Dan Patterson, post: 391688, member: 1179 wrote: I usually do what you have described, but what if you're talking about a filed map subdivision where all the lots are 50x100 (or at least the contiguous lots that affect your survey). Are you going to find pins that are 100.15' apart and say that the property line is now 100.15 and the one behind you in that block is 99.85? I doubt it. It's contradictory to the intent of the map.
The intent of the map is shown by the markers on the ground. If I feel those markers are original, I most certainly show the distance I shot between them. If I think those monuments are the result of a resurvey, the answer to what I do is "it depends".
There still exist a following of the concept that the written bearings and distances rule over monuments.
Everything around here is metes and bounds.
Several title company managers and a few lawyers would throw back any new description that did not match the original deed.
They were the ones that would always piece together ancient and modern surveys and make a new description verbatim with a call from one or more deeds to create a new document for the land in the middle.
I have yet to meet the licensed surveyor that will actually make that call and show offsets from calculated location to a found monument.
Quite frequently I see that in drawings and notes from engineers and their techies.
I have met those that do not accept old original monuments because they were not described in detail.
There is always the new surveyor to the area that has no knowledge of the history of what surveyor set what thru the years and called all monuments they set or found an iron pin be it a 30d nail up to a 6in pipe or some part from a vehicle or farm implement.
The rules of common knowledge are hard to teach and conform to uninterested parties.
The only certainty was that the surveyor set a piece of iron.
They did differentiate whether it was a pine knot or bois' de arc post or rock pile or tree.
There were some that were content to welcome chaining that was within 1ft in 500ft while others were very talented.
It was also very common for the crew members to migrate from one surveyor to another for better pay or working and living conditions.
I've known more than one surveyor that never used a plumb bob.
At the instrument they would drop a marble or ball bearing or rock and just get close to the scratch or rock or stick placed for a turning point.
Several would only run on line or as close as they could get to a fence or other boundary barrier.
I can remember after closing large tracts of land at 1 in 15,000 and going back and running division lines using a transit and shooting stadia and tying into carefully measured monuments on the other end of line, which was close enough to compute an offset and mark a straight line.
When the pocket rod came out, we did not need a level rod to shoot stadia.
When I began working in this area in 1974, line trees were never cut unless someone was deliberately destroying evidence.
With today's modern cutting techniques, by the end of a 30 or 50 year cutting plan, all trees including line and witness trees are cut.
So when we find most any type of monument with some flag or paint and especially the only iron in the neighbor hood, when determined the object was set in place and was not some cast off junk then it is identified as the corner location and we report the actual observed bearings and distances.
:8ball:
Let me give an example. You are surveying several lots that are in a straight line in the front and the back. Lets say you find several corners up and down the line and they make a straight line except one that is off line some distance. Say this corner is off the property you are working on. I'm not going to go set a new corner in this case on someone elses boundary that I'm not working for. Hence the virtual pincushion.
Which holds, the "record" bearing and distance, or the monument that was set to represent the intentions of the landowners? What actually holds in the current location of the PROPERTY CORNER. (Yes, corners/lines properly established under the establishment doctrines can "over-rule" an original undisturbed monument).
If these simple legal concepts aren't understood by every professional land surveyor, our profession is in serious trouble.
Yes, I've seen too many examples of the "actual pincushions" and the "virtual pincushions" - both are an abomination to our profession and an admission to the general public that some surveyors really do not know what they are doing.
Yes, preserving evidence by showing ties from the PROPERTY CORNER to other corners or objects is acceptable, but, by creating "pincushions" and showing ones ignorance of basic surveying and boundary law concepts is unacceptable. Either find the PROPERTY CORNER, identify it, and preserve the evidence of its establishment and location, or get the heck out of the way so real surveyors can properly represent our profession.
