Then why set them in the first place?
Those of you who wish to condemn virtually every monument you find need to reconsider what it is you are tasked with doing with your surveyor's license.
Record measurements represent guidelines by which to find the monument. The monument is not an approximation as to the corner. It is the corner.
Finding a grouping of so-called monuments that have great mathematical relationships that closely agree with the perfection you seek does not assure that they are the true and original corners. They may all be precisely 10 feet from the true and original corners that you have not found because you stumbled onto the others so easily. In my part of the universe, many monuments are found on or near the centerlines of roads. Finding one near the edge of the road brings on a certain amount of concern immediately. Nevertheless, 99 times out of 100 you will find that the road is bent and the monument is on the corner. The roadbuilders and maintainers have caused the worry, not the original surveyor.
Holy
Are you talking to anybody in particular? I haven't seen anybody saying that they ignore monuments in favor of measurements. Maybe my Cousin Kent comes close to that but I think he's trying to say that just because somebody puts something in the ground with the intent of marking a property corner does not make it a property corner. Usually, but not always is my opinion on that. And of course, the ever-popular It Depends.
Find me one thread where someone said "Monuments mean nothing." These arguments are comical examples of straw man arguments.
Straw man argument: Stating a misrepresented version of an opponent's argument for the purpose of having an easier target to knock down. A common, but deprecated, mode of argument. See fallacy.
In this case, someone asks questions about a boundary decision that involves the validity of a monument and now the offended party sets up a straw man saying the person asking the question say that monuments mean nothing.
Assuming the person this is directed toward is Kent, he as posted many example of the great lengths he goes to to find stone mounds set in the mid 19th century for his west Texas surveys.
For the record monuments mean something. It is up to the surveyor to determine what they mean.
Peter Lazio
Ah, but, consider all the attacks that have been made over the years of RPLS and now Beer Leg condemning found monuments as being unacceptable because they do not match someone's particular set of ideal coordinates. I see that as the issue. Look below to see Paul and Kent still debating the issue from yesterday. Not exactly the same thing, but, close.
It seems that few are willing to defend a monument as actually being at the corner of the subject propery. Yet, somehow we must accept some monuments as being correct or we have no basis for proceeding with our survey project. To call everything else something other than "the allpowerful and true corner" is ludicrous. Too many of today's technicians armed with wonderful tools of measurement do not understand the differerence between reality and idealism.
The other issue I introduced below is that the entire monument is the corner, not just a fly speck at the assumed centroid of said object. It does not matter if various minor movements have occurred. The monument is still the corner. Someone intentionally moving the monument substantially from it's original position is an entirely different situation. A 10-foot diameter boulder can be the monument. It can move an inch or two. So what? It is still the property corner.
> Ah, but, consider all the attacks that have been made over the years of RPLS and now Beer Leg condemning found monuments as being unacceptable because they do not match someone's particular set of ideal coordinates. I see that as the issue. Look below to see Paul and Kent still debating the issue from yesterday. Not exactly the same thing, but, close.
Yes, I didn't get the idea that you'd really followed that thread. What was under discussion there was in fact which monuments controlled the legal location of a boundary. If you'd actually read the thread, you'd have taken in the idea that the monuments that had defined a particular line in 1924 and probably remain in place are probably the most reliable evidence of the actual location of that line, and of boundaries run parallel and at a small offset to it, such as 30.00 ft., than some essentially geometric reconstruction based upon secondary evidence or less.
Mr Cow
>Look below to see Paul and Kent still debating the issue from yesterday. Not exactly the same thing, but, close.
It really was not a debate. I was actually suprised that Kent would suggest that the 2" pipe should be investigated beyond it's subdivision limits.
Mr Cow
> I was actually suprised that Kent would suggest that the 2" pipe should be investigated beyond it's subdivision limits.
Well, when what is disputed is the boundary of the subdivision, as was true in the case that prompted your thread, how can a surveyor not investigate the chains of title both to the tract subdivided and to that adjacent?
I take it for granted that any surveyor approaching a matter like that will start out by assembling abstracts of title for the adjoining parcels back to common ownership.
Kent
> Well, when what is disputed is the boundary of the subdivision, as was true in the case that prompted your thread,
No Kent. The thread was prompted by a lath with writing on it.
>how can a surveyor not investigate the chains of title both to the tract subdivided and to that adjacent?
The 1982 civil did that. He followed others footsteps, I simply followed his and the trail led to his pipe. There was no reason to walk further.
