Property corner markers

   / Property corner markers #1  

oosik

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Let me make a suggestion. My 80 acres is a pure rectangle - 1320 x 2640. Three corners are on dry land - one is out in the middle of a 125 acre lake.

Each of the three dry land corners have an above ground post or big 'ol pine tree. Each also has a buried marker. Since each of my corners is a quarter section corner - three have brass cap ID. The brass cap is on a three foot long chunk of 1" rebar and is buried about 8" below ground.

The above ground post or tree might get cut down or moved. Unless you have a metal detector and know where to look - you will never find the brass cap. Besides - you don't know it's there, in the first place.

The brass cap is the official - surveyed in - corner.

So...... your property has been surveyed or you know where the corners are. Drive down a chunk of rebar - top to be below ground. You know where it is. If you forgot - find it easily with a metal detector.
 
   / Property corner markers #2  
Not sure why you're writing. On the 3 corners, I'd want some 4 ft or so posts beside the buried marker. Could have an anchored floating market in the middle of the lake if you want to mark it.

Ralph
 
   / Property corner markers
  • Thread Starter
#3  
There IS a post on two corners and a tree on the third - Ralph. I've tried just about everything for the corner out in the lake. The ice removes it every time. Then I realized. No need to mark it. It's out there and nobody can change its location.

Somebody decides to pull or remove your corner post. It's nice to have a below ground, official reference point.
 
   / Property corner markers #4  
Just had some property we have marked in the county over due to possible encroachment by others $950 expense. Three were ipf
 
   / Property corner markers #5  
My lot is what used to be two, that at one time were both owned by one that was split into many.

Simplified, one family owned hundreds of acres. They split it up, sold some, kept some, then sold more to other people. There are now at least three of us with multi-acre parcels. I bought one parcel from a second owner 22 years ago, then another parcel from the original owner about 15 years ago. The deeds use terms like 'meanders along a line approximately ...' and while they've been combined into one tax bill, they've never been formally 'merged'. My lots border a county road and much of the original family property is on both sides of it. To my knowledge there are no corner markers and probably never were. There are wire fences on metal T-post and wooden posts along three sides of my irregular shaped property and then the road.

When I was thinking of buying another parcel that would have had to have been split off a larger parcel, the surveyor estimated a minimum of $1,200 but wouldn't give me a high end limit ... 'we'll just have to see how long it takes ...'. That section was heavily overgrown and it was not possible to see from corner to corner let along walk or run a surveyor chain.

The whole process needs to be dramatically simplified nationwide. With technology, I see no reason why everything isn't done by GPS coordinates, with deeds simply referencing those digital points. Trees die and decay, rocks and pins get moved. Consumer level devices are accurate to within 10' usually and higher resolution equipment is available for legal description use.

Pins? Pins? We don' need no steenking pins!!!!
 
   / Property corner markers
  • Thread Starter
#6  
The reason three of my corners are surveyed is because adjoining property was sold and the sale went thru a bank. Otherwise, the original survey is by meets and bounds. IE - a page long, verbal dialog. The original survey was in 1892 and was to transfer a homestead grant from the federal government to a private citizen. My father purchased this land in 1939. Paid cash - no need for a bank or survey.

My little lake is named for the original homesteader - Martin Lk. View attachment 653150
 
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   / Property corner markers #7  
When I was thinking of buying another parcel that would have had to have been split off a larger parcel, the surveyor estimated a minimum of $1,200 but wouldn't give me a high end limit ... 'we'll just have to see how long it takes ...'. That section was heavily overgrown and it was not possible to see from corner to corner let along walk or run a surveyor chain.

Pins? Pins? We don' need no steenking pins!!!!
I'd imagine many/most? surveyors do use GPS (assuming a clear view of the satellites) and lasers these days, but there still have to be markers in the ground so the land owners know where their property lines are, for all kinds of reasons, e.g., building setbacks, right of ways. Every deed I've read simply lists compass directions and a distance.
 
   / Property corner markers
  • Thread Starter
#8  
The last corner surveyed in was my NW corner. The survey crew used GPS equipment. The brand was Trimble.
 
   / Property corner markers #9  
I am astonished at the accuracy of surveys from a hundred or more years ago in the forested areas with hills and lakes. Our property was described in "chains" which were very close to 66' in length. But property lines are not respective of hills so there must have been some rather serious calculations that took place in conjunction with the chains.

In my 40 acres of pasture it is flat, no problems with chains but then it goes up a hillside that is about the same acreage, that was covered by 5-6' diameter fir trees, how did they calculate the hillsides using a chain that could not go through a tree but must go around two or three.

I thoroughly get why property markers are moved as technology changes. I assume all property lines are based upon a theoretical 0' elevation so a property that is at 8000' elevation might in fact be slightly larger than if it were at sea level if we assume a starting point that is at the center of the earth.

I am no surveyor and have to the best of my memory never stayed in a Holiday Inn.
 
   / Property corner markers #10  
I would discourage people from driving rebars next to existing corners. Rebars are commonly used for corners in some places and the rebar could be mistaken as the wrong one. A post or something else is better. A technicality, but if you have an 80, two of the corners could be quarter section corners but the other two would be quarter-quarter corners.

One reason coordinates won’t replace actually monuments, plate tectonics. The earth is moving. Over short periods of time not an issue, but over a period of years, it can amount to a lot. This also varies by region.
 
 
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