<font color="blue"> Are surveyors always right? What if they make a mistake or disagree with another surveyor? </font>
First, my experience...My FIL was a Civil Engineer before he retired. I worked for him doing everything related to surveys; from deed research to field work, from subdivision plot plans to surveys so someone could put a fence in, perc tests, road layouts, etc.. All my experience is pre-GPS and pre-laser. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif We used steel tapes and plumb bobs instead of GPSs and lasers.
Surveyors can and do make mistakes. GPSs, lasers and computers have pretty much eliminated 'math' errors. Having said that, it's still a human being entering the data. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif
The biggest 'error' I've seen is when a deed description doesn't 'close'. If a deed description is accurate, you should be able to start at the starting point (where else /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif ), traverse every boundary, make every turn and distance correctly and, if the deed closes, end up exactly where you started. If you don't, the deed doesn't close. Which line (degree and/or distance) do you adjust?
Additionally, if you look at the descriptions for a deed and compare it to the deeds of all adjacent properties, the descriptions of the common lines should be exactly the same, save the direction. One deed will say '157 feet, 4 inches NW' while the other will say '157 feet, 4 inches SE'. What if the deeds don't match? Which one is right?
That's where the field work comes in. You go out into the field with the deed of the property you are surveying, the deeds of the adjacent properties and you look for landmarks which could indicate which deed is more accurate.
We'd bring all this information back into the office, plot it out, make a judgment call (when deeds disagreed or didn't close) as to what was the most accurate, then go back into the field to mark the property lines and corners. It's up to the surveyor/civil engineer (they aren't the same) to make sense of all this and some of it requires a judgment call. A few inches here or a degree there in order to get a deed to close or to get it to match the adjacent deed might not make a difference in a parcel that's 1,000 acres. It could make a big deal when you're going to have to tell someone to move their fence or pool. In some cases, we looked at more than just the adjacent deeds. We'd pull the deeds from surrounding parcels until we'd reach one that had a geographically significant landmark, e.g., major highway, geologic survey marker, etc. Obviously, we didn't do this for every survey since no one would pay us for this much time for a quarter acre, suburban parcel.
So, no, surveyors are not always right and they can and do disagree. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask away.
