Is the presumption that a recorded BLA is valid or invalid? Why does so many believe it must be litigated for it to be effective. Are so many recorded BLA's challenged and voided that we should just presume they are all defective?
Can someone cite some court cases where recorded BLA's were challenged, litigated and voided. You'd think with all the fear and concern placed on these things by various survey texts and writers that the courts must be inundated with them. I've never read one but I've never searched for one either. Is this the straw man argument or is this a common real thing?
Isn't that a bit like saying "why look for monuments, surveys are hardly ever challenged as a percentage of how many are done". That is the rational used by title insurance to eliminate surveys in favor of inspections.
A recorded agreement is presumed valid, but many have been voided. Search contract law and you will find thousands. Does there have to be a history of them voided that are exactly BLA's for us to worry about it? I would say not.
There are minimum standards for contracts just as there are for surveys and I don't think it's unjustified fear and concern to try to comply with them.
Do you really want legislators and the public saying "heck, they created all these problems cause they didn't know boundary law, now they're messing up the fix because they don't know contract law!" I really don't think we want to go there.
As you know, the problem is that many surveyors/title officers/GIS techs/assessors, etc., think there are two (or more) lines; the "record line", the "deed line", the "title line", the "calculated line", ad nauseum ..... and then there is the line as established via the legal boundary location doctrines (acquiescence, agreement, practical location, and/or estoppel). The argument goes, because (fictionally) there is more than one line, the landowners need to go thru paper-work, legal, and administrative gymnastics to "resolve" the issue. When IN FACT there is only ONE LINE - the legally established (thru common law principles) agreed upon line, which "becomes" the "record line", the "deed line", the "title line", the "calculated line", etc, via the actions, oral agreement, and/or writings of the landowners. The only problem is that surveyors should know there are not multiple lines.
Well, as has been pointed out repeatedly the whole thing is just to complicated for the legal system to be used to handle it. Seriously, with the mapping technology of GIS and the use of quitclaim deeds the whole land surveying thing is going to be thrown overboard by the legislature. The only thing that might hold it back would be the title insurance and legal profession who's ox would be gored also. What are you going to insure or litigate if the conflicts are resolved. Surveyors really are the shills for these folks. I think it's the major reason title registration hasn't happened in the US, it would wipe out the title insurance industry. They got all the money.
I agree with all that. I just don't know how to fight back the belief's. There becomes a certain truth in a falsehood if the majority believes it.
You are right Brian, and you see on this board the constant referral to the "true line" and of course that is meant to be the deed line or the protracted PLSS line.
And then they talk about "moving" that line and that is the crux of the argument.
That deed line and that protracted line are on the ground where they were located legally by someone and probably the landowners. They went by the plan of where these lines would be by exact mathematical procedures and located them the best they could and the neighbors were happy.
Then a deed staker comes along!
Keith
I don't believe and will refuse to believe that the majority of surveyors believe in all this bogus theory stuff!
I wasn't referring to just surveyors. Look at Brian's short list. This goes WAY beyond surveyor's and the resolution, if there is one, will need to to go way beyond surveyors. Surveyors are just a pimple on an elephant in this whole thing.
I'm just curious. Did the court adjudicate just one lot or the whole subdivision. Wouldn't it be a stretch to assume that because the court adjudicated one protracted corner in a sub plat that this affected every other lot. It's the same problem in the PLSS. If one corner is moved or changed then some believe the whole plan is changed and needs to be redone. Isn't this what establishment is meant to prevent, so that we can have stable boundaries?