richard duh!
No surveyor has the RIGHT OR RESPONSIBLITY to attempt to render a valid contract between third parites null and void simply because the surveyor is ignorant of their duties as a surveyor or because of the surveyor's misapprehension of civil code.
Further the notion that a deed is simply survey instructions to be considered or not at the WHIM of the surveyor, is a dangerous over simplication. A deed, at least in California is a CONTRACT. A LEGAL CONTRACT IS PRESUMED TO BE BINDING ON THE PARTIES TO THE AGREEMENT. In Ca., rules that apply to interpretation of contracts apply to deeds. There is no mention in the code that a deed is simply survey instructions.
The disturbed monument isn't a monument
Well, don't you have to fudge the definition of what a monument is to conclude that some surveyor's mark that has been beaten up, pushed around, bent over, pulled up and replaced by fence builders is still a monument of any sort, let alone one that proves the location of a boundary corner described in a writing?
Well, I think Joe the surveyor got it right. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. More often than not, I would hold the monument as the location of the original corner unless the contrary could be shown. Certainly holding direction and distance would be a matter of last resort.
If the monument is not the corner
then why are there BOUNDS in metes and bounds descriptions?
Thence.....to a stone on top of the hill, thence....to a willow tree on the westerly bank of the river.
You go to the stone and the willow tree. You do not go 487.645635465478565 feet to a pin point speck on said stone or tree. You go to the monument because the monument is the corner. End of story.
As for modern surveys where iron bars of varying sizes have been used as monuments, you go Thence....to a 1/2" iron rebar two-feet in length with one inch exposed. That is the corner. It is NOT some perceived gnat's-butt length from where some idiot measurer determines it to be. The entire monument is the corner.
All of these attempts to declare measurements superior to the first monument set to designate a specific corner are asinine. If the first guy put it there and it does not violate some other basic rule (like you can't sell what you don't own), that monument IS THE CORNER OF THE TRACT SURVEYED BY THAT SURVEYOR AT THAT TIME. Granted, it may not be precisely where he thought he put it, but, that is irrelevant.....it is still the corner that he established.
The disturbed monument isn't a monument
> Well, don't you have to fudge the definition of what a monument is to conclude that some surveyor's mark that has been beaten up, pushed around, bent over, pulled up and replaced by fence builders is still a monument of any sort, let alone one that proves the location of a boundary corner described in a writing?
>
> Well, I think Joe the surveyor got it right. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't. More often than not, I would hold the monument as the location of the original corner unless the contrary could be shown.
Well, there are plenty of cases where course and distance from other undisturbed original monuments give a much better indication of the original position of the corner than some abused remains of the object that once marked it. An all too common example that was mentioned is the one where the guest workers from El Salvador who built the fence pulled the stake out, set the post and put the stake back "right where it had been" but wasn't.
Naturally, up in the Maine woods where nothing was very carefully measured until two years ago, the situation may be different.
The disturbed monument isn't a monument
Naturally, up in the Maine woods where nothing was very carefully measured until two years ago, the situation may be different.
I assumed that was the way it was everywhere? Granted it is all about judgment, but I would much rather explain to a court why I held the monument then why I didn't. Now if an eyewitness told me that some farm hand moved the monument and it indeed did not match my opinion of where the bearing and distance indicated it should be then I would reset it.
The disturbed monument isn't a monument
This is my point exactly.... you NEED EVIDENCE..... whether you accept OR REJECT the monument is based upon EVIDENCE......
The disturbed monument isn't a monument
> Naturally, up in the Maine woods where nothing was very carefully measured until two years ago, the situation may be different.
>
> I assumed that was the way it was everywhere?
Well, in Central Texas there were surveyors in practice more than 100 years ago who could actually run straight lines with a transit and were able to chain well. Add to that the fact that some of the actual field records of some of their work survives and all of a sudden it becomes quite possible to say that a monument had most likely been moved out of position.
It does depend upon which surveyor had done the work to begin with and the methods he (it was a "he" back then) employed. Even one of the very best surveyors in practice was still running some ranch surveys by the needle of the transit compass as recently as the late 1950's or early 60's. He was careful to telegraph the fact to posterity that the survey wasn't a transit survey by the rounding conventions he used on bearings: only to the nearest five minutes, but the chaining was still reasonably good, usually.
The disturbed monument isn't a monument
"It does depend upon which surveyor had done the work..."
Well then - I suggest
that there should be some type of requirement that prevents some Jackwagon surveyor from setting a 2" pipe 3-1/2" off- like being licensed.
Or
that there should be some type of requirement that prevents some Jackwagon surveyor from saying a 2" pipe 3-1/2" off- like being licensed.
The disturbed monument isn't a monument
> "It does depend upon which surveyor had done the work..."
