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Boundary Survey
Boundary Survey
I hired a surveyor to perform a boundary survey on my property, the first statement from the surveyor was that my deed was crap and he had to find some monuments in order to perform my survey. At the completion of my survey he had uncovered 4 rebars that had placed around the surrounding property and told me that was my boundary. I asked before he left if it the footage between each of them matched my deed and the surveyor said yes it did. About 4 months later I received the drawing for my survey and I found the metes and bounds did not match my property deed and I was missing 2 1/2 feet along the rear of my property. After verifying the measurements stated in the surveyors drawing I found it was actually 5 foot missing along the rear of the property. Can some tell me if this is normal. I have attached the survey provided.
- 24 Replies
I’m not licensed in Alabama, but this drawing appears to be very minimal. $400 seems to be a very minimal fee for a boudary survey, but maybe that’s the going rate in your neck of the woods?
It’s not glaringly obvious which parcel is even yours, but I’m going to guess the 1.1 acres? There’s not really much we (I) can surmise from said drawing, but 2.2′ discrepancy along the south line, and 17.67′ discrepancy along the east line seem a bit excessive or unusual to me. It would be nice if the surveyor would have included the record description.
If you have your deed, post it. I’m not familiar with Alabama, but a $400 boundary survey would be like buying a brand new car for $3000 around here. If you’re actually getting a brand new car for $3000 there has to be a catch somewhere.
At $400/day, if it took no more than 1 day to do the field work, the research, the office drafting, and the billing and arranging for work the next day. Then you could expect revenue of $94,000/year. Taking into account weekends, holidays, and 2 weeks vacation. Out of that $94,000 you have to pay taxes, purchase equipment, office space, health care and retirement.
There’s no way to do that boundary survey properly in 1 day. There’s no way anyone could stay in business charging $400 per day. It looks like $400 dollars for a boundary survey is too good to be true. It also looks like you got about $400 worth of value out the survey that was produced.
We don’t know how much experience the surveyor has in the area, so pretty tough to say anything about the fee or work involved. The R/M difference along the east line seems very large and the bearing on the north line says NW or SW, so that is a huge red flag. The survey was from 2021. Have you called the surveyor to ask them these questions?
There appears to be some discrepancies, especially the 1? iron pipe. The survey does not say if the 1? iron pipe was called for in the record decription. I suspect a portion of the parcel might lie within Ryland Pike. Showing the discrepancies between the starting point, the section corner and the parcel would explain the right-of-way issue. Exactly what type of spell was put on the northwest corner. Seeing this map, does help me understand why South Alabama surveyors cause my phone to ring when they survey in the Florida Panhandle.
Yes it’s normal for measurements not to match deed, in fact the opposite would be abnormal.
Yes it’s normal for individuals trying to replicate surveyor measurements to come up with different results.
I don’t see any issue, but if you see one then the proper route is to pay for a second opinion. The survey represents a professional opinion and those do differ in all professions on occasion.
…. There’s no way to do that boundary survey properly in 1 day. ….
I posted one of my surveys under another thread last week, and a lot of you saw it. Believe me, that survey took a lot longer than one day, and I charged a great deal more than $400. More like $6000. No way that $400 survey gets by in Multnomah County, Oregon. Or anywhere else in Oregon. The filing fee charged by the County Surveyor alone is $475.
$400 buys you about 2-3 hours field time, including travel time, and an hour in the office. A job like this, to really be done right, deserves 10 times that.
But I was also once an Oklahoma registrant, and I can tell you that $400 is about the going rate there, in places, and that survey is what you get for $400. That is all people are willing to pay. The survey posted is in keeping with standards of practice there. I’d guess that Alabama is about the same.
I’m a long way from your neighborhood and there are a million variables, but looking at the
street view and applying my experience I’m thinking that the differences between the deed dimensions and the contemporary survey dimensions are reasonable. Those monuments, if they are the same called for in your deed, control your boundaries no matter if they agree with the deeded dimensions or not, and they were probably set by a surveyor working for the 1950 equivilent of $400.
If that map represents standards of practice in Alabama they need a degree requirement.
Surveyors aren’t offering a commodity. They are providing a professional service and both their work product and their fees should reflect that.
My apology to the OP for going off topic.
Pretty cool that he’s determined that the property’s NE monument is both 57′ SE and 511′ SW of a unique section corner… oh, while at the same time it’s also 85 degrees west (?) of another uncalled, unmonumented, undescribed, unlabeled and otherwise obscure point.
If you’re tight on cash, I’d consider small claims to recover the cost of this mostly useless piece of paper. I can’t imagine it could’ve been recorded because one of several fundamental requirements for a boundary map is a reproducible, locatable description of the point of beginning that’s described in the deed.
What you did get for $400 is a PLS who apparently put his license on the line to tell you that those rods and bits of metal he unearthed and hopefully marked are your boundary corners. You can pull a string between them and build to your setbacks, put up fences along them and cut down trees inside of them without consequence. He’d be liable to rectify in a lawsuit against you by your neighbor for doing such things if he was found in gross error, which I believe this could easily fall under. You can even sell it as containing the stated acreage even if the monuments don’t measure up. All that may be plenty worth the $400.
ddIf that map represents standards of practice in Alabama they need a degree requirement.