Dan Patterson, post: 391688, member: 1179 wrote: I usually do what you have described, but what if you're talking about a filed map subdivision where all the lots are 50x100 (or at least the contiguous lots that affect your survey). Are you going to find pins that are 100.15' apart and say that the property line is now 100.15 and the one behind you in that block is 99.85? I doubt it. It's contradictory to the intent of the map.
Are you going to set a new one 0.15' away? What if it's 0.08' or 0.33'? In those situations I've shown the corners that are on the calculated position and then show ties to the ones that are slightly off. It's different on a large acreage survey with called for monuments being found. In those cases your two options are absolutely the way to go.
This sounds a lot like my area. Every surveyor (and every survey I have ever seen) shows the record numbers (unless there is a mathematical closure error)
I do the same (unless I find called for monuments then I show the measured distances) however if I find a pipe or a pin and it's 0.3 and 0.1 off, I just flag it up and show the pipe at the corner on my plat. I don't pincushion it unless its substantially off and I have good reason for believing it's not in the correct retraced position.
Nobody monuments around here. Nothing is recorded. So it's not mess and any pipe found is USUALLY not original and any pin found is definitely not original.
Tommy Young, post: 391699, member: 703 wrote: The intent of the map is shown by the markers on the ground. If I feel those markers are original, I most certainly show the distance I shot between them. If I think those monuments are the result of a resurvey, the answer to what I do is "it depends".
I think most people are talking about the 'it depends' situation.
I don't think anyone would disregard original monuments. It's a tougher situation when two 100 year old 50 foot lots have a fresh pin between them and your old records check very good but the pin is sitting 0.38 to the side. To accept it would be allowing non original monuments to be controlling. To disregard it is to do the "professional opinions" route and pin cushion. If it is original then it overrides all since it is the truest form of "old record."
The first time I ran into this practice I inherited a proposed subdivision with the boundary surveyed by PLS I knew and respected. The boundary was drawn and annotated with the bearings and distances from the deed but most of the boundary points had a notation such as "found #5 rebar N45*E, 0.79'". So I called the guy to ask if he accepted or did not accept the found rebar. He never really said but he did say that "pin cushioning" was looked on with disfavor by many surveyors and he was attempting to not do that. So, if I, a licenced Professional Land Surveyor, with many faults and shortcomings I am sure, don't know where he intended to determine the location of the corner how will a layman be able to?
When we as Professional Surveyors are hired to survey a boundary the most value to the client is the physical evidence we leave to mark the lines. If the found monument is not acceptable for some reason then that should be noted and a physical monument set to represent the corner. At the current stage of my career I am prone to accepting monuments as I find them unless I can determine a real valid reason not to. And being hundreths out of position is very rarely a good reason in my opinion.
I appreciate all of the feedback on this topic.
Rich., post: 391732, member: 10450 wrote: I think most people are talking about the 'it depends' situation.
I don't think anyone would disregard original monuments. It's a tougher situation when two 100 year old 50 foot lots have a fresh pin between them and your old records check very good but the pin is sitting 0.38 to the side. To accept it would be allowing non original monuments to be controlling. To disregard it is to do the "professional opinions" route and pin cushion. If it is original then it overrides all since it is the truest form of "old record."
I don't disagree that there are valid reasons to reject a monument. However, if you are going to do so, SET YOUR OWN FRIGGING MONUMENT.
I have one you can reject, if you can find it. It was tossed as far as the rod man could throw it in the general direction of the true corner which was under about 15 feet of pond water at the time. I'm fairly certain it did not descend in a perfectly vertical orientation and stab itself into the silt such that it has stayed vertical for the past 18 years or so. Even if it did, it probably missed the true corner by 0.03' N43E.
I'll add the following twist to this discussion.
An adjoining recorded plat from the 1990's shows CIRS at all corners. Deeds refer to the plat. You recover 5 CIR from the original surveyor. Four fit within a tenth of the plat, unfortunately the 5th one along your line is out by 1.5'. Title is not common between your survey and adjoining plat.
