Need Surveying Advice

[TNhobbyfarmer]

Homebrew, Shaley, Zuespaul:

You guys are obviously VERY knowledgeable about surveying. Unfortunately, I am not. As I explore this thing and start looking for corner markings etc., hopefully I can continue to pick your collective brains and not only accomplish something, but learn as well. Thanks for being so helpful. I am always amazed by the knowledge base here on TBN.

 

[zeuspaul]

TN, when the trees are called out the tree itself IS the corner marker. Get a long tape and start measuring and looking for evidence...old fences. Try and find the original trees.

Zeuspaul

 

[BruceR]

There is a good knowledge base here, but just be sure that when you are ready to have the work done you know what you want and then have one or several surveyors give you a cost estimate. Don't rely on what folks here paid in another area. You will need the whole tract surveyed, not just part. It just dosen't work that way. Get someone local who may have a history in that area, chances are they are familiar with the adjoining tracts called for in your deed and have a knowledge base already in tact which may save hours of research. The methods I see outlined here so far are a great tool for recon work but in no way can be relied upon for any accuracy.

Be very specific in what you want when getting a cost estimate. Do you want the property lines staked for fencing or will you be happy just knowing the end points of the lines ? Make a lot of difference from a cost standpoint. More time in the field = more $$$, but may save down the road.
Mostly wooded means GPS is probably not a viable tool as the tree canopy will cause problems, though they may be lessened through the winter months, unless you are talking pine woods.

Good Luck,
Bruce R.P.L.S. 5781

 

[EddieWalker]

A friend of mine had a piece of land with similar instructions on his boundries. He spent quite a bit of time out in the woods looking for the old boundries and ended up finding most of them. They were slash marks on the side of a tree. Once he recognized what the marks looked like, it was allot easier to find the others.

In the end, he had to hire a surveyor to find two corners.

My parents home is on almost 3 acres and my dad wanted to put up a fence. He found every corner but one. He gave up and hired a surveyor.

In both cases, the surveyors were able to find those corners from other locations without surveying the entire parcel. It was just a few hours work for them and the costs were a few hundred bucks. That was in California from five to ten years ago.

I bought 300 acres with a business partner and sub-devided it into three parcels. We sold two of them and I kept the third one. The survey cost for that was $9,000 two years ago.

I've bought and sold a few homes and the average price for an in town survey was $500. I've heard prices are climbing, but I haven't sold a house in two years.

Eddie

 

[TNhobbyfarmer]

I am thinking at this point I would just like to find the corners rather than an entire survey. I don't plan to sell the place, but I would like to at least know the general lines.

There are 2 tracts on this property due to a county road running through it. It is on both sides of the road. I know the borders very well on one of the tracts due to fences and the road. The second tract is the one that is somewhat of a mystery to me. It is mostly wooded and the line through the woods is pretty fuzzy in my mind. Maybe if I can just find the corners, it will make me feel better.

 

[zeuspaul]

I used the aerial photographs on zillow.com and topozone.com in combination with a map like shaley prepared for you to *rough in* my property lines. I now know where most of them are to within a couple of feet which is good enough for my current needs. I can only see the inaccessible rear line from a distance of about 300 ft but I was able to determine from the photographs and record distances that my lower neighbor is not encroaching on my land.

You should know approximately where your lines are so you can protect your interests. If you or a neighbor constructs anything (buildings, fences, leach fields) near a property line then it's time to get serious and consider a property survey.

Do the two tracts abut? If so and you know the lines on the first tract then you have a baseline to work from to find the approximate locations of the second tract. You can do it all with a long tape. You can construct angles using distances.

Maybe shaley can balance the lots for you on the maps he prepared. Both lots have similar closures which leads me to believe there isn't a bust...just measurement errors which could be evenly distributed over the entire survey. Also if you tell us how they fit together perhaps it will give us further insight. i.e. tract one is east of tract two and has a common line? or???

Zeuspaul

 

[BruceR]

I'm working on a project now for a client ( a major corp. know to everyone in the free world) who just bought a tract of several hundred acres here in East Texas. One of their engineers did the aerial map thing, picked a lat and long off the map, traveled to the given coords via a handheld GPS and had a water well installed. Only problem is that the well is 20 feet into the adjoining property. Now the neighbor gets a free well, gets paid damages, and gets the property line in question staked for the new fence to be built between the two properties.

In this particular instance, I could have located the two corners on the line without surveying the entire tract because I had done some work in this area back in the mid-80's and had already located the old iron axle at the North corner and the pine knot buried under 2 foot of silt in a slough 3500 feet to the South.

The property descriptions you have to work with will not allow the methods given here so far. They were already balanced to the best of ability when they were written. They give a good starting point for recon work, but thats about it. Your description is given to the nearest 1/2 degree and 1/2 pole and was probably written sometime in the 1800's. Talk to your neighbors and see if they have had any survey work done on your common lines. If so, see who they had do them, they may have information in their records which would allow them to identify the corners for you. When dealing with a closed figure ( or in this case a figure which almost closes ) it's not just the distance but also the angular relationhip between the adjoining lines which come into play. And then too, as already stated, if the corners called for are found they hold over given bearing and distance. That is why I say you can't just have one line surveyed. I'm not trying to drum up business, just trying to keep you from wasting money. It's not uncommon for lines of those lengths to be off 100' feet or more when dealing with an old property description such as yours. Unless you find a surveyor who has a history in that area, the most anyone will be able to tell you is "Here are two points that might almost be kinda sorta close to to where your corners might probably oughta be".

Bruce

 

[zeuspaul]

One might expect an error of 20 feet or more with a hand held GPS. Lease lines shown online can be within ten feet or so or they can be off by hundreds of feet. Both are the case in my area. Aerial photographs can have significant distortion. They can be very useful recon tools. BruceR gives very good advice if one needs a survey.

TN should be able to find his corners with a tape measure. A tape measure can be used for just distances or it can also be used to develop angles too.

I don't think anyone has recommended TN survey his property. The recommendations are to help him find the corners of his property that has already been surveyed.... recon as noted by BruceR. However recon can lead to the discovery of the original monuments and then TN would have a good basis for knowing where his property lines are.

Even if he finds the original monuments they may not represent the true lines. If there is a conflict with a neighboring piece of property the neighbor's property may or may not take precedence.

Some old surveys were not balanced. The 40 ft closure in TN's survey is most likely not all in the last course as our method of calculation seems to indicate. Balancing the data facilitates working with the data mathmatically.

Zeuspaul

 

[California]

One of their engineers did the aerial map thing... Only problem is that the well is 20 feet into the adjoining property.

I saw one like this when I worked for a Large Government Agency. There was a rush to put a commuter-rail boarding platform in a growing community. I was sent down to see how much harm had been done to a neighbor where the platform extended into his parcel.

All I found was that the sawed-off portion of the platform had been dragged back across the property line, leaving a few bulldozer tracks and some smashed tumbleweed as the only apparent damage to his vacant commercial lot.

I listened for an hour while this wealty speculator showed me every record he could think of showing his cost for acqusition and rezoning. Finally he gave up and just laughed. He knew the commuter station nearby enhanced the value of his parcel, while he had no provable damages.

Apparently he thought he could get a big settlement for his pain and anguish, but all I could put in my report was that he never found a single document to show economic loss. I don't think his claim was approved for payment.

Your tax dollars at work.

 

[shaley]

Now that you know the general lay of the tracts. The next step might be to go out there with a metal detector and see if there is some iron at the corners. This is presuming there isn't a lot of scrap laying around to throw you off.