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What does a piece of rebar with orange flag tape on it mean?
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What does a piece of rebar with orange flag tape on it mean?
Im trying to figure out where my property corner is and i have 3 corners with official markers that measure to the exact measurements shown on my plat map. The fourth corner however has one unofficial looking yellow rod that sits on the exact location of where my map shows i should have a caped rod but i also have a rebar tied with orange flag tape that sits about 10′ short on the back and 1′ short on the side of my property. My neighbor insists the rebar is our official corner though all my research shows the orange tape means it is either a communications marker or as it is next to a ditch that runs through my back yard it may a grade stake marking the construction site of the ditch. Im wondering if the orange tape could at all mean a property marker?
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17 Replies
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It’s just a piece of rebar. With flagging. Until A surveyor says it is a corner.
Until some land owner builds improvement based on it.
Until enough time runs by, and the statute of limitations runs.
Until it goes through the courts.
You can go by the scrap metal yard and buy rebar, or pipe.
You can buy flagging. In many colors hqrdware store.
If you go move it to “the right place”, then you can buy a T-shirt…. Look ma, I’m a surveyor!
You can even spray paint it… Make it official!
Get it surveyed. Set monster posts. Then you, and others will know for a long time to come.
N
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It means something to the person who set it. Find out who set it and ask them. That is the only guaranteed correct answer.
Everything else is a guess. My guess is that it was set to mark the pending location of a specific utility item, say a new power pole or a water valve.
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“Orange for communication” comes from the utility locator color code, but other people sometimes use orange paint or flagging to mark whatever they are working on.
It seems from your post that there is or has been work in that area that could have disturbed things.
To see if a marker is in the right spot, careful measurements to others in all directions are needed. Has the neighbor measured his lot? If there is a 10 ft discrepancy between measurements, you need a surveyor to figure out why.
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Maybe the person who set it will explain that it is/was intended to be at a ten feet offset from something and maybe even on a particular line, maybe?
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Unlikely that the bar has anything to do with communication. Orange is the APWA color for comm markings, but in this case it is probably just coinicidence. Orange also happens to be a bright color that surveyors like to use.
Impossible to say for sure, of course, but I’m guessing that you have found a surveyor traverse point. If so, it means something to the surveyor who set it (ie/ it’s a point they used for measuring from) but it is not a property corner. Sometimes an iron rod is just an iron rod. Possibly it was put there to support Aunt Millie’s rose bush.
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You have two very general possible answers: 1. Our system gives some degree of legal merit to a given monument representing the property corner that the relevant landowner THINKS and ACTS is his, and, 2, a monument described and stamped by a licensed surveyor on some type of document or map that is within the statute of limitations also has some degree of legal merit. Short of that, multiple monuments can be challenging to answer.
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@norman-oklahoma
So the ditch that runs through my yard is a county easement. Even though it isnt showen on the plat that its an easment we still cant put a fence or any structure up that would block it. So my first guess before i researched it was that it marks where the county easement is. Then after researching i learned that for ditch grading a stake in orange can mark the construction site. That makes the most sense it was probably put in for the construction and left to mark it. -
@bill93
The neighbor refused to measure his land says he doesnt care about the measurements and that they dont matter only the rebar does. -
I’m sticking with traverse point. Stakes for construction layout would typically be wood. But you may be right.
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It means that persons unknown set the rebar for an unknown purpose and the same or different persons unknown tied an orange flag on it likely either to make it easier to find or visually flag the tripping hazard.
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One of my finer moments as county surveyor was a retracement of a troubling piece of county road right of way. I sorted through a LOT of complex historical errors, and set my pin for a corner lot. A few feet away, another surveyor had set a rebar control point for an unrelated project a few weeks prior. The line I staked was 60 years old and the neighbors lived there for about 40 years, but understood that the rebar with math marked “CP” was not his property corner. The neighbors wanted the right of way line to be elsewhere so the lodged a complaint and called a meeting on site with the county Attorney the commissioners and road superintendent. We all showed up and the neighbor had tied a string from the CP to another arbitrary point obviously within the right of way and announced to the group that the string was his property. He said CP stood for “corner point”. I said no, and pointed to my corner pin and explained the difference to the group. Mass confusion ensued. Seeing this was hopeless, I pulled the cp out. I would later see written complaints from my COUNTY that I had pulled out a man’s “property corner”. We are all hopeless.
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Apparently there is no ‘like’ button on answers to questions – and I’m not allowed to mark it off with the big tick.
But both you and Nate are bang to rights here 🙂
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Warren-the string was his key. A line they could all see. You needed a string of your own.
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If you christen a rebar with flagging, you have just made it into something it was not, 5 min before. Same with paint.
For this reason I really dislike setting rebar for control stations. They can “become corners” eventually, by the mechanism of assumptions.
It’s funny. People will find your control stations, and begin occupying to them, without any idea of what they are. “Cheaper’n a survey”.
I wonder…..
N
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@warrenward
So the corner in question does not belong to the neighbor im having issues with. Its shared with another neighbor on the back side of me. The neighbor who is giving me problems owns property on the north side of both of us and goes past 2 or 3 more lots. So the corner isnt even his he just thinks im wrong about mine even though the neighbor behind me is certain the mark we are going from is ours because his dad had his land surveyed before he passed and he and his son who lives there now put a fence up right on the property line. Also as i said before weve taken measurements from all the other caped markers we have and it measures out exact. Knowing that the corner isnt his does position on the matter still hold any merit? -
Thank you all for the feedback, i have a couple more related questions. First if we already had a string line running from our monuments can they cross that line to put up their own stakes and line from what they think is theirs? And is it legal for us to move their stakes since they crossed our line to put them up? Also if it is determined that the rebar is not our corner point as im more and more sure its not, can we move it or do something to ensure it isnt mistaken again in the future?
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Redaline, based only on what you wrote, you and your neighbor have long acted in good faith and are correctly asserting your property rights. If the new neighbor is in disagreement, then they should have a recent survey and signed plat and a new monument bearing that surveyors license number. One way to protect your rights is to place no trespassing signs along your known boundary. Do not move pins or stakes. Try talking first. Lawyers are a last resort.
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