Yesterday, got two calls.
First one was from someone who is upset about Onyx and his property lines. Seems his fences and buildings are across his line. I told him I can confirm Onyx is correct with a survey, and if I found it was correct it would be the first time. He didn't understand so we had a long conversation about how far it's off, sometimes up to 1/4 mile in my experience. Then he asked if he can trust it when he's hunting my loud laugh answered his question.
The next one was from a realtor. He is trying to sell a property we did an elevation cert in 2017. The reason we had to do the cert was because the Zone A showed the west wall of his house in the flood plain. The lender wanted a flood policy of $800 per month which he had to pay until we found the BFE 8' below his lowest grade. He had to pay the engineer for his determination and report plus our time, but with a 10,000 per year insurance bill he was very happy. Now he's trying to sell and county GIS shows his west line clipping his house, plus it shows his neighbors house encroaching. This is frustrating, his deed reads to the CL of the creek a good 70 some feet west of his house, there is a filed survey showing the neighbors house well clear of his east line. So there are two recent filed surveys for this very issue and the county can't get it right.
I'm not frustrated with the counties whose GIS departments "get it wrong", rather my frustration is caused by the people who think the GIS lines have standing, authority, provenance or any other value greater than a cartoon.
I must confess that I look at the boom in GIS and the gross misconceptions of it's accuracy and validity as being authoritative as job security and a gift that keeps on giving whenever someone hits the GIS 'Easy Button'.
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
I look .. GIS and the gross misconceptions of it's accuracy and validity .... as job security and a gift that keeps on giving .....
I don't blame the public for for these misconceptions. We should not expect average joes to understand these matters. It is unforgivable for city/county/state staff to fail to understand these matters and give poor advise regarding.
I don't blame the public for for these misconceptions.
It's understandable with average Joe on the street but I've witnessed 'professionals' relying on GIS data to save time and money, without the benefit of title work or a survey and making some colossally expensive mistakes. The fall out is usually spectacular, but they rarely own or learn from it.
Just because I'm paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get me.
Back when ArcInfo only ran on a mainframe or minicomputer, the term LIS (Land Information System) was thrown around quite a bit. The idea was to have accurate property layers with metadata clearly outlining local accuracy and precision prepared by surveyors. Then the planners took over GIS and it all went to hell. While the cartoonish ownership layers found on most GIS implementations are okay for simple planning purposes, they have been sold as gospel. Even the planners have drank their own Kool-Aid at this point.
I'm currently working on a project where both the seller's real-estate attorney and commercial real-estate broker seriously question why my acreage is 2 acres less that that shown on the tax map. I mean to the point that they wanted to know what procedures I used, as if they would have any idea. This went on even after I told them the area was last updated by the assessor in 1973, at the earliest according to the assessor. Funny thing is that the seller had a property line adjustment prepared a couple of years ago, the area returned on that survey is less than 50 square feet larger than mine on a 26+ acre site.
I'm currently working on a project where both the seller's real-estate attorney and commercial real-estate broker seriously question why my acreage is 2 acres less that that shown on the tax map. I mean to the point that they wanted to know what procedures I used, as if they would have any idea. This went on even after I told them the area was last updated by the assessor in 1973, at the earliest according to the assessor. Funny thing is that the seller had a property line adjustment prepared a couple of years ago, the area returned on that survey is less than 50 square feet larger than mine on a 26+ acre site.
It makes it worse when there are two BLA's (which have to go through county review and approval) on this property and still the GIS didn't follow them. I've taken surveys up to the GIS department and told them to fix the areas where the parcels on the survey are. They will do that, but you can't do it all for them.
Real bla are/should be exempt from municipal approval. I have had to fight a little on this before but have prevailed.
Oregon has 'Property Line Adjustments' and 'Boundary Line Agreements'. A PLA shits know lines and requires planning review and approval to ensure compliance with current zoning laws. PLAs fall under platting statutes and are limited to moving one lot line per PLA, more than that and you in the world of replat. BLAs are supposed to allow for fixing in place an unlocatable boundary line by mutual agreement. For the most part, counties do not allow BLAs anymore. I know they have both been abused by unscrupulous developers in the recent past. If you really need to prepare a BLA you pretty much have to go through the PLA process unless you can convince the planner that the deeds have a latent ambiguity.
Other than Planning approval issues of BLAs, I've seen many cases that title companies won't insure on BLAs and then people can't get lending. Regardless of Planning jurisdiction, I think that PLAs are the way to go to preserve the value of the property. (Are the title companies wrong? well, that's another story)