Putting aside for now the question of that pin putting a bend in a senior line, do you hold it or not. I say no for the following reason.
Since the use of total stations became wide spread (1980's) I would say that the corners are controlled by the plat. By that I mean, the corners were created in the office and a crew was sent back out to set them. So when you find enough corners that reflect the plat and check within allowable error (in this case a tenth or so) they would hold.
The odd ball one a foot and half out reflects a blunder on the crew and should not hold.
If improvements were made to it, show the relationship between record and occupation.
Now to the remaining question, do you set a new rod? In the above scenario and with no improvements erected to cloud the issue I would set a CIR 1.5' away. If the possibility existed that the improvements may have ripened into title I would probably paper pincushion it.
Respectfully,
Jim
BajaOR, post: 391659, member: 9139 wrote: Context is everything. As nmrm says, what does the map say about it? Should the monument be deemed an original (& controlling) monument? What are your positional uncertainties? Is the boundary of large rural acreage, or of million dollar city lots? Is the offending IP in a location where it might have been disturbed? Is the IP (say) 25 feet from a stable, well protected controlling monument (meaning there is little reason for it's location to not match the calc'd location)?
For example, you'd think that when a DOT monuments 4 miles of their rural, forested right of way, one might be inclined to accept their 15 year old monuments (even though no map was filed then with the county) when you see calc vs found residuals like these (never mind how the calc'd location was derived). Think again. Behold a portion of 4 miles of virtual pin cushion mastery:
:
That is a ridiculous plat.
James Vianna, post: 391759, member: 120 wrote: I'll add the following twist to this discussion.
An adjoining recorded plat from the 1990's shows CIRS at all corners. Deeds refer to the plat. You recover 5 CIR from the original surveyor. Four fit within a tenth of the plat, unfortunately the 5th one along your line is out by 1.5'. Title is not common between your survey and adjoining plat.
Putting aside for now the question of that pin putting a bend in a senior line, do you hold it or not. I say no for the following reason.
Since the use of total stations became wide spread (1980's) I would say that the corners are controlled by the plat. By that I mean, the corners were created in the office and a crew was sent back out to set them. So when you find enough corners that reflect the plat and check within allowable error (in this case a tenth or so) they would hold.
The odd ball one a foot and half out reflects a blunder on the crew and should not hold.
If improvements were made to it, show the relationship between record and occupation.Now to the remaining question, do you set a new rod? In the above scenario and with no improvements erected to cloud the issue I would set a CIR 1.5' away. If the possibility existed that the improvements may have ripened into title I would probably paper pincushion it.
Respectfully,
Jim
In that situation the pin may have been disturbed as well so there's plenty of reason to not accept it.
There's a lot to consider. Frost affects most things, and in an inconsistent manner. So the monuments you see now, are not in the exact location that they were set or intended.
Measurement has error. The same crew can go out the next day to shoot the same monuments and come up with results that yield a different inverse/calculated distance between the two pipes. So, unless you're able to pull tape or occupy every monument and run the lines from monument to monument, most of the distances between are calculated, and depending on your traverse closure error, that distance will vary from the actual, and will probably vary from the last and the next surveyors.
I work mostly on larger rural properties, so I'm not overly concerned with matching the record, since the record is usually even foot, more or less, or rods and links. But I may have some dilemmas if I were working tight-fitting lots, with small minimum frontages, and they all varied by a tenth or less of record.
James Vianna, post: 391759, member: 120 wrote: I'll add the following twist to this discussion.
Putting aside for now the question of that pin putting a bend in a senior line, do you hold it or not. I say no for the following reason.
Since the use of total stations became wide spread (1980's) I would say that the corners are controlled by the plat. By that I mean, the corners were created in the office and a crew was sent back out to set them. So when you find enough corners that reflect the plat and check within allowable error (in this case a tenth or so) they would hold.
The odd ball one a foot and half out reflects a blunder on the crew and should not hold.
