Thanks for clearing up the confusion that a fence might have even the slightest possibility of being near a boundary in Texas. I thought maybe hell had froze over or something but it looks like things are just fine. Carry on!
BTW I've probed for post holes every once in a while for years now. It's not some newly discovered procedure.
> BTW I've probed for post holes every once in a while for years now. It's not some newly discovered procedure.
In Utah, wouldn't that be a complete waste of time? Don't you just flag up the fence posts that you can see are there? I mean, if you're looking for where a fence used to be instead of where the "established boundary fence" is now, you're probably nullifying the landowners rights to do ... stuff.
It seems to me that I've read that in Utah surveyors have to ask the landowners where their boundaries are. None of this elitist stuff that surveyors in other states are preoccupied with, you know, actually figuring out where boundaries were originally located as described in the writings upon which the adjoining owners' titles are based.
🙂
Actually it's a really sad state of affairs in Utah that landowners still have even the slightest influence on where their boundaries are. Maybe all their rights haven't been taken from their ownership and given to a bunch of guys looking through spy glasses and such. Actually at this point there is a big push back going on every year in the legislature, even against some of the P$Z stuff that may restore the rights and what you can do with your land. So the fact that you own the land might mean you are in control of where your boundaries are and can still create new ones inside your boundaries and negotiate solutions to uncertain ones with your neighbors.
Regardless of what many surveyors and even a lot of landowners have come to believe, the power to mess with boundaries as surveyors see fit hasn't been legislated to surveyors even though there is a great push to do that and from what I've read has almost been completed in Texas. But what do I know, you can practically read anything online.
One experience that stands out in my mind with regards to fences and boundaries was a survey I done a few years back. The landowner (15 years prior) had busted up a larger parcel into a bunch of smaller ones and the parcel I was working with actually had a survey which called for the existing (previously interior convenience fences) for the new boundaries of one of the new parcels. Parts of about half the fences where still in place but about half had been removed. So it wasn't all that hard to locate enough post holes to completely find the original boundary and when that was done it fit the math in the deed almost exactly. Well the POB tie had been messed up because the section corner had been wiped out by road construction and replaced a few feet away.
Well. some surveyors had been there and relocated the property from the new and improved section corner and absolutely wouldn't recognize the remains of the fence even though it was specially called for in the deed (it didn't fit the math). The POB call absolutely controlled in their minds along with a new basis of bearing and I was thoroughly chastised and put down for suggesting otherwise. So don't be alarmed, just as in Texas, Utah is becoming a never a fence on the boundary state in the proud tradition of Texas, we're just a couple of decades behind, by the time I'm finally gone there might not be any other surveyor in Utah, just as in Texas, that would be so low as to consider that a landowner ever built a fence close to a boundary or worse, created a new boundary using an existing interior convenience fence. I'm actually doing one of these these month. In twenty years I'm sure it will surely be rejected as one of the section corners will be tweaked, the POB tie will be messed up, and therefore the fence will no longer be along the boundary. Just like Texas I suppose!
Stafford v. King
> The POB call absolutely controlled in their minds along with a new basis of bearing and I was thoroughly chastised and put down for suggesting otherwise.
LOL! That only shows how backward Utah surveying is. That particular question about whether mistaken calls to the POB or the actual footsteps of the surveyor control has been settled in Texas since 1867. [Stafford v. King]. It would be interesting to know what Utah surveying will amount to 143 years from now, whether it will ever catch up with 2010 Texas practice.
Stafford v. King
There is lots of stuff in well settled law. I'm sure the bad POB tie problem has been addressed in Utah also. The great thing is you can pick, choose and ignore at will and resolve just about any boundary problem to fit your philosophy. Most of the time it won't go to court or if it does will be botched in the litigation and few cases are ever sent up and accepted for review by appellate courts. Like I already mentioned, you can read anything online in a free forum!
Anyway I just finished a big project and had a bit of time to waste (needed a small break), but my hole is waiting, better get back in there!
Carry on and good luck.
Your Hole is Waiting?
> Anyway I just finished a big project and had a bit of time to waste (needed a small break), but my hole is waiting, better get back in there!
Um ... okay.
Your Hole is Waiting?
Leon is correct.
I have a case where the Appellate Court said "use the original monuments dummies" or words to that effect. If you think the Appellate decision is the final decision in any given case, you may be wrong.
The Appellate Court reversed which means new trial which just set it back to the way the first trial (before the reversal) had it. The Plaintiff gave up at that point (must be scratching their head "but we won the Appeal???") and settled so the out-of-court settled boundary does not go from original monument to original monument.
Lawsuits
>If you think the Appellate decision is the final decision in any given case, you may be wrong.
Well, in the case of Stafford v. King (1867 Texas Supreme Court case) I cited, I would never suggest that some attorney practicing outside his or her area of expertise couldn't manage to lose a case while legitimately relying upon the well-settled princlples embodied in the decision of that case.
However, Stafford v. King is probably the landmark boundary case most cited by subsequent courts and I would invariably prefer to argue in favor of an issue being settled by the same principles as the court did in 1867. It is simply common sense to ask where boundaries were actually run and marked and, where those boundaries form a consistent, indisputable pattern that cannot be challenged on the basis of any equity, to hold that the footsteps should always control.
Leon was referring to the incompetence that is apparently common in Utah, if I understood him. I may have not understood what he was trying to say, of course. He isn't a model of clarity.