Ok, how's their pedigree? Hows the pedigree of the 1/4 cor shown?
This reminds me of a subdivision that was originally an aliquot part of a section surrounded by forest service land. Years later the forest service decides to monument their boundaries and overlaps about 50 feet into the West boundary of the subdivision. Each land owner was required to acquire that portion from the forest service. I guess the federal government never heard of using established evidence for boundaries.
MightyMoe, post: 409878, member: 700 wrote: The section has monuments at all eight corners
Are they GLO/BLM corners? You could have a good case of bona fide rights, or if the town monuments are older than the section monuments you may have better evidence of where the section line original was.
You may have to show the boundary line and a seperate section line. Two adjoining land owners can establish a boundary between themselves in multiple ways, but it may not apply to other owners along the section line.
Nate The Surveyor, post: 409891, member: 291 wrote: Ok, how's their pedigree? Hows the pedigree of the 1/4 cor shown?
Good pedigree, the three on the east line are not recovered original corners, but they are long held positions, none are prorates.
I see three possibilities:
1) The general rule is the section line is presumed to be straight between corners. Assuming the Town corner pipe doesn't establish a point on the Section line then a triangle of the Town overlaps into the adjoining Section. In this case the Town lot owners boundary is the Section line and the Town corner pipe is only controlling for establishing the Town's lot corners. The Town does not move east 16'; the most westerly lot owner loses the triangle.
-OR-
2) This case is a an exception to the general rule because the Town corner pipe establishes a point on the Section line by either Mutual Recognition & Acquiescence or Agreed Boundaries (they are one and the same in some States). This type of case is a very good fit for the Acquiescence type doctrines because Surveyors generally mark boundaries at the request of the land owners which imparts some authority on the pipe, there is a fence which runs straight along the Town boundary which is more than just a convenience fence so this indicates possession and control by the Town Lot owner. In some States acquiescence has been relegated to use by Lawyers as a Hail Mary type effort to persuade a court to declare a convenience fence is a boundary with nothing else to recommend the fence other than its own existence. If this possibility is true then the boundary runs from monument to monument to monument, etc., in other words, the monuments are angle points. The boundary does not jog around the south side of Town. Since Title rights are not affected, only location, this is within the Land Surveying profession.
-OR-
3) The Town overlaps into the adjoining section but the title to the triangle in Smith has been extinguished by Adverse Possession. In this case the Town lot owner(s) would have a possessory title in the triangle which could be perfected in a Court proceeding. If this case is true then the boundary jogs around the Town, the section line still runs through the Town and the west boundary of the Town becomes a new boundary. I think this possibility is outside the Land Surveying profession. This gets into Title which involves the owner's competing rights therefore this belongs in the Legal Profession.
I assume MightyMoe is an expert in his state on things like the quality of the monuments and the specifics of Land Surveying and Legal practice so I'm not here to take a side, per se.
I've had a few similar projects. They all came down to the research.
The most interesting was a pipe about 12 feet 'into the next section'. The pipe was in the base of a tree. The tree was an original line tree and therefore a controlling intermediate monument. Would they were all so simple...
aliquot, post: 409896, member: 2486 wrote: Are they GLO/BLM corners? You could have a good case of bona fide rights, or if the town monuments are older than the section monuments you may have better evidence of where the section line original was.
You may have to show the boundary line and a seperate section line. Two adjoining land owners can establish a boundary between themselves in multiple ways, but it may not apply to other owners along the section line.
They are not original corners, one is a monument in a paved highway and was reset from highway ties to the stone in the early 1900's for that highway and shows on a highway map, one is in a deep cut for a different highway, probably 50-75' lower than original ground and then there is the town corner set in 1917. All these have nice monuments on them, not that that means much 😎
Our supreme court seems to prefer designating controlling monuments as "known" monuments and diminishing the importance of original vs. not original. It says that a monument "known" to represent the original line location control over courses and distances shown in the original survey provided such stakes have been recognized. I suppose you might call this a corner of common report but introducing ghost triangles or other unwritten rights theories to describe this situation could result in clouding title needlessly imo. Keep it simple.
linebender, post: 410070, member: 449 wrote: Our supreme court seems to prefer designating controlling monuments as "known" monuments and diminishing the importance of original vs. not original. It says that a monument "known" to represent the original line location control over courses and distances shown in the original survey provided such stakes have been recognized. I suppose you might call this a corner of common report but introducing ghost triangles or other unwritten rights theories to describe this situation could result in clouding title needlessly imo. Keep it simple.
