Surveyor question?

[Jstpssng]

Here, This will add to the confusion. I bought a split off acreage from a farmstead. The surveyor GPS'd all the waypoints ( 15 or more ) put in posts and ribbons. Weeks later a Geocache friend came by with his hopped up GPS and put in all of the coordinates. All but the 1st one were wrong by a 3-5' margin. So, Who's GPS is accurate. This guy does Geocache all over the world. That being said, Another surveyor I talked to about another property I own told me that their unwritten rule is whomever calls the surveyor to come out gets the benefit of the doubt on property lines. Nuts..

No confusion here; the Surveyor pays for a subcription which ties his unit into known points to provide sub meter accuracy... depending on what he has, he makes corrections in the office and has to go out afterward to correct his points. .
The other things that a surveyor has is a license, which he can lose if he consistently does half a**ed work; insurance if he does mess up; and the ability to testify in a court of law if his work ever came into question.

You can trust your friend if you want, but I will believe the word of the guy who has studied and made a career working as a surveyor.

My hand held Garmin gets me very close, and often seems to be right on; but that's just because it isn't as accurate as the survey grade unit.

 

[Oldoak]

No confusion here; the Surveyor pays for a subcription which ties his unit into known points to provide sub meter accuracy... depending on what he has, he makes corrections in the office and has to go out afterward to correct his points. .
The other things that a surveyor has is a license, which he can lose if he consistently does half a**ed work; insurance if he does mess up; and the ability to testify in a court of law if his work ever came into question.

You can trust your friend if you want, but I will believe the word of the guy who has studied and made a career working as a surveyor.

My hand held Garmin gets me very close, and seems to be right on; but that's just because it isn't as accurate as the survey grade unit.

:thumbsup:

 

[Fuddy1952]

I have really good neighbors, we're fortunate. The last long fencing line I did part of it myself and they hired a crew to do the rest. It's right on the line exactly according to the rebar pins. I said I should pay for half and mentioned it twice. They never asked or mentioned it to us, I assume since I never billed them for the section (maybe 1/3rd) I put up.
Now it's really nice having an extra driveway, nice creek crossings, fantastic spring, nice pasture areas I will fence.
Hopefully this may help someone buying land...be 100% sure you know where boundaries are, think about how and where the lines run even if you just run a string. One day you may want to fence it or drive across it.

 

[LouNY]

And then there is my deed description, so many feet along the stonewall to the next intersecting stonewall and so many feet to the next intersection and repeating till the kind of irregular rectangle is completed.
I almost forgot the first stone wall is a measured distance from the centerline of a town road. Not the road I live on but the intersecting one.

 

[Fuddy1952]

Oh...I forgot to mention.
We have friends who essentially are land locked. One has really nice property but the access to it and the beautiful home they built is via a driveway shared by two other people. The other is similar but access by a gravel road shared by a few others. That drive you can barely get through since other parties don't care about the roads condition. Also that property has no timber rights, so although they've lived there for years they lost all their trees to loggers about a year ago.
I couldn't live in a mess like that.

 

[WranglerX]

Here, This will add to the confusion. I bought a split off acreage from a farmstead. The surveyor GPS'd all the waypoints ( 15 or more ) put in posts and ribbons. Weeks later a Geocache friend came by with his hopped up GPS and put in all of the coordinates. All but the 1st one were wrong by a 3-5' margin. So, Who's GPS is accurate. This guy does Geocache all over the world. That being said, Another surveyor I talked to about another property I own told me that their unwritten rule is whomever calls the surveyor to come out gets the benefit of the doubt on property lines. Nuts..

Geocache GPS units are not $5000 land survey most accurate units...

My stupid GPS unit on my Android tablet can not seem to figure out if the error factor is between 54 to 124 for exact point ( which so far out its next to useless in pinpoint work, but it will locate you if are lost but can send me your coordinates)........ Had a hand led unit (Magellan) that was within 10-12 feet..... The are a lot of GPS units out there that accurate enough to drop a atomic bomb on a point with enough accuracy to kill thousands, and the US Geological Survey has stationary units that can tell if tectonic plates on earth are moving mere fractions of a inch....

The GPS system as the transmission and algorithms from the source satellites are most accurate ever, but the GPS receiver is a crapshoot depending on manufacturers receiver and their proprietary calculation algorithm....

Its like anything you get what you pay for...

Dale

 

[Jstpssng]

And then there is my deed description, so many feet along the stonewall to the next intersecting stonewall and so many feet to the next intersection and repeating till the kind of irregular rectangle is completed.
I almost forgot the first stone wall is a measured distance from the centerline of a town road. Not the road I live on but the intersecting one.

