Footsteps of whom? The subdividing surveyor acts as an agent of the owner, and so the corners they set are presumed to be the intent of the owner that is selling the land. This should not be disputed by anyone.?ÿ
The confusion and honest difference of opinion comes when we do not know if the marks we find are the original plat corners of the XYZ subdivision. Just because a following surveyor gets it wrong, I have no right to continue that error.?ÿ
The issue must always be protecting the public. Surveyors should passionately care about bona fide rights, and fight to protect them. But, simply keeping the peace isn't really our job.?ÿ
I don't think anyone here disagrees with that, but the facts always matter.
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Another issue is that a PLS with 10 years on their license is hopefully setting many pincushions, but most of us don't step foot in the field.
I worked for a guy who would go out by himself and do one man surveying back in the T2/Topcon top mounted distance meter days. It was slow going to set subdivision corners that way and he would get in a hurry to put them in the ground. He would mark the corner with the intention of going back another day and driving in a rebar and cap. Years later in some of his subdivisions devoid of corners I would find screwdrivers, chisels, mechanical pencils at the coordinates that I would calculate for the corners. Often with bits of flagging, I knew it was his corner, only cause I had worked for him. Taught me a good lesson, set the dang thing while you are there, carry all the monumentation with you to the point.
In Washington, if a row of five homes looking to be 20 to 30 years old each with fences built to monuments and homes within the setbacks defined by the monuments, and the touchscreen corner causes the only encroachment on the block, then what exactly has the touchscreen proven, and how has the touchscreen disproved that all previous monuments are not original or are not the legal property corners?
Sub, two points, the boat spike is from a well know local surveyor who set thousands of boat spikes in his time, and he was positively not the original surveyor. Most likely, it was he that is wrong, Often we get older subdivisions where there were no laws requiring the surveyor to describe their monuments so that it is easier to prove which ones are NOT original. Regardless what compels us to discard the work of our colleagues and rely on our touch screens as BETTER?
Perpendicular does not necessarily mean precisely 90 degrees.
What are you talking about? If there are monuments, who needs a touchscreen? Are you even reading the comments?
The fact that you think this is something new (and thus a "touchscreen" issue) is amusing to me. This is LESS LIKELY with a touchscreen. You have so much power, information, etc in your hand that you can make decisions on the spot that required multiple trips in the past. Most of the pincushions I find are from 90's and maybe the 00's. They were set because trying to figure out how the last guy got there would take forever.
What I know is that at least three surveyors have come along obviously using their skills as surveyors and set a series of lots and managed to get all the distances right and in straight lines. These acts constituent property corners. One guy, like many of our profession, can't stand an inexact bearing and sets an illegal monument which makes him feel better but this is NOT a retracement it is merely an exact calculation from a proven non original monument. That is not better logic. It is a better calculation. I'm stamping the inexact monuments.?ÿ
I spell a lot better than it looks
There are always going to be people who can rationalize harming others in their pursuit of order. Unfortunately, the PLSS provides them with a template.
I attended for about a year back in 2007/2008. I had Professor Chace for most of my surveying courses but I did have you for my boundaries/legal descriptions related course (I can't remember the actual name). Great program and I am very disappointed to hear that they discontinued it.
Thank you! We didn't get cancelled because we were not a great program. It's complicated and local politics involved so don't want to comment publicly.
It's not the availability of information, it's the willingness to use it.
I understand. Well one of my biggest regrets is having left the program without graduating. I am now licensed in Colorado of course, but without going back to school and finishing I am very limited as to where else in the country I can become licensed. Small world though and glad to catch up with you here!
Love to hear you are licensed! Hope we had at least a little to do with it:) Check out the online options, there's an awful lot of them these days. Any legitimate online program (or bricks and mortar for that matter) would accept credits from our program.
The PLSS provides no such template. A half a$$ understanding of the PLSS will...
