Thanks to all!
In the relatively short amount of time since I first “discovered” this forum, I have developed profound respect for the collective wisdom available here. Also, the willingness of members to offer assistance to anyone who seeks it, is remarkable. I thank all of you who have responded, and as to LRDay, Brian, Carl, and Stephen, you just cemented my resolve to do what I had intended to do all along...defend my survey! Oftentimes in this profession we have chosen to be a part of, we are isolated when required to make decisions that have tremendous potential to jeopardize our personal fortunes. By bringing this topic to the forum I also hope others, who may now or some other day find themselves in similar territory, become aware of the fact they are not obligated to simply back down whenever their path might cross the intimidating “king” of proven corners.
Sounds like you need a really good boundary-law attorney to explain things to your client and to the surveyor in question. A letter citing some of the case law might quiet things down and keep your client from bringing the matter into court.
Walter Robillard isn't far from you. According to his website http://www.worldboundaries.com/ he is an attorney in Georgia but not in Florida. But perhaps he could recommend a Florida attorney who could represent you.
Thanks to all!
Your bottomline problem is with the client who is insisting on you making changes on his behalf. Explaining reality to someone who wants something for nothing is quite challenging. He needs to understand that he owns what you showed him as his boundaries, not necessarily what someone else is trying to tell him now. Achieving that goal is inexplicitly difficult with certain personality types. You may simply have to make him upset and let it go at that. I find it very unlikely that your state board would disagree with you. For example, what if one of the existing surveys is for an Interstate Highway. Do they need to move everything simply because an undiscovered original corner has now been found?
My take is: IF you find a REAL PROVEN corner, well, then you REFERENCE it, DOCUMENT it. And, then reference the USE corner as well. And, in some cases, you USE the BONA FIDE one, FOR THAT LOCAL POSITION ONLY. Or the lines going to it.
Otherwise, you just write your legal desc FROM the REAL to the USE, and go on business as usual. The point being that Sometimes, and many times, the USE corner has more utility, than the genuine original. But, you have to at least acknowledge it, as in use it as as a reference, and a bit of history.
Whatever you do, you DON'T mess up the entire neighborhood. You revise the paperwork, just a bit, and KEEP THE LINES THE SAME.
My 2 cents.
Nate
> I would welcome, and very much appreciate, hearing from others regarding this matter. What would you do if faced with a similar problem? In my situation, the other surveyor has already taken it upon himself to set his “correct” monuments. Now, I can either dig in and tell my client that I will not comply, and anxiously await the legal process to get started. Or, I can go ahead and make a new survey of his property, in which case litigation involving his other neighbor is likely to occur.
>
> What would you do?
>
There is an all-to-common disconnect between our duty as "retracement" surveyors and our duty as an "original" surveyor. When surveying any boundary, the first question to resolve is whether or not the boundary sought has been previously established. If so, then we must gather the evidence necessary to retrace the footsteps of those who established the boundary. We are too easily confused when confronted by the discovery of evidence which "should have been" relied upon to properly establish the boundary but, for whatever reason, was not.
The discovery doesn't change our primary duty to retrace the boundary as established on the ground. If the parties who established the boundary didn't find the now discovered monument, then you must repeat the same mistake in order to end up in the same position of the boundary as established, no matter what the source of the error was. We cannot, and the law does not, require that the owners all correct their boundaries in accordance with newly discovered evidence which was never relied upon to establish their boundaries.
With that said... What would I do? I'm a long-held proponent of the biblical approach to dispute resolution between "brothers."
Step 1: Go to your brother and discuss the offense. It's your professional duty to discuss the matter. Granted, the second surveyor should have taken this step immediately upon discovery of the new evidence. He should have given you the professional courtesy of sharing the finding and discussing its impact with you before he made any final decision and set his "correct" monuments.
Step 2: If you fail to get resolution one-on-one, then bring the matter before your peers. Each of you should select one and let those to select a third to help the two of you resolve your impasse. Each surveyor should share their findings with the others in a joint meeting (separate meetings are ok if there is too much animosity). The matter should be openly discussed and suggestions offered for resolution. Of course, none of the suggestions are binding (it's not a tribunal). This is simply a group of professionals getting together discussing a very real issue with a very real impact upon the public. It's not a decision that the public (clients) can make. This is a survey issue which should be resolved by and between surveyors.
Step 3: If the peer review fails to resolve the issue, then the clients should be informed of the new discovery by both surveyors (and possibly the peer group). Any decision made at this point will directly impact the clients and their boundaries. They must be made part of the solution to the problems caused by the late discovery. The surveyors should work with the landowners to first disclose the evidence to them, second to educate them as to the differing opinions as to the meaning of the evidence, and third to offer potential solutions. Then the decision is up to the landowners. The surveyors can and should do nothing until a solution is agreed upon. Once their decision is made, then the surveyors can provide the necessary documentation to remedy the issues and can now finish/amend their surveys.
The landowners solution may be easy or it may be difficult. It may require mediation, it may require litigation. No matter what type of resolution is made, the surveyor's opinion is irrelevant until the solution is final. Then the surveyor's duty is now one of an "original" surveyor which is to document the agreed-upon boundary location.
JBS
What would you do? (MONEY)
> ... What would I do? I'm a long-held proponent of the biblical approach to dispute resolution between "brothers."
>
> Step 1: Go to your brother and discuss the offense. It's your professional duty to discuss the matter. Granted, the second surveyor should have taken this step immediately upon discovery of the new evidence. He should have given you the professional courtesy of sharing the finding and discussing its impact with you before he made any final decision and set his "correct" monuments.