Mine simply says "By the land of... By the land of... By the land of... Thence down the road to POB. All of the landowners referenced in the deed have returned to dust long ago. It's my understanding that if monuments are called for in the deed, they hold more weight than the actual bearings and distances.

 

[WranglerX]

Mine simply says "By the land of... By the land of... By the land of... Thence down the road to POB. All of the landowners referenced in the deed have returned to dust long ago. It's my understanding that if monuments are called for in the deed, they hold more weight than the actual bearings and distances.

MY guy (old skool) uses bearing (compass)and distances (string reel with counter) to locate monuments...

Topometric string - hip-chain distance measurer | Dendrotik

Generally all boundary lines I have been associated with have uses monuments... Even the one on adjacent property I used GPS to locate monument was on plot map... On thee of my monuments (3/4 rebar driven into ground) that were hard to locate I places a "T" stake (fence) within a foot or so if rebar to easier locate it for future references...

Dale

 

[Diggin It]

All this discussion of fences on property lines may be necessary in tighter quarters where such things might matter more. I always figured that if I ever put up a fence on newly acquired property that didn't already have one, I'd come inside the line about 10'. That would let me mow and keep things trimmed so the fence line was always visible (you know, crazy four wheelers and all). I'd then set a second line of T-posts spaced further apart along the property line itself, but with no fence wire.

 

[Oldoak]

I'd then set a second line of T-posts spaced further apart along the property line itself, but with no fence wire.

Very wise thing to do. I have see neighbors fight over property where the actual fence was set inside of the owner's property line and years later the neighbor on the outside of the fence is claiming to own all the property right up to the fence. In fact there is one such dispute going on down the road from me at the present time.

Edited to correct missspelling.

 

[Jstpssng]

^^^^
It almost seems that there should be a required course on basic land ownership with emphasis on boundary law before people can buy their first piece of real estate.
It's my observation that the less land somebody owns, the more rabid they are about what they think is theirs despite what their deed says.

MY guy (old skool) uses bearing (compass)and distances (string reel with counter) to locate monuments...

Topometric string - hip-chain distance measurer | Dendrotik

Generally all boundary lines I have been associated with have uses monuments... Even the one on adjacent property I used GPS to locate monument was on plot map... On thee of my monuments (3/4 rebar driven into ground) that were hard to locate I places a "T" stake (fence) within a foot or so if rebar to easier locate it for future references...

Dale

I have both, and used to survey and lay out precommercial thinning blocks where the guys were paid by the acre. I can pace as accurately as using a string box; especially in open areas where the string stretches. If all that you are doing is locating existing monuments the string box or a hand held GPS is indeed accurate enough.

 

[oosik]

The most expensive/accurate personal GPS unit available will not even be on the same continent as the CHEAPEST unit available to a surveyor.

Then there is this - surveyors unit uses much more accurate coordinates - surveyor has training on how to survey and how to use his equipment - all of which a private party does not.

When was the last time you considered having the neighbor's gardener perform open heart surgery on you??? There is a direct parallel.

 

[Zebrafive]

A little off topic, sorry, years ago we cut off 1 3/4 acres and gave it to my mother to build on. We owned on three sides. When she died and we sold this parcel. A neighbor, two houses away, that owns one acre told the new owners he OWNED on all three sides around them. I told them next time they see him ask to see his deed.

 

[yomax4]

The most expensive/accurate personal GPS unit available will not even be on the same continent as the CHEAPEST unit available to a surveyor.

Then there is this - surveyors unit uses much more accurate coordinates - surveyor has training on how to survey and how to use his equipment - all of which a private party does not.

When was the last time you considered having the neighbor's gardener perform open heart surgery on you??? There is a direct parallel.

No doubt that the surveyors have the best equipment and training. No dispute. Fact is when questioned, They came back and Re-marked the lines closer to where the hand held GPS said they were. My point was that even with the best equipment, The Human factor is still there.

 

[Snaker]

Interesting thread. My brother was a registered land surveyor and I helped on occasion.
Modern surveying (as in the last 10-15 years) has been such a change that its a different animal from the older style. Many times a survey would start maybe a mile away or more from a property just to get some reference points.
It was line of sight so you brushed out a sightline or figured in some offsets. Now a tech / assistant moves a GPS tripod around a few foot area until it zero's on a point calculated by a computer.
If a owner wanted to parcel off a piece then a surveyor might have to brush out a 1/4 mile, 1/2 mile along the owners plan border line. If the owner suddenly decides to shift the line a few feet to go around a rock the surveyor might either punch them in the face or ask them "How much money you got?" Now days that wouldn't be a huge deal, just some recalculating for a relatively small price.

As far as some of the griping and groaning about where the line is or should be, the golden property line rule still holds true today. Don't build anything within 10 feet of your property line and you will reduce the change of being surprised when a neighbor challenges it.

 

[bcp]

Bruce