I have seen lath like that before and there are many maps that call original monuments off. I wont chase after a fools dream. If someone wants to call that pipe out by 4 inches just because he came in using straight record from Silverwood, then let him call it out.
Cost Plus
Monument * 15% + labor.
Notice of difference of opinion
> The thread was prompted by a lath with writing on it.
Well, the surveyor's lath clearly expressed a significant difference of opinion as to the location of the common boundary. So a surveyor discovering that is faced with either:
a) noting on the map that some other surveyor has given the opinion that the common line is not where the 1982 surveyor marked it, but that you weren't hired to find the boundary, just to find some stakes that looked as if they might be at the boundary corners if no other surveyors find evidence to the contrary or
b) doing the small additional work necessary to find the truth of the matter.
As far as professional liability issues go, being on notice that there is some reason to think that the 1982 surveyor's work may not be entirely reliable obligates a careful surveyor to make a somewhat more careful and wider investigation, or to be left in a poor position to defend the standard of care of his own work.
Beyond inquiry notice!
The lath provides what is known as inquiry notice. Certainly the 2" iron pipe controls the 1982 subdivisions and the line between lots 4/5. Does it control the senior line? The surveyor expresses his opinion that it consistutes the best evidence of where the senior line is.... Tract line surveys do present intersting issues.
Beyond inquiry notice!
> The lath provides what is known as inquiry notice.
Yes, absolutely.
Beyond inquiry notice!
>The lath provides what is known as inquiry notice
Totally disagree, The lath represents ignorance.
Notice of difference of opinion
>Well, the surveyor's lath clearly expressed a significant difference of opinion as to the location of the common boundary.
What a load of horsesh it
I agree with Peter.
I took the argument in the other threads to be about 'disturbed' monuments'. Again
To just flip on what the Cow is saying then every disturbed monument, uncalled monument and possibly fence post are the corners.
It works both ways.
Everything and anything in the ground is not 'holy'
Isn't that the reason that they you are hired. Any juvenile can flag the corners.
I read that Cow's postulation is the lazy man's guide and way to surveying and that is how a lot of problems occur.
It is not only the big firms but also it seems that the small firms prescribe to this method.
Nobody has been talking about disregarding original undisturbed corners.
It may be disturbed, but, still be the corner. It depends on how minor of a displacement one uses to declare the monument disturbed. Many iron bars have been bent in the top few inches. Are they automatically labeled disturbed? If they do not fit within one one-hundredth of a foot of the expected location, are they disturbed? They are disturbed if it can be proven someone or some thing moved them from their original location.
> Many iron bars have been bent in the top few inches. Are they automatically labeled disturbed? If they do not fit within one one-hundredth of a foot of the expected location, are they disturbed? They are disturbed if it can be proven someone or some thing moved them from their original location.
I have never driven a "bent" rebar or pipe. A bent mall?
What kind of tool or gadget do you use to put these in the ground?
I gotta go. Lots to do.
Have fun.....
> It may be disturbed, but, still be the corner. It depends on how minor of a displacement one uses to declare the monument disturbed. Many iron bars have been bent in the top few inches. Are they automatically labeled disturbed? If they do not fit within one one-hundredth of a foot of the expected location, are they disturbed? They are disturbed if it can be proven someone or some thing moved them from their original location.
I am not sure I agree with the general language of your statements, although you and I would probably usually be agreeing with the same corners most of the time.
I contend that the "original location" of the original monuments holds for a surveyor. (Ripening "ownership" or boundary line agreements aside). The consideration is "proving it". I would be hard-pressed to not accept a monument that is within 0.3' of my mathematical position. Not because I don't suspect that it has moved, but because I most likely don't have enough evidence beyond my math to prove the movement. On the other hand, if a sureyor set a corner and good offsets in Metropolis, USA, and a multibillion-dollar building with zero-setback gets set from it. And I come along and find my math matching the building better than the monument that I am certain has moved by 0.3', I will more likely accept the building as being a better monument to the original location of the corner than the disturbed pin.
I believe the original location controls. It is a mere matter of evaluating the evidence of where that once was. The existing original monument in its current position may, in fact, be the best available evidence.
Beyond inquiry notice!
> > The lath provides what is known as inquiry notice.
>
> Yes, absolutely.
Hogwash
Beyond inquiry notice!
> >The lath provides what is known as inquiry notice
>
Totally disagree, The lath represents ignorance.