>
> Step 2: If you fail to get resolution one-on-one, then bring the matter before your peers. Each of you should select one and let those to select a third to help the two of you resolve your impasse. Each surveyor should share their findings with the others in a joint meeting (separate meetings are ok if there is too much animosity). The matter should be openly discussed and suggestions offered for resolution. Of course, none of the suggestions are binding (it's not a tribunal). This is simply a group of professionals getting together discussing a very real issue with a very real impact upon the public. It's not a decision that the public (clients) can make. This is a survey issue which should be resolved by and between surveyors.
>
> Step 3: If the peer review fails to resolve the issue, then the clients should be informed of the new discovery by both surveyors (and possibly the peer group). Any decision made at this point will directly impact the clients and their boundaries. They must be made part of the solution to the problems caused by the late discovery. The surveyors should work with the landowners to first disclose the evidence to them, second to educate them as to the differing opinions as to the meaning of the evidence, and third to offer potential solutions. Then the decision is up to the landowners. The surveyors can and should do nothing until a solution is agreed upon. Once their decision is made, then the surveyors can provide the necessary documentation to remedy the issues and can now finish/amend their surveys.
>
> The landowners solution may be easy or it may be difficult. It may require mediation, it may require litigation. No matter what type of resolution is made, the surveyor's opinion is irrelevant until the solution is final. Then the surveyor's duty is now one of an "original" surveyor which is to document the agreed-upon boundary location.
>
> JBS
This is a good and viable solution; who pays for it?
From the perspective of the clients; maybe all they wanted to do was put up a fence. Along comes a couple of surveyors and all of a sudden; it's costing them much more than they bargained for. I can't imagine, they would be very happy.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Matter of fact I know Mr. Robillard. I'm sure he's long forgotten, but I got to know him back in 1965, when he was Southeastern Regional Forester for U.S. Forest Service, while I was the Forest Engineer for a Southeastern paper company. We met at his downtown Atlanta office to discuss some problems with a tract of land in the North Georgia mountains my company was swapping with the USFS. I had just been promoted to the position, and “inherited” surveys of a couple million acres of company lands, the survey of this particular tract being among them. Walt's people had surveyed the property, and found only 40 acres, while the paper company survey showed 47 acres. After studying the map he and I believed the 4 physical monuments were the same on both surveys, but had no clue what was going on. l/s/s...I went out to the property to observe a resurvey by the same crew that had done the survey for the paper company (hate to admit, but they were paper company employees). Didn't take long to discover the problem. The “surveyors” had no concept that a distance measured along the ground on a 45 degree+/- slope might have a “little” error in it. It did! Seven acres worth. Needless to say I began to have doubts regarding company surveys (lol).
Right on Nate. Thanks
Great story!
This is a question that has been one of the more troubling questions to me because it seems the line of thinking that everyone accepts that is a basic, fundamental concept of boundary surveying seems to be that a found original monument controls no matter what, even if set in error......except in a case like this when it doesn't. In a case like this, it seems like the consensus is to ignore that found original monument that this trouble-maker surveyor found because all the other surveyors along the way have used the accepted local monument and it would do way more harm than good to have that original monument suddenly surface. I agree completely that it's too late at this point to undo all the fences, houses, roads, etc. and it wouldn't do anyone any good whatsoever to even attempt something like that, but what about that principal of found original mounuments controlling? It seems like the more realistic approach is that the original monuments control to the extent that they are found before any improvements and subdivisions of land occur, but if the original monument can't be located when it needs to be and all fences, roads, houses, etc. get built before that original monument eventually does get found then it's basically just too late at that point?
Again, I agree with this line of thinking because I think it better serves the public welfare to not inform everyone that, oops, the other surveyor missed the original monument and now everyone has to move all their fences and other improvements and encroachments are now all over the place. But you see what I'm saying about the fundamental importantce of a found original monument in it's originally located position suddenly becoming irrelevant after all these landowner's actions have occured? It seems possible that if all adjoining landowners use a position as the section corner and act accordingly, it really doesn't matter where that section corner was placed by the original GLO surveyor. I'm not saying this is true or how I necessarily feel, I'm just pondering I guess....
I heard one surveyor say that in situations like this, sometimes it's almost better to just take that found original stone back to the office as a display item than to leave it there and risk that someone in the future will find it and stir up the hornets nest. Everyone involved already agrees it's located elsewhere anyway.
What would you do? (MONEY)
> This is a good and viable solution; who pays for it?
>
When it's a surveyor problem, we all pay. If the problem is solved by the the surveyors, the whole profession gains reputation. When the surveyors pass the problem to the landowners, the whole profession loses reputation. Most often, my client is the one paying for my time spent resolving the problem. Occasionally, my time is paid by a surveyor who needs help presenting the issues in a convincing manner. Occasionally, my time is split between the two surveyors, or between the two landowners.
The profession has paid dearly by not caring for itself or its members for so long that we've developed the reputation we deserve. We've been complaining about the short-cut and incompetent surveyors all while expecting someone else to do something about them. We use common excuses like, "The state society should do something about that," or "What's the Board going to do?" We look to others to provide the oversight instead of looking at ourselves. The ones we should be looking to are me, you, and us. We're the only ones who can best guide our own profession.
> From the perspective of the clients; maybe all they wanted to do was put up a fence. Along comes a couple of surveyors and all of a sudden; it's costing them much more than they bargained for. I can't imagine, they would be very happy.
You're right, Radar. Anytime they are confronted by a professional screw-up that they have no control over, they ought to be "unhappy." They pay good money for a professional service and find out not only has someone screwed up their property, they have to pay to fix it! It's not right and they shouldn't have to pay.
It's much cheaper for them to have the surveyors resolve their differences than to turn a difference of opinion in to a lawsuit. It's not only cheaper, it's also much faster than litigation. I can save my client tens of thousands of dollars by dealing with the issue before calling the attorneys.
The tide has to turn somewhere.
JBS