>
> Well then - I suggest
>
> that there should be some type of requirement that prevents some Jackwagon surveyor from setting a 2" pipe 3-1/2" off- like being licensed.
>
> Or
>
> that there should be some type of requirement that prevents some Jackwagon surveyor from saying a 2" pipe 3-1/2" off- like being licensed.
Well, in the second case, your argument is with over 100 years of settled law if you think that a surveyor's mistake in failing to set a marker on an existing boundary line automatically moves the boundary line from its original position.
In the first case, there already are rules of practice in some jurisdiction that make mistakes like that subject to disciplinary action.
Frankly, I think the greater danger is from the second case, the surveyors who are confused about how to resurvey land boundaries.
McMillimeter
Wow - Things haven't changed any
Have they?
-
Fifty years ago, the fundamentals were better
> Wow - Things haven't changed any
>
> Have they?
Actually, I think that there are more surveyors who are confused about the fundamentals of surveying than probably was the case fifty years ago. Part of it is the result of technology. Fifty years ago, it was common to run surveys on true line or parallel offset. If you were running a line parallel with and 30.00 ft. distant from some other monumented line, you more than likely went through the exercise of actually setting points on the baseline, turning 90° angles and setting points at 30.00 ft. from that baseline, and then running the line from them.
The point is that the elements of boundary construction were concrete field operations that were well understood. It was only later that a whole generation of surveyors appeared for whom the actual elementary field operations are evidently magical and arbitrary.
McMillimeter
No no no
I'm talking about your McMillimeter status/das Es ways back in the Ole rpls days
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Ah, ESL
> No no no
>
> I'm talking about your McMillimeter status/das Es ways back in the Ole rpls days
Okay, I didn't realize that English was a second language for you, sorry. Do you have a friend or perhaps an advocate who can help you post?
McMillimeter
6th..with a grain of salt my friend, just a grain of salt 😉
If the monument is not the corner
> All of these attempts to declare measurements superior to the first monument set to designate a specific corner are asinine. If the first guy put it there and it does not violate some other basic rule (like you can't sell what you don't own), that monument IS THE CORNER OF THE TRACT SURVEYED BY THAT SURVEYOR AT THAT TIME. Granted, it may not be precisely where he thought he put it, but, that is irrelevant.....it is still the corner that he established.
The caveat of "does not violate some other basic rule (like you can't sell what you don't own" is actually the crux of all of these discussions. If an object set as a 'monument' and reported as the 'corner' was set beyond a title line, then it very clearly violates the "if" part of the test of being a corner.
Real world example which I recently worked on:
64 acre tract adjoining Corp of Engineers property
2008 surveyor A cuts off 11 acres per his survey.
2010 I am asked to cut an additional 3 acres from the 64 to add to the 11 - west line of 3 acres runs with east line of 11 acres.
If every 'monument' is a corner, all I should need to do is tie the markers set by 2008 surveyor.
Unfortunately he set the south end of the line beyond the senior C.O.E. line. I know this because I found the real 'monuments' marking the actual 'corners'. They were not mathematically perfect, but they were called for and senior in title.
Had I accepted the 'monuments' set by the 2008 surveyor because he was first to survey and establish the east line of the "11" acres, I would have had a corner that was in error by over 120 feet and created an overlap (which is what happened with 3+ acres of the 11 acre 'survey').
It boils down to how far over the senior line are you willing to shrug off and say - oh well, there is an object that someone has called a corner at some point, so that is clearly the monument marking the corner.
Ah, ESL
Funny! LOL!
Not Exactly, Jon
IT IS THE CORNER OF WHAT HE SURVEYED.
Step one is to prove how much land was incorrectly identified and describe it. Help the landowner of the remainder develop a corrected description of what he actually owns. Suggest he file a QCD for the erroneous portion of his description. Then provide a correct description for the adjoining 3-acre tract you were hired to construct. The only thing you can control is the repair of the ownership problem.
But, the monument the land surveyor set is still the corner of his survey.
Yes, Exactly Mr. Cow.
Corner in Kentucky regulations is:
"(4) 'Corner' means a point that designates a change in the direction of the boundary."
In Brown's we find a similar definition:
"The point of change of direction of a land boundary." With clarification that it may or may not be marked by a monument.
In order for the piece of iron the other surveyor stuck in the ground to be a corner, it would need to designate a change in direction in the boundary line. As it was not even within a hundred feet of any boundary line, let alone the boundary line it was supposed to be marking, it is not a corner.
It is a monument, but not a corner. The only value it has is to delineate an extension of the line that was created by his 2008 survey. The corner being at the intersection of his erroneously monumented line with the actual senior boundary line.
Yes, Exactly Mr. Cow.
Very interesting.