Land Survey Cost

[Bob_Skurka]

ByronBob, as it stands now, we both know that when he backs his car out of the garage (see the previous picture in the above post) that the corner of his driveway is about 12" onto my property. As you can also see the driveway sort of curves back onto his property and remains there so the only spot is a little bit of his gravel at the corner (which is actually under the yellow line in the picture).

He asked me about asphalting his driveway, I told him that he could asphalt everything but that corner. He pressed again, I said no, but perhaps I would lease him that corner of his driveway back to him. As I do not have an official surveyor pin stuck in his drive, I would not feel comfortable asking him to dig it up. Nor do I feel that I have the legal right because my laser shots are not "official" laser shots. My aerial photos do not show that actual pins, but we did mutually agree where the pins sit in those pictures.

So while I am claiming the corner of his driveway, I have no ABSOLUTE authority. I do have some very good evidence, but not absolute evidence.

What I also have is my new fence, and it sits INSIDE my property line, not on the property line. He knows I set it inside my line, and so do I. In fact I mow on the opposite side of my fence. At this point we are still friendly and I want to keep it that way. He actually likes my fence. This year I will probably continue the fence as I like it more than I thought I would. But I will probably take it to the front of the property not to the back. I also intend to put a stake in "his backyard" at the tree line (actually a few feet into the trees so it does not look intrusive).

If I wanted to be a jerk I would sink a large tree on the corner of his driveway where it crosses my property line. I don't want him to feel he can use my property without my permission (we discussed that) and I don't want to be a jerk either. I documented enough of this stuff so as to have evidence if we need to get serious. But this appears to be a "friendly neighbor" issue and we can both live with it peacefully.

I told the story more to illustrate the power of the photos than to get into my fence line issues. But I suppose it is very similar to the original post about the ATV track that crosses the property line. And if that ATV track has been there for a couple years, it is possible that it will show up in the aerial photo.

 

[JDGREEN4ME]

We know where all of the corner pins are. Our problem is our neighbor has built an ATV trail that must be 100' over on our property. This included cutting trees down and a path wide enough I could drive my tractor on it. The line in dispute is about 500' long, rolling topography with trees and thick brush. I would like to have this line pinned at least every 50' and the two locations where our neighbor's trail crosses our property.

 

[Jimbrown]

This is not going to get better so I will tell you what you already know. You only really have 3 choices.
1. do nothing and hope they tire of the ATV. We had one like that where the teen ager kept it so broke that they finally sold it.
2. Work out an agreement that they move it. Does not sound likely.
3. Have it surveyed and marked or fenced. Gonna cost you.
Will still make you the old grouch who doesn't like ATV's. But it should solve it.

 

[ByronBob]

Before I read the easement thread I would have laughed a little at the whole thing and cough it up to living in peace and harmony. And my comment was meant in that regard to a certain extent.
I agree your making the best choice to try and keep the peace. The ATV trail is a different matter I agree and it's going to come to spending some money to verify the obvious before closing the trail. That sucks that you need to do that but as I've been educated on this forum from others it's the only way.

 

[mwechtal]

JDGREEN4ME,
Just be sure that you have some pins driven below surface level in the disputed area. Call me a cynic, but I'm sure that those little flags on a wire are going to disappear the night after the survey is completed.

Mike

 

[Dargo]

When I lived in my last house and had all those lovely neighbors who used my dock, swam in my lake, fished in my lake, walked their dogs in my yard for them to do their duty (they explained that their yards were too small and they didn't want the doggy doo in their yard), I had one neighbor who took the cake.

At the time my next door neighbor had his septic system fail. He had a small yard and his options were limited. He asked me to sell or lease him some property so he could put in a new system. I was at work that morning and told him that I would have to see what he was talking about and then we would discuss the possibilities and terms. When I came home from work 10 hours later, I had a 50' X 100' area of my yard dug up and most of his septic system was installed in my yard! /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

Not only did he dig up my yard and begin installing his septic system, he cut a 2' ditch across my asphalt driveway to get to that portion of my lawn!!! This guy explained to me that he was "land locked", and I had no choice because his crap had to go somewhere. /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif I asked him to immediately remove it and that I wanted my driveway repaired, and repaired properly!

The jerk then somehow found an attorney to represent him and tried to sue me for telling him to repair what he had done to my lawn and remove his septic system. To make a long story short, I had to spend money to not only try to get the jerk to remove his septic system from my yard but to defend me for doing so!

The bottom line; I spent money on an attorney for a while, then I sold the property and moved! I showed the new owner that nowhere was there any permission granted for the encroachment onto the property he was buying and had him sign a legal disclaimer my attorney had drawn up exempting me from any problems. The last I heard, the guy who bought my property rented a backhoe and dug up the neighbor's septic system and capped it where it entered his land. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif Either way, I was out of it and out of that neighborhood.

Now, land survey cost. I just had a 175 acre plot of land surveyed. It was very expensive because the closest "known" good point from which they could use as a beginning reference point was nearly a mile away. Also, the 175 acres of land is not exactly flat and it contains lots of trees, bushes etc. That put me into "a few thousand dollar" range.

 

[Dk45_Jeff]

FWIW there is a cool shareware program,
USAPhotoMaps, which down loads aerial pictures or topo maps from Terraserve. It can also transfer waypoints and routes to/from a Garmin GPS. I've used my GPS to get lat/lon for corner points and then transfer them to the computer. Then you can create a route in USAPhotoMaps to define the boundaries made the corner points, it even calculates the size of the area enclosed.

Even without the lot corner points its often possible to roughly decern lot boundries by features visible in the overhead pictures. Just keep in mind GPS and these free pictures have errors measured in meters (yards).

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Let's pretend the line in question runs north--south. But there's a clear line of sight parallel to that line a hundred feet east.

I'd pull off the north pin one hundred feet east exactly. I'd pound a pole or post into the ground and make sure it was plumb.

I'd go to the south pin and do the same thing.

I then would have someone take a like post or pole and go halfway between the two I've set. Holding it plumb I'd have them move it east--west until it was perfectly in line with the other two.

I would then measure exactly one hundred feet going west and drive in a stake. It should be within inches of the actual property line.

I would do the same thing at the points where I could intersect the ATV trail.

Under ideal circumstances the neighbor would be my helper in this scenario.

Doing it this way you know where the property line is and can rest assured getting authorities or attorneys involved won't make you look foolish if it came to that.

Most people are reasonable. Some aren't. Usually they're easily identified as being unreasonable because they're miserable types.

Of course if they were reasonable they wouldn't be so miserable, right?

 

[slydog]

Here is picture of the USGS overhead of our land in Arkansas, which I overlayed with the approximate boundary lines from our sellers survey when we purchased the land. It's almost 16 acres. The blue line is an approximation of the creek. I could tell where most of the lines run on the ariel by some distinctive landmarks; a couple of ponds, and a cabin in the extreme northeast corner that I know is right on the property line.

I called the surveyor about a month ago asking him what he would charge to come out and walk it with me while I drove rebar pins on every corner, as right now, there are flags and orange tape up all over the place, but I cant distinguish any true property boundaries from these. He told he could send his crew out for $50 an hour. Maybe you could work out an hourly arrangement, if you already have a survey but just need help locating the lines.

Ken

 

[JDGREEN4ME]

Thanks guys for all of the information! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif