2:34 pm
(@steve-gardner)
Posts: 1260
 

Do what right? Operate the vice grips, or pick the one that needs to be removed? It's sort of confusing here in CA, because the Prof. Land Surveyors Act states in the list of things to be shown on Record of Survey maps "monuments removed". In the Board case I referred to earlier, my opinion that I wrote up for the Board was that the removal of the monument that was clearly erroneous was not a violation of the PLSA because the PLSA specifically allows it. The Staff Surveyor at the Board asked me "But would you do it?" I said "No". And he said "So, it's not standard practice then, is it?" and they cited the guy that did it. I prefer not to be that guy. The Board's citation said something like the proper thing to do would have been to contact the surveyor that set it, notifying him/her of the problem and let them correct it if necessary.

On one of my recent surveys, my client had built his fence to a grounding rod next to a power pole because it looks like a survey pin. It's about 2-1/2 feet from the property corner. I wouldn't necessarily get out the vice grips until I found out what it's hooked up to, though.

 
Posted : August 6, 2010 2:51 pm
 ddsm
(@ddsm)
Posts: 2229
 

grounding rod next to a power pole because it looks like a survey pin. It's about 2-1/2 feet from the property corner. I wouldn't necessarily get out the vice grips until I found out what it's hooked up to, though.

Hello Lamp Post...(grounding rod)

Simon Says "Good Night"

DDSM

 
Posted : August 6, 2010 3:01 pm
(@kent-mcmillan)
Posts: 11419
 

> Do what right? Operate the vice grips, or pick the one that needs to be removed?

Yes, you have to remove the right marker or it pretty well defeats the purpose of making a survey in the first place. Some markers will take special tools and more persistence than many landowners may have. I can see how a surveyor who was worried about billing the time that removing the monuments would take might want to push it off onto someone else. I wouldn't.

 
Posted : August 6, 2010 3:06 pm
(@keith)
Posts: 2051
Registered
 

Surveying Texas Style!!

Kent's post above should be put up on top for all to see!

Keith

 
Posted : August 6, 2010 3:10 pm
 ddsm
(@ddsm)
Posts: 2229
 

> > Some markers will take special tools and more persistence than many landowners may have. I wouldn't.

Dyn-O-Mite Dan, the Survey Man

 
Posted : August 6, 2010 3:14 pm
(@kent-mcmillan)
Posts: 11419
 

BLM Retiree

And I'm sure that the BLM never, ever ordered the obliteration of some existing survey marker, eh? :>

 
Posted : August 6, 2010 3:15 pm
(@keith)
Posts: 2051
Registered
 

Kent

BLM never ordered the obliteration of any survey monument, period!

 
Posted : August 6, 2010 3:17 pm
(@kent-mcmillan)
Posts: 11419
 

Seems like a No-brainer

Well, it seems like a no-brainer to me that if you want particular erroneous markers to be removed and others to remain, there is mainly a downside to turning the work over to Joe Landowner. A surveyor will know how to efficiently deface a chiseled "+", but Mr. Landowner may not even be able to find it when he finally gets around to the job. A surveyor will have some idea how to remove a nail in a drill hole or a rebar in rock, Mr. Landowner may just beat around on the latter and give up on the former.

Or, better yet, Mr. Landowner may tell his yard man which markers to remove while Mr. Landowner is off golfing. Too many variations of things going wrong when you expect laypeople to do what a surveyor ought to.

 
Posted : August 6, 2010 3:20 pm
(@steve-gardner)
Posts: 1260
 

I guess I'm not explaining myself well. It's not about the time it takes to remove the monument, it's the fact that the Board of Registration frowns on it.

Just yesterday I was looking for a monument near a fence intersection surrounded by blackberry bushes. The one I needed is shown on a recorded map with a notation that another one that he found and disagreed with is 0.9' from the one he set. I found the one he rejected and so I knew where to look for the one I needed. Neither one was what I would call an original monument because neither one was called for in the deeds or anything. Just two different opinions of the same corner. The reason I wanted that particular one was that the other corners of the property I'm working on were supposedly placed in relation to that one.

I say supposedly because I eventually found one of the other corners and it was on the line it's supposed to be on but about 7.5 feet West of where the map dimensions say it should be. It looks undisturbed, still has the tag on it and everything. I haven't figured out what to do about that yet. It's just a 2-acre parcel and the difference between the recorded dimensions and the location of the pipe might make a difference whether there are encroachments or not. I don't see where anybody's relied on it. Just rambling now.

 
Posted : August 6, 2010 3:22 pm
(@kent-mcmillan)
Posts: 11419
 

Kent

> BLM never ordered the obliteration of any survey monument, period!

So, what do you want to wager?

 
Posted : August 6, 2010 3:23 pm
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