If I can get signed notarized statements from both owners agreeing that the wall is accepted as the lot line then I would calc a new lot line giving the entire wall to the owner who lost property. That way the loser could demo the wall if they wanted and pick up the width of the wall and install a new fence near the lot line. If the owners do not agree then I set the line using the deed and math, show the wall with ties to PL and let the lawyers and the judge work it out.

I remember resolving problems like this years ago by simply having the client talk to the neighbor, assuming they were friendly. The idea was to call the fence the property line, set new monuments, and quitclaim the questionable area from one to the other. Simple fix, if people are neighborly. And it worked best if the client was the one giving up land. I understand it doesn't work in every case, but I lived in a rural part of Oregon at the time, so an area like that was pretty trivial in cow country.

@wendell 

Read about this site yesterday where you mentioned Side Shots being the Colorado society resource.  Then the Side Shots link was provided.  Went to that and read parts of their February 2026 issue.  The very first story was about this very topic and specific situations in Mesa County.

Well, it depends. 

When a fence disagrees with your math, what goes on the plat?

Those title folks would have us believe that the sum of record title = ownership. We know better!

Most of my survey clients started out thinking a deed for land is like a title for a car. With rare exceptions, a car title is proof of ownership. It's a State controlled form regulated so that every vehicle has one and only one title. Deeds and land records have no standard form and are not regulated or validated by the State. The State only provides a repository for the land documents people want to put on public notice. Thus land records (deeds) are not proof of ownership, but only evidence of ownership.  

Once educated, survey clients want to know what they own and should it get to court, what will be adjudicated is ownership. 

A survey plat should clearly express the surveyor's opinion of ownership. Sometimes that will be record title and sometimes it's action-of-the-parties.

There is normally a bundle of rights/ownership with a piece of property. Even a Fee Simple with no mortgage, no easements, no liens, may still have any number of other ownership right holders involved. I haven't read the case but Wendell's description of acquisitive prescription granting ownership is something I've never seen in the areas I practice. 

But, each state is different, and it is important to know the court cases and statutes that apply. 

I've always shown division fences and structures. That was drilled into me early on, it was SOP. And remember courts don't convey ownership in these cases, they identify it, the ownership was already established before the dispute hit the courtroom. Don't minimize the occupation. 

MightMoe said it and I'm in complete agreement  ...

"And remember courts don't convey ownership in these cases, they identify it",

@pls8xx 

Many States have no State-level repository for surveys.  County-level repositories have varied greatly. in my area, the County Register of Deeds is the appropriate place to "officially record" a survey but many counties also have a far larger collection of surveys that have been "donated" to the Road and Bridge office as that was the historic home of the County Engineer/Surveyor who theoretically performed all surveys.  Those done for private clients were carried out by "deputized" surveyors who did receive guidance from him in the days prior to State licensure.  Here, it was after 1950 when State licensure came along for surveyors.  An absolute wealth of information is found outside of the ROD office.

The correct answer to the question is, "What did the client ask you to do?"

The next step is to go boldly where no one may have gone before (to paraphrase Star Trek).  Assuming you are searching for the boundaries of a metes and bounds tract for which the description was first written on a table napkin by someone.  Are you truly expecting to find accurately laid out fences almost exactly matching the description?

Another step is what you may encounter in a modern era survey with tight bearings and distances.  You may anticipate finding finding fences that "resemble" said record calls.  That is because you assume each boundary was marked out for the fence building activity, including intermediate points along lengthy lines that have obstructions to straight line sighting.

In my corner of the world, we still are dealing with large aliquot parts defining where boundaries are to fall.  The primary function is to hopefully find a fence that keeps two different owners happy.  Is it providing the function required?

Posted by: @holy-cow

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@pls8xx 

Many States have no State-level repository for surveys.  County-level repositories have varied greatly. in my area, the County Register of Deeds is the appropriate place to "officially record" a survey but many counties also have a far larger collection of surveys that have been "donated" to the Road and Bridge office as that was the historic home of the County Engineer/Surveyor who theoretically performed all surveys.  Those done for private clients were carried out by "deputized" surveyors who did receive guidance from him in the days prior to State licensure.  Here, it was after 1950 when State licensure came along for surveyors.  An absolute wealth of information is found outside of the ROD office.

The post I made referred to the State repository for deeds, not surveys, and the State doesn't validate those(deed) records.

Posted by: @holy-cow

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The correct answer to the question is, "What did the client ask you to do?"

Is that an answer to the question "What goes on the plat? I don't recall ever letting a client suggest how I should survey or what to put on my plat.

Kansas allows the client a list of opt-out items.  Most typically, this calls for a survey that does not show easements, locations of utilities, locations of fences and structures and similar actions that could be included on a survey.  This narrows the survey function to location of boundaries and a description, whether new or existing.  The survey of an aliquot may simply consist of four boundary lines and any extensions to controlling monuments.  This is typical when the client primarily is interested in the acreage involved.

This is why I said above, "What did the client ask you to do?"

RE: When a fence disagrees with your math, what goes on the plat?

Let me rephrase the question, "When record title indicates one location for a boundary and a fence suggests a different location, which is shown as the boundary on your plat?"

1. A note that the survey does not depict the ownership of the property, or like statement.

2. The record title line is always shown as the boundary.

3. The fence is always shown as the boundary.

4. Sometimes the record title is shown as the boundary, sometimes the fence is shown as the boundary, depending on the surveyor's analysis of the ownership.

