What do you pay for a land survey?

[grayw0lf]

When I bought my 26.4ac, it ended up being about $2,500 in east Alabama.

 

[dodge man]

Yardbike, yes the corners can be converted to GPS coordinates, but to be honest, that's really not important. We tend to use GPS more often now, but it has nothing to do with the boundaries, its just another measuring tool. GPS also doesn't work well if at all in tree cover. If there is a lot of trees on the property, we won't even use the GPS. The easiest piece of rural property to survey for rural areas is a 160 acre parcel. That's 1/2 mile square. Your three 40 acres tracts would lie in 2 different 160 acre tracts(1/4 sections) hence it would take more work to survey your property than a 160 acre tract that was an entire quarter section.

Posts in the ground? I've surveyed many properties where the only evidence is fences and posts. Surveying is a very fine line between excepting fences and other occupation and doing the property in a theoretical manner. Your three 40 acre parcels are probably not exactly 40 acres either, probably either bigger or smaller.

 

[JamesHW]

My 80 acres was originally 89.5, but my mom sold 5 frontage lots over the years making the lot line along the road considerably more complex. Mostly heavily forested and the line runs across a 50 foot deep ravine and back, leaving about a couple of acre triangle on the other side where the SE corner is. 1960's survey positioned galvanized posts at the rear corners, both of which I have located and lots of old pink tape here and there from the survey 50 some years ago. most of the southern line which borders on a NY State lot has clear red blazes on the trees along the line, probably to prevent any errors as that lot has been logged at least twice in my memory (currently on market, or recently sold).

I got a quote about 8 years ago, $7k to survey the whole shebang.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

If your subdividing land, or don't know where the pins are, then you need a survey. If you have a survey of your land, and need to place a shed on it, you need a site plan. I've done several site plans for my land. once to build my house, once to add a garage, once to build a barn. It won't be perfect because it's like 1"=40' or something like that. they just want to make sure your not encrouching on setbacks, septic area, etc.....

When I was building my house the excavator took out a corner pin. cost me $300 for the surveyor to come out and set a new one.

I'm working on a project now where I need a site plan. I have a copy of the survey, which I've entered in my CAD, but I can't physically find any of the pins. If I could find one, I could probably find the rest, but most of the area where the pins should be is grown up. Anyway, they might have to get a surveyor in to locate some corners, but I will still do the site plan myself.

 

[YardBikeBob]

Yardbike, yes the corners can be converted to GPS coordinates, but to be honest, that's really not important. Surveying is a very fine line between excepting fences and other occupation and doing the property in a theoretical manner. Your three 40 acre parcels are probably not exactly 40 acres either, probably either bigger or smaller.

Thank you for the thoughtful reply.

I was curious how the corners would be marked. One corner is on a section boundary. Would I expect some survey mark there? Ironically, that corner is the farthest away from road access. Is the survey process establishing a known survey/legal marker as reference and then careful measurement from there? I have seen what I think are survey crews wearing back packs with little white GPS domes poking up over their heads. I was wondering if their marking would make legal boundaries.

Marking the corners, though, would be barely useful. My property is clearly marked with a barb wire fence. And the fence is clearly decrepit. The fence travels either through forest or in heavy ground cover at the edge of meadows. It crosses ravines and hills. If I wanted to put a new fence on the exact boundary it would require flagging and that would be slogging through a lot of brush.

That would make for an expensive survey. Especially in the spring when the blood-sucking critters are prevalent and vigilant!

OTOH, I was satisfied when I bought the place inside the current fence. A new fence on the exact boundary a few feet on either side of the old fence isn't going to change my quality of life much. And gaining a few dozen square yards would just irritate the neighbors.

Thanks again for the education.

Bob

 

[oosik]

YardBikeBob,
Your fence line sounds like it goes thru country just like mine. There was a "sort of" fence here when we came down 32 years ago. It took me a year to re-establish a strong, tight barbed wire fence around the entire property. I built & maintain 100% of the fence line. Reasons for that are an entirely different story. Here where people measure their available grazing land in sections (section = 360 acres) a fence on the absolute property line is a laughing matter. Fortunately three of my property corners were found thru old surveys made in 1890 for "proving up" on the original homestead. The fourth corner is in the middle of a large, very shallow lake and is of little concern to me. I've tried to establish a corner monument out it the lake but have found that the winter ice always wins.

Besides, surveys are expensive, unnecessary unless one is selling his land, would gain nothing in my case and could irritate one of my two neighbors - which I really do not need.
Out here my nearest neighbor, by road, is 4.5 miles away and a lot of grazing cattle away, too.

 

[dodge man]

If your ground is fenced and you and your adjoined accept it that's god as gold. What makes a survey marker? When Illinois was originally surveyed, about 1816, they were a post in a sod mound. Needless to sat those are long gone. Latter stones were used, currently I use 5/8" rebar that are 30" long.