Here's the scenario in a nutshell. You are visiting relatives in a jurisdiction where you do not have a surveying license. You have a license but it does not apply here. Over the midday feast the property owner starts asking you questions about surveying and how you do what you do. Eventually he admits that he has not had his property surveyed since he purchased it, but it is in a subdivision less than 15 years old and he has been told that all lot corners were marked at that time with bars or pipes. You are asked if you can survey it for him and you politely explain why you can not do that.
That leads to more questions as to the steps you go through on a survey of a lot like his. You mention starting out with your metal detector, tape measure and shovel to do the preliminary search for existing monuments. He has a shovel and a tape measure so he asks if you happen to have your metal detector with you. You do. He asks for permission to use it and for a few minutes instruction on how it works. You loan it to him but do not participate with his adventure. Eventually he returns declaring he found bars at all four corners of his lot. You ask if he had measured between them to compare those distances with the nice sketch of his lot he had obtained some time ago from the County GIS department. He immediately turns and goes back outside. A bit later he returns and declares that everything measured up very close. He's happier than a pig in a mud puddle.
Did you do anything wrong? Were you surveying where you do not have a license?
Nope. Sounds like you gave general information and offered no professional opinion.
He had a chat with a surveyor and went out found, not surveyed, "his" corners. He could have achieved the same end with a quick internet inquiry.
I believe that anyone can go anywhere and measure anything with whatever means of gathering information if they have land owners permission.
Surveyors are licensed in certain states and can take those measurements and make decisions there and not anywhere else.
I can measure something for my brother in law's SWMBO third cousin twice removed in another state or country where I am not licensed and I can not tell about right or wrong and that information is not worth a hill of beans in my hands. It may let them know how much fence materials to order, I just can't show where it should go.
Outside my state, I am just a professional well educated at measuring. You want 400ft and I will show 400ft. I can't remember how many 1/4mi I measured off along a straight and flat backroad.
Bottom line, no license, no survey report and no staking monuments or boundary and/or any relation too.
From way over here I'd have not put that into a boundary survey category.
I'm curiousif your surveys are public, state or anything other than purely private and individual documents.
If not latter, wouldn't modern savvy owners who think they can solve issues get hold of a copy of the survey(s) of and around their block and work (try) some things out for themselves?
It happens here.
> Did you do anything wrong? Were you surveying where you do not have a license?
You were at risk of giving him advice to the detriment of both him and his neighbors if you led him to believe that he could identify the corners of his lot with just a tape and a metal detector. It isn't completely unknown that when subdivisions get laid out lots on the other side of the block are configured with corners some small distance offset from the lots on the side in question.
A prudent advisor would want at a minimum to examine the plat of the subdivision to verify that was not the case and to describe what the plat indicated had been set in the way of markers. More to the point, now that the landowner believes he *knows* where the corners of his property are, but without any professional involvement, what are some of the scenarios that may possibly follow?
I assume that the subdividing surveyor didn't actually leave identifiable monuments, such as iron rods with identifiable aluminum caps also stamped with the lot numbers. If that was the case, and your "client" was able to identify them, then disregard the rest of what I posted. The typical situation is that the subdividing surveyor did not actually set that type of marker at the lot corners.
Worst case scenario
You've lead this fellow to believe that he has found his property corners and he, later, builds a fence. What he actually found, at one of the corners, was a ground rod that was a foot into the neighbors property. The neighbor hires a surveyor and now he has to move his fence.
Are you liable?
Worst case scenario
Would any of these fine folks be liable?
https://www.google.com/search?q=can+i+survey+my+own+land&ie=utf-8&oe=utf- 8">Save big bucks!!!! Be your own surveyor!!!!
Worst case scenario
Jb, Did you check out the "disclamer" on one of the sites?;-)
How to “Survey” Your Own Land
Disclaimer: Warning! Danger! Peligro! If you are a licensed, professional land-surveyor, reading this article may be a threat to your health and well-being as it contains enough estimates, approximations and out-and-out guesses as to risk inducing headaches, vomiting and/or hypertension in individuals trained in the exacting science of Civil Engineering.
If, on the other hand, you are a typical homesteader, you may find that this article, if used judiciously, may give you the ability to measure your land and locate your boundaries to a vague, kinda-sorta accuracy without costing you one red cent.
:-O
http://www.homestead.org/NeilShelton/Hafast/Survey.htm
Worst case scenario
Awesome
An excellent reason not to take the metal detector when you are visiting relatives...
Yes. No.
When someone asks me questions like that I reply "Its magic, and only I have the magic surveyor's wand"