If improvements were made to it, show the relationship between record and occupation.Now to the remaining question, do you set a new rod? In the above scenario and with no improvements erected to cloud the issue I would set a CIR 1.5' away. If the possibility existed that the improvements may have ripened into title I would probably paper pincushion it.
I've read hundreds of court cases from across the country and have yet to find one that would agree with your reasoning to reject the original monument.
Obviously you are performing a retracement of an existing boundary, it is not our duty to reject established boundaries in favor of where they should have been placed - it isn't our land.
Once again, the "record" isn't the manifestation of controlling intent. What was done on the ground, and accepted by the parties is usually controlling.
Now, if you have strong evidence (other than measurements not meeting an arbitrary level of precision) that the monument was moved, fraud, etc., then you present the problem to the landowners and help them resolve the situation. Creating a problem and forcing a resolution on unsuspecting landowners isn't what we should be doing out there.
Where did this erroneous notion that the "corners are controlled by the plat" come from?
Another problem I've seen is someone down the road using the "iron pipe found" (0.51 south and 0.32 east) as the true corner. The guy I'm writing of missed the note on the plat of survey and used the pipe to stake the building. Now the building is too close to the setback. Nice mess that created.
Tommy Young, post: 391738, member: 703 wrote: I don't disagree that there are valid reasons to reject a monument. However, if you are going to do so, SET YOUR OWN FRIGGING MONUMENT.
Do you remove the one you consider erroneous?
Dan Patterson, post: 391861, member: 1179 wrote: Do you remove the one you consider erroneous?
No.
The virtual pincushion corner has been discussed before with various twists and turns. There may be various state rules/laws that create the discrepancies here.
The way it is in my world. You must set a monument when you do a boundary survey. If you cannot accept an existing monument in the field for whatever reason, you must set and show relationship to other monuments.
But, I have seen the virtual (graphical) pincushion on plats here by one particular surveyor. One on a high value commercial lot with new building. Why? Basically to kowtow to the title attorneys who insist that the description must be preserved for avoidance of possible conflict and to exert their power over surveyors.
So....Option one: maybe one is forced to create the pincushion. So be it.
Option two: accept monuments found
Then Option three which isn't an option but a violation.
The graphical pincushion.
Why? Follow this scenario.
You have set the graphical
Pincushion and the client requests to meet at the lot
to witness his boundary lines.
At the first corner you have placed a stake near a 1/2 rebar with old flagging.
Client:
Is that my property corner?
Surveyor: No it isn't. Your corner is 1' NNE of that bar as depicted on the plat.
Client: Then whose property corner is that, my neighbor?
Surveyor: No. That rebar was placed in error by another surveyor in the past.
Client: (scratches head)
Both proceed to next corner where there is a new stake near an old pipe with tattered flagging.
Client: is that pipe the property corner?
Surveyor: No. Your corner is 1/2or so'south of that pipe as depicted on the play.
Client: Where did the pipe come from?
Surveyor: Another old surveyor in the past who was in error. You don't need to know.
Client pauses and then asks ...
I want to build a ornamental iron fence with concrete footing...what should I do?
Surveyor: your fence contractor needs to get a engineers rule and measure off the erroneous monuments to begin construction.
Client: WTF
So you show the corner NE 0.5 feet from the iron pin, the neighbor beside me survey says SE 0.2. One of the adjoining properties behind me one says SW 0.2 and the other says NW 0.4'. So where in the hell is my corner and why did I bother hiring you??
I canÛªt believe any surveying board or any surveyor with years of experience would think it best represents the client or the future location of the corner or boundary to do a virtual pin cushion on the property they are surveying. It seems to me like surveyors that do this are self serving, what they are doing is unprofessional and it is a disservice to the public. How does a virtual pin cushion perpetuate a boundary, or help the next surveyor? I think our industry is truly in trouble if this is acceptable.