The trend in California is towards more reliance on the expert opinions of Surveyors. They are treating boundary location as almost a pure question of fact. A recent published case highly approved of the surveyor establishing a line using all of the surveys, recent to ancient, to establish a rancho line. In decades past the court would've relied more on the agreed boundary doctrine to be able to accept non-original monuments but now they are viewing it more on the fact side of the equation and they seem to be very liberal on what is admissible. This is why it is imperative that land Surveyors know the law and apply it. The rules quoted in E&P as absolutes are really rebuttable presumptions and they seem to be getting more rebuttable. This does not mean, however, that anarchy rules, no in some cases the monument isn't a monument but we need to figure that out.
The BLM offices appear to be leaning toward 'connections to original Corners'. That's a fairly reasonable standard in the young Northwest States with PLSS relatively intact..
thebionicman, post: 410134, member: 8136 wrote: The BLM offices appear to be leaning toward 'connections to original Corners'. That's a fairly reasonable standard in the young Northwest States with PLSS relatively intact..
In a nutshell and probably an oversimplification, if surveys, ancient to recent, established the line then it is probably acceptable and the appellate court almost certainly won't disturb such a judgment on appeal. On the other hand, if the property owners simply built a fence with no Survey and tenuous connection, if any, to the land net then the court wants credible evidence of mutual uncertainty and mutual agreement which evidence can be almost impossible to get after several decades. Those cases that succeed usually have testimony of a mutual agreement from one of the property owners involved so that constrains the doctrine to the prior few decades at best in subjective cases.
1917; when men were men and surveyors set real monuments, not some of the lame things we set today 😮
Just gotta ask, is it the fence post or the pipe that you are referring to as a "real" monument? 🙂
Gene Kooper, post: 410156, member: 9850 wrote: Just gotta ask, is it the fence post or the pipe that you are referring to as a "real" monument? 🙂
Those old fencers knew better than to take out the monument 😉
Researching case law by state...Texas has over 3000 headnotes just under boundaries. I don't know how many cases but probably over 2000. California is big too, but not that big...over 1300 headnotes, about 1000 cases. Eastern states tend to have a lot t due to age. Wyoming has 22 cases total (probably a lot more under Deeds).
Not getting into the real details here but just some comment.
If you have the original section monuments then you have the section lines. That should never change. They do change as we all know when things disappear (get lost so to speak). But it is fundamental that original survey lines don't move (shouldn't).
But what can move is the established position of a boundary line between adjoining landowners. This is determined by state law and varies somewhat state to state. If landowners establish their boundary at other than than the original survey line it doesn't move the original line, it just places the boundary line at a position different from the original line. The title or ownership evolves (moves) with the establishment of the boundary. The title descriptions should remain static absent agreements recorded by landowners but anyone familiar with land records know that title documents many times change and move around even more than the landowner established boundaries.. It would take a book(s) to understand boundary law from here. That's where surveyors should be in the picture.
Original survey lines, established boundary lines, title records, only in Utopia are all these in perfect alignment and harmony. Yet most of the time there is peace over the underlying chaos described heretofore.
LRDay, post: 410262, member: 571 wrote: Not getting into the real details here but just some comment.
If you have the original section monuments then you have the section lines. That should never change. They do change as we all know when things disappear (get lost so to speak). But it is fundamental that original survey lines don't move (shouldn't).
But what can move is the established position of a boundary line between adjoining landowners. This is determined by state law and varies somewhat state to state. If landowners establish their boundary at other than than the original survey line it doesn't move the original line, it just places the boundary line at a position different from the original line. The title or ownership evolves (moves) with the establishment of the boundary. The title descriptions should remain static absent agreements recorded by landowners but anyone familiar with land records know that title documents many times change and move around even more than the landowner established boundaries.. It would take a book(s) to understand boundary law from here. That's where surveyors should be in the picture.
Original survey lines, established boundary lines, title records, only in Utopia are all these in perfect alignment and harmony. Yet most of the time there is peace over the underlying chaos described heretofore.
In cases where a controlling intermediate monument is recovered off line it becomes an angle point. Actually it always was. There are also numerous cases of good faith location creating an angle point.
The boundaries and subdivision of section lines should not be treated as separate without great cause. Where they do I show both and describe why in detail.
It's interesting, both the E1/4 and the town corner are both 4" pipe 1917. Sure would be nice to have any kind of documentation/notes about how he did what he did, whether there was any justification for his method and whether the pipe today is in the position where it was set.
