A good mathimatical solution would be to enter the coordinates of each monument as computed from the previous survey into Star Net or other LS software and do an adjustment on your data holding all of the previous surveyors points as fixed. Then you could examine the error elips for each point and see if you would be in complance with the Minimum Standards.
Our minimum standards call for a positional error of no more than +-0.25 feet for urban land, +-0.50 feet for suburban land, +-0.75 feet for rural land, and +-1.50 feet for mountain or marsh land. If you can meet those accuacies, why not just use the previous bearings and distances, and list your area as +-40 accres on the total and +-20 acres on each of the lots. Definitions of the different land classifications are shown in the Minimum Standards.
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Arkansas Minimum Standards can be viewed at http://www.pels.arkansas.gov/rulesRegsStandards/Documents/standardsPractice.pdf
> A good mathimatical solution would be to enter the coordinates of each monument as computed from the previous survey into Star Net or other LS software and do an adjustment on your data holding all of the previous surveyors points as fixed. Then you could examine the error elips for each point and see if you would be in complance with the Minimum Standards.
> Our minimum standards call for a positional error of no more than +-0.25 feet for urban land, +-0.50 feet for suburban land, +-0.75 feet for rural land, and +-1.50 feet for mountain or marsh land. If you can meet those accuacies, why not just use the previous bearings and distances, and list your area as +-40 accres on the total and +-20 acres on each of the lots. Definitions of the different land classifications are shown in the Minimum Standards.
WOW - is all I can say to that. Do all those mathematical alleged solutions do anything other than give the surveyor a warm & fuzzy, and a CYA he can hang his hat on?
0.25 in an urban setting. I can get that with a cloth tape. Give me a break. Those guys build to zero setbacks. The adjoiner may have issues if your building is 0.15 over his line. All based on all those mathematical solutions. All well within the so called tolerance. Yikes.
Halloween is over, so the spooky part is over. Yet, I'm still spooked by this philosophy that balancing a bunch of numbers makes things in the right position of that monument/building stake - on the planet.
whew... just my $0.02
Different worlds. You operate within yours. I operate within mine. We both follow the guidelines of our States. I know of absolutely no cases where a surveyor was reprimanded for preparing a description without describing the monuments. It's simply the way it is done. Therefore, everyone working with descriptions expects adjoining descriptions to agree. Otherwise, something must be wrong.
I realize this strikes many as being very wrong. But, it strikes us as wrong to encounter a boundary description of 800 words to describe a four-sided tract and then have the next person come along and describe it differently although nothing of consequence has changed.
I'm guessing you're in a State that has a record of surveys. This is where this discussion always goes sideways. People from States with recording laws don't understand why a surveyor would feel the need to write a new description and people in States with no recording law can't figure why you wouldn't. So like you say we both must dance to the music being played in our own dance hall.
From the outside looking in it sure seems like following a description that only contains directions and distances with no call for monuments or intent or references or locative calls is begging for surveyors to pin cushion and hold only those directions and distances as sacred. It also strikes me that you lead off with a charge to not be tied to just doing the standard and then when confronted with a philosophy that exceeds the standard you go back to defending the standard.
You are correct, Shawn
I did start off assailing others, not thinking at the time about surveyors like you who work in completely different circumstances. It was after your comment as I was going back over it again before posting my response that it hit me. That is why it was the last paragraph of that post when I explained that virtually all descriptions here do not mention monuments. In fact, I have problem seen fewer than a dozen in nearly 40 years that were obviously written by a land surveyor from a different world.
I'm guilty of doing the same thing that has happened here too many times. I did my painting with a broad brush when the readers have a variety of experiences that can't be covered with that broad brush.
Nevertheless, it is what it is. My original post lambasts those who totally screwup tranquility for no reason. In your world of writing very detailed metes and bounds descriptions, you provide the explanation in your writings as to why there may be a need for a slightly different description than what has been used in the past. Furthermore, someone dealing with an adjoining tract then can do a better job in understanding why their description is now a bit out of date, yet was perfectly correct at the time of writing.
In my world, there is no benefit in rewriting a description simply because the found monument is leaning a quarter-inch or even if it is replaced precisely where the original monument was supposed to have been. The wording of the original description should be held.
When someone does a rewrite of a single parcel he is ignoring the fact that adjacent parcels that contain identical descriptions along the abutting boundaries are impacted by that rewrite. Anyone plotting them together will rapidly discover this bizarre little system of mini-gaps and overlaps. Please consider that everone from the mapper in the county appraiser's office to the title company get very concerned when a common boundary is now no longer common.
