Is it Illegal to....

txdon · Nov 27, 2006

....remove a land boundary survey marker? I know it is not nice, but is there a law with a penalty attached?
By the way, I'm not planning on doing it. It was just a local discussion about a farmer and a plow. I can't seem to find the law, if there is one.
Thanks.

Egon · Nov 28, 2006

In our area it will be illegal. Yours could be different.

LBrown59 · Nov 28, 2006

What about an illegally placed one?

mikim · Nov 28, 2006

sounds like a Bernice question -- I'll refer it to her ......

Egon · Nov 28, 2006

PHP:

What about an illegally placed one?

That sounds self explanatory

Dusty · Nov 28, 2006

In CT, if the marker was set by a licensed surveyor, then it is illegal to tamper with it in any way...... even if it isn't in the correct place. Surveyors will not remove a marker even if it is located incorrectly, unless they were the one that placed it. They will show the marker on the maps that they draw and indicate that it isn't correct, but they will never remove a marker placed by another surveyor. If they don't know who placed it, it is assumed that it was done by a surveyor. When my land was surveyed, the surveyor placed some pins that were off set in the woods, so if the originals were ever pulled, he could reset them without any problem. The day after he put the originals in on the boundary, someone pulled them. He put them back and set them down a couple of inches below grade, so they couldn't be pulled again. Through the freeze and thaw cycles, they came to the surface and were pulled again. The next time that they will be set, it will be in concrete, and I would like to see how they will pull those. Just because it is illegal, doesn't mean that stupid people will ignore the law.
Dusty

LBrown59 · Nov 28, 2006

Egon said:
PHP:

What about an illegally placed one?

That sounds self explanatory

Well
Yes and No
May Be

EddieWalker · Nov 28, 2006

Not sure about the law, but proving that somebody took them out is the tough part. My parents couldn't find all their pins when they bought there place in California and hired a surveyor to find them. He couldn't find two I think and set them correctly. It was obvious that the nieghbor had removed them, or moved them, because they had built there house across the property line.

The title company was called in, but they were pretty much useless. In the end, a land swap was agreed upon, but nobody could prove the neighbor had moved the pins. They obviously said they built based on the location of the pins and even knew exactly where they were. Nobody could find them, but they knew. Isn't that funny???

Have you asked your surveyor?

Eddie

Bird · Nov 28, 2006

I don't know of any law addressing the surveyors' markers specifically, but I do believe that Section 28.03 of the Penal Code (Criminal Mischief) would apply. So, based on that, I would say it would be illegal.