5. None of the above.

I'll go first. I'm a number 4 because that's what I think I can defend in court. 

#4 is correct

Posted by: @wendell

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You get to a corner, the deed math closes fine, and there's a fence 8 feet off that's clearly been there for 40 years. What ends up on your plat?

Is the deed description ambiguous? If so, is the fence parol evidence that resolves the ambiguity? Presumably, since the math is working the answer is no, but maybe the POB is displaced? 

Otherwise, I'd show both the fence and the deed on my map, monument the deed.  Sometimes a fence is a mere barrier, not a boundary marker.  There is plenty of case law to this effect.

ok, I'll bite.  I survey mostly in a colonial state.  I show both the fence and the calls in the deed (legal description) provided for the subject property  I also research and show the calls for the adjoiner as they may be different than my Client's deed (a requirement in Virginia).  If a conflict, then I will do the additional research for junior/senior rights, document all and show on the plat.  The most recent record title is sometimes in conflict with the adjoiners title.  Just show the data and the calls for the boundary as provided you in the deed. 

Short answer, do your research, show what you find in the field, show conflicts, fences, and potential rights of others and prepare a boundary survey plat that hopefully all can agree with.

Something that happens frequently in PLSSia is a case where many surveys may have taken place around the perimeter of a section before the first need arises to find or set the center corner.  As long as no early survey is tied to an internal line/corner of an aliquot, there is no need for the center corner.  Many of the lines around the exterior of a sections have established roads running along them.  In my case the GLO work was carried out in the 1850s-1860s time frame with roads primarily being approved soon thereafter to 30 years thereafter.  To find a truly undisturbed monument is rare.  Most of our GLO monuments were of the stake and pits variety.  A minority are locally obtained stones, sometimes shaped up a bit.  One of those falling in a low area may have been covered up with compacted soil to raise the road bed a little or a lot.  I have found many of those over the decades.  What have also been found are "road stone's set by the county engineer/surveyor while staking out the road to be created that are the best available evidence of what was accepted as the corner at that time.  Numerous times while digging with a backhoe to locate the road stone, a second stone is found matching the type and dimensions of the record GLO stone.  Thus a dilemma arises.  If no survey has been made available showing that the road stone has been used, the GLO stone will normally be accepted.  Complicating matters is that the homestead laws normally called for the homesteader to fence in the cropland they have created as proof of improvement to the land.  This was prior to the invention of common wire fencing.  Rail fences or live hedge plantings were commonly used.  This was to use the European method of tying down the trees branches to form a somewhat inpenetrable block to travel.  Entrepreneurs would plant seedlings in orchards to then be cared for until large enough to be safely transplanted along the  property lines.  The center corners were not a standard function of the GLO surveyor, so the homesteaders had to do the best they could.  By the time a later surveyor was ever in need of the center corner, it was common to find an existing accepted corner of some sort somewhat near what the math would say should be the center corner.  That was the first time the question arose as to whether to rule that math is stronger than evidence set by non-surveyors.  Another common error discovered would be that of a homesteader receiving only a quarter-quarter of a section or a half of a quarter of a section.  The quarter-mile distance might be measured out and assumed to be a perfect 1320 feet from a found monument.  The idea of measuring the entire half mile and then going back to whatever the midpoint turned out to be was simply not going to be done by laymen.  In this case, some later surveyor comes along and discovers existing fences 1320 feet in length, but, only from one direction.  The deed may say the tract is the southeast quarter of the southeast quarter, but the fence is nowhere near that mathematical solution.

The huge problem blows up when the second surveyor who comes along completely ignores or doesn't even search for the first surveyor's work product, which is readily available within the County records.  That ignoramus opens the door to mass confusion for eternity.

Posted by: @holy-cow

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The idea of measuring the entire half mile and then going back to whatever the midpoint turned out to be was simply not going to be done by laymen.  In this case, some later surveyor comes along and discovers existing fences 1320 feet in length, but, only from one direction. 

This circumstance is one where the fence may be said to have been intended to be only a barrier, and not intended to mark out the boundary. The owner didn't know where the true boundary was but needed to put something up to restrain his livestock (our keep wild animals and the livestock of others out of his cultivated field). So he put up something close enough, intending to determine the true boundary at some future time. The thing is that the intention that the fence be a boundary has to be shown by positive evidence (clear and convincing), it cannot be merely assumed. Unless the deed description is ambiguous, whereupon the fence may be regarded as parol evidence. 

If the fence has stood for many years and owners on both sides have treated it as a boundary, and used the area up to it, we may have a case of Recognition and Acquiescence . That is a flavor of Adverse Possession, wherein failure to prove any one of the various requirements causes the claim to fail. If, for example, the 8 foot strip under consideration has become overgrown and therefore used by no one, the claim is likely to fail.

Of course sometimes these claims do succeed but there is a lot of ground to cover between seeing a fence that disagrees with deed dimensions and recognizing it as a boundary. 

I like a lot of what was said here on evaluating record title v. acts-of-the-adjoiners ( adverse possession, written or implied agreement, acquiescence, or estoppel. But what do you put on the plat? Does the plat clearly indicate to the client what you think he ownes even when it's not record title?

Boundary plat should show the calls in the deed plus what you find in the field to include conflicts, fences, monuments, and potential rights of others without warrant to ownership or title.  If a vacancy or overlap, then show same and let 'attorneys' sort that out.