Surveying question

Richard · May 24, 2002

We have an odd sized parcel of land..dropped in middle of the family farm. All 3 parties (2 "farm" owners, father in law, uncle in law and us) agree that it makes sense to straighten out some lines.

Told the wife, we should all agree on lines, THEN get surveyor out to "print" them so to say. She of course..says...NO..go make appointment for surveyor..THEN we'll figure out where lines go... Well..since it's HER father and HER uncle... I'm now off to find surveyor.

I seem to recall wisdom here that said..get it done via GPS, and be sure to tell surveyor that it's to be recorded? Something like that. Have done a search and thus far..not finding the thread that I THINK I recall.

So.. In a nutshell..what is the best way to "accurately" nail this thing down?

Should I get the ORIGIONAL surveyor that plotted our land? What if he doesn't do the gps thing? He also happens to be about 1 hour away..and there are several within 15 miles...(no idea how we ended up with dude from another city)

An an aside...given the wealth of information here..I've been wondering just how many more posts before ALL the worlds problems and questions have been catagorized here with great wisdom!! Once we reach that mark...what THEN??? I shudder at the thought of my daily fix "reaching the end" /w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif

Richard

cowboydoc · May 24, 2002

Do GPS and get it recorded with the title and abstract company. Really doesn't matter who originally surveyed it. Be prepared though it isn't cheap. Minimal surveying usually starts at $500 and goes up from there.

JonLeonard · May 24, 2002

A few years ago my family went through a property split like that. We had the property surveyed, and got several copies of the map.

Then we could draw in, talk, redraw, etc. When all parties agreed to the boundaries, we had the surveyor put survey stakes in and draw the final map.

Lastly, we took the map to a lawyer to draw up new deeds. Since your property has already been deeded, you will probably have to "sell" some of your property to the others and they to you and then file the new deeds.

Make very sure all your utility lines, roads, easements, etc are on the final map that will be recorded. You dont want to have problems down the road when one party sells and the new owner doesnt want your water line running through their backyard.

Jon

TerryinMD · May 24, 2002

Sounds like some good sage advice being suggested.

1. have all the "parties" agree prior to getting the surveyor
2. have the surveyor do his magic and get it on a plat for recording (get an estimate from them)
3. go to the local deeding office (County Recorder of Deeds where I live) and find out the exact steps you need to follow (find out the recording costs - might have multiple costs invovled)
4. get a title lawyer to finalize the steps (make SURE you get a estimate from this guy!!)

There may be some twists and turns and having all of the information will make the process go alot easier. Especially when your dealing with family members - know the rules and have everyone agree to them. Saves for some bruised feelings later on.

Hope this helps.

Terry

dmccarty · May 27, 2002

Richard,

Good advice so far.

Work out the easement issues if they have not been done already.

If the property is already deeded and surveyed I'm not sure what
anyone is going to aggree on. The deeded lines are the deeded
lines. Gettng it surveyed to show the lines might be interesting.

If you are going to straighten the property lines then it seems like
the surrounding deeds will have to change and thus be reregistered.
Seems like that means property will be changing hands.

Talk to the Registor of Deeds at the county. They can tell you what
you need to do. Talk to them prior to getting the surveyor.

Get a good surveyor. I ended up using the surveyor that origionally
did my land 20 years ago. They did an excellent job. My neighbor
tried to do it on the cheap and got a not good surveyor. He had to
come out at least twice to somewhat get things right. I'll get my
surveyor to come out and redo a line that the dummy surveyor
messed up.

FYI, the surveyors I used charged roughly $400 dollars per lot line.
The line is about 700 feet long give or tak. This was heavily wooded
and they had a four man crew hacking the line.

Later,
Dan McCarty

Richard · May 27, 2002

Thanks for the advice so far..just to clarify why need survey..

3 houses in middle of 250 acres..each house plot let's just say is 2 acres. Our house and Uncle next door have maybe a 50 foot "no mans land" that is actually "farm" and not deeded to either household. I've been suggesting to all here that we need to maybe split that in half and absorb it into one or others or both house plots so that when the farm gets divided at some somber time in future, we do not have 12 "owners" of that 50 foot (and very useless) swath of land.

My goal is to butt up all 3 house boundaries so there is no commonly owned land in between. In addition to that (as primary reason) we are straightening OUR lines relative to the farm (common) land, not at expense of any "house" deeded land. Clear as mud?

/w3tcompact/icons/grin.gif

rozett · May 31, 2002

Richard,

You will need to understand how the property is recorded now. If there is one deed for the entire property vs. 3 or 4 deeds. If it is just one, you may need to go through the subdivision process with the local authority. We bought our 98 acres 18 months ago. The original owner (in the same family 200 years) wanted to keep the 6 acres across the street, but found out it was all on one deed. He decided it wasn't worth the hassle to break it off.

We had an old yankee style deed ... start here, go in this direction to so-and-so's property, turn left go to .... So we hired a surveyor. He did a traditional survey of the road and our boundries along the road. Everything else was GPS. He took lots of data points then plugged them into the magical software and spit out the plat. We asked for a very detailed drawing that included all interior stone walls and woods roads and then layed the USGS elevations (in 10 ft gradients) on top of the layout. He had several hundred data points. Since we are in hilly, forested country, this turned out to be very useful for determinng where to harvest timber for pasture and orchard.

We asked for the final plat to be recorded with the Registrar of Deeds. The surveyor took care of that without a lawyer and provided us a copy with the book and page numbers. In your case, a lawyer is a good idea because of the utility right-of-ways.

//bruce

DocHeb · May 31, 2002

If I may be so bold, how much did this extensive survey cost?

rozett · Jun 1, 2002

The total cost was $7000. That was a boundery survey of 98 acres, plus the interior walls and roads, plus the elevation info. He researched the deeds back to 1790 for our property and each abutter . Our parcel was originally 3 parcels that were eventually joined in the mid-1800's. He recorded the results with the county Registrar of Deeds. And he delivered to me three copies of the large color drawing, plus the copy of the recorded drawing (the Registrar will only accept black & white drawings). Both drawings listed every deed transfer (including for abutters) with book and page numbers.

All in all it was a very complete and thorough survey. His work exceeded my expectations.

riptides · Jul 16, 2002

New question on surveying: using exsisting topic title

So like I have all these points on a plat map with lattitude and
longitude and degrees.

Can I plot them with a simple compass? I am not interested in recording information, but I have a corner post that I think
is now under a beaver dam. /w3tcompact/icons/shocked.gif

Rather than call someone out for the minimum 500 bucks and
the answer I *know* I'll probably get, what is the *easy* way out????

-TIA
-Mike Z.