I do not think that a degree requirement would work. The going rate for surveys is so low – who is going to invest the time and money needed to get into a profession that is bottom feeding?
What we have in Oregon keeps the standards high, mostly. A recording law forces these things out into the sunlight. It’s a great disinfectant.
@norman-oklahoma
If that map represents the standard of practice the sun is going to be shining on more of the same. The more something costs the greater the value put on it In this case I’m talking about the cost of education.
@dave-o If he charges only $400, he won’t have insurance to cover the claims the client might make.
Maybe I’m not seeing the blasphemy here. My only real problem with thsi is the fee of $400. There’s no way to survey this size parcel, or any parcel, in my opinion, for that little.
But maybe the surveyor had just done a survey for the abutter, and this was just a drafting exercise. Still, I’d be charging more.
As far as the distances not agreeing to the gnat’s arse, that happens. And maybe the current description is converted rods/links or fractional chains. Maybe the road width changed, or the distance was from the centerline. Who knows
As far as the plan goes, it looks like it’s just a plot plan type of thing, maybe not intended for recording, in I’m assuming, a non-recording state.
I can’t speak to the section corner reference, but whereas all the corners of this lot and the abutting lot are monumented, it’s certainly reproducible and he’s not hiding his boundary decision
I am of the impression that if the going rate for surveys is that low in that part of the world, that it may not be possible for a following surveyor to reconcile the various deed descriptions and willy-nilly, hodge-podge random assortment of property corners, whether the property owner is shelling out $400 or $4,000. It’s not realistic for any surveyor to come in and give everyone, everything they think they own after years of quick dirty and cheap surveys. Rather, for tidy sum spent, if only 5′ on the back lot line were unaccounted for, I’m of the opinion the OP should crack open a cold one and celebrate their good fortune.
WillyMaybe I’m not seeing the blasphemy here……. whereas all the corners of this lot and the abutting lot are monumented, it’s certainly reproducible and he’s not hiding his boundary decision
I’m troubled with finding monuments that seem to be the corners but are feet off the record dimensions. I’d need to survey more to confirm that the monuments are in their original locations. Perhaps he has done so and is just not showing that work. But I think it likely that this is the standard of care that the market bears for residential surveys 10 miles east of Huntsville, Alabama.
I am in Arkansas. That’s west of the Mississippi.
Suggest:
Take a copy of that survey to the courthouse, and to 3 other surveyors, and simply ask them for a 5 minute review of it. The surveyors in the area, KNOW what kind of work this guy does.
Even to the tax office. See what they say.
You will learn more that way, than any I can think of.
N
I’m troubled with finding monuments that seem to be the corners but are feet off the record dimensions.
Really? That’s pretty normal for me. I survey a lot of rural areas where the deed descriptions are not from a survey. I don’t know if it’s the landowners or some local who thought he knew how to measure, back in the early to mid 1900’s. And the descriptions perpetuate through the succession of deeds.
It’s not uncommon to find pipes at 500′ apart when the call is 430′. And no, I don’t just hold the pipes until I’m convinced they’re original or are in harmony with everything else in the area.
This could be the case here, with the two lots shown coming out of the larger piece to the east and south, and the distances being pretty rough, and actually measured 100+ years ago.
I would question any survey that cost me $400. Just getting a crew and equipment to the job and back is going to cost me close to half of that or more. That would leave the crew roughly two hours to do the field work, have the LS resolve the survey and have it drafted.
Caveat Emptor (Buyer be aware).
I’m troubled with finding monuments that seem to be the corners but are feet off the record dimensions.
Really? That’s pretty normal for me. I survey a lot of rural areas where the deed descriptions are not from a survey. I don’t know if it’s the landowners or some local who thought he knew how to measure, back in the early to mid 1900’s. And the descriptions perpetuate through the succession of deeds.
It’s not uncommon to find pipes at 500′ apart when the call is 430′. And no, I don’t just hold the pipes until I’m convinced they’re original or are in harmony with everything else in the area.
This could be the case here, with the two lots shown coming out of the larger piece to the east and south, and the distances being pretty rough, and actually measured 100+ years ago.
This. I live in Alaska now, which has the benefit of being a recording state, having had a statutory subdivision act for the last 50 years or so, and has lots of federal, state, and municipally-funded surveys. So we live in luxury as far as survey records and good surveys go.
However, where I grew up in Pennsylvania, my grandfather (an electrician, not a surveyor) carved out 5 acres of land from his father’s farm using a compass and tape back in the 1950s, and that was the info that went into the deed. When I did a little retracing there, I was unsurprised that the measurements were a bit off and that there were no monuments. Par for the course and he didn’t break any laws.
People are comparing apples and oranges. There is probably nothing fundamentally wrong with this plat if we judge it by the appropriate standard.
I would question any survey that cost me $400. Just getting a crew and equipment to the job and back is going to cost me close to half of that or more.
Moments ago, in another thread, you labelled discussing rates a “taboo topic”.
Really? That’s pretty normal for me. …..
It’s not uncommon to find pipes at 500′ apart when the call is 430′. And no, I don’t just hold the pipes until I’m convinced they’re original or are in harmony with everything else in the area.
Apparently you, too, are troubled when you find monuments not in concert with their record dimensions. To paraphrase Matthew Quigly “I said I was troubled by it, never said I hadn’t seen it before.”
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