Years ago i had my property surveyed.
The Surveyor went back to a monument and found it was in the wrong place, Thus upsetting the width of the street by 4 feet.
They had already set my rods but amended my survey paperwork.
Im the only one with the right survey..
So later on some people built behind me.
They did not want to pay for a survey so they pulled off my rods.
when i asked them they got snippy and told me to mind my own bizness and they have a right to pull off my rods.
I was really going to tell them it was not right but after that figured i better mind my own bizness.
Now theres 5 houses all pulled off my rods that are measured front to back 4 feet off.
The guy that told me to buzz off does not realize he has 4 more feet in front.
Now hes fighting with his neighbors.
I suppose thats karma but i cant imagine building without your own survey.
Meanwhile i mind my own bizness
Replies
Survey information is never "right or wrong." There are senior and junior surveys, the senior usually using less accurate measurements because of lesser technology to the juniors. In the 1830's-70's distances were measured many ways, even down to the time it took a man on horseback to roll and smoke two cigarettes.
If things get bad enough, some of your neighbors may start to sue one another when they get conflicting answers.
You might want to look 4' away from the new pins to see if there's another set. I've seen that happen many times.
If you have title insurance, and if the surveyor is bonded, you'll have nothing to worry about.
Thank you Tom i forgot i think you said thats what you do. I think one thing i was bringing up was one should not assume anything.
If you pull off a rod you may have no idea where the real boundary is. In my front SW corner theres 3 rods from 3 different surveyors.
Get a plat that shows the width of your street in front. Find one of your neighbors across the street from you front corners, pull over and see which pin fits the recorded distance. You're looking for a 4' error, so you don't really need an instrument. Just use some wood laths, set up your line, tie the tape or chain to their pin, pull over and eyeball which pins line up. A metal detector would help.
That will be $500. Cash...
Your cash is on its way via homing pidgeon;]
"Plat that shows the width of your street" HA! I owned a building on a 40' wide street with street frontage, had been there 25 years before I bought it. Curbs in, side walk , paved etc. Bought and sold the lot next to us and when it was surveyed it was discovered that our survey plat and the cities were both wrong. The original town plat showed the street to have been laid out much wider at one end then the other so as to correct some irregularity in an old survey dating to DLC days.
The opposite side of the street from mine was the straight line, our side made up the taper. End result was our building was sitting 10' inside the street right of way, and at the one corner of the lot next door the street right of way took 15' off the property from the existing curb line. It all got worked out with some costly delays but title insurance told us tough luck , no recourse.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
I'm only familiar with Texas surveying, not the posers in the other 49 states. ;-)
The laws and fundamentals are entirely diffenent from the "township" stuff ya'll use.
However, a street should "control" the areas adjacent to it as that's what the basic reference was.
The only excuse for title insurer not to be liable, is that the plaiintiffs did not pursue it in court. Never, ever give up your right to litigate when a surveyor or planner didn't go back far enough to make an accurate records check.
Insurance companies are good at that, to limit cost...
You are probably correct about the not pursuing it. There was no real point to doing that once the city agreed they would vacate the street right of way in the property holders favor. Just took time is all. But I can assure you there were several calls made and letters sent to the Title company in the meantime and each one was met with a rebuff.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
you know that before the northwest terrotories ( Ohio mostly ) all the survey control was metes & bounds... so survey control is much harder in most of the east
our island was surveyed from the north to the south
and from the south to the north
there was at least one missing lot where they finally met
hey ... a great book for surveyors... "Measuring America"... very interesting readingMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
"Measuring America." Is that an old book, or is it still available? I'd like to read it.
Thanks.
i'll see if i can dig it up and mail it to youMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Much obliged. If you can't find it, I'll go to Amazon.
tom.. i looked for my copy , but i must have loaned it outlooks like you can pick it up fro under $2 on amazoni enjoyed it immenselyhttp://www.amazon.com/Measuring-America-Wilderness-Fulfilled-Democracy/dp/0802713963
Mike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Rod up and chain ahead.
Yeah, what are surveyors liable for? The company I work for bought a 156'x100' lot, divided into two. Hired a surveyor. The surveyor pinned the corners. Marked the front pins "property corner". We had one slab poured, and the other prepped, formed, plumbing roughed in, etc. when I noticed that there really didn't seem to be enough room in the back yard for garages. In fact, the lots were only 126'. Turns out that the city took a 30' easement, and the surveyor didn't really bother to point out that our lots were only 126' now. Well, no big deal we thought, just scrunch the garages in a bit closer. So we resubmitted our site plan to the city. Wait a minute, they say, your lots are too small. We get a stop work order, blah blah blah. Wound up having to buy some more land, which was for sale luckily. The long and the short of it is you can never let your guard down in this business.
Title insurance here doesn't cover survey unless there is a new ALTA survey and an extra premium paid to insure it.
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
~ Voltaire
i always recommend to my customers that they pay extra for the granite mounents
too many times i'll go back into the woods in a remote corner ...... sometimes it looks like an impact area with all the different survey stakes in the vicinity
there seems to be a lot more respect for monumented corners than there is for oak survy stakes
i've seen wells drilled on wrong lots
roads laid out wrong
wrong lots surveyed
all by registered surveyors...... hey surveyors are people too, right ?
i probably trained a lot of them at Ft. Sill in the 8 week Artillery Survey courseMike Smith Rhode Island : Design / Build / Repair / Restore
Good old Ft. Sill. What an armpit.
Modern survey corners are rebar with plastic/metal caps with grid reference information on them, along with the company.
Haven't seen granite monuments set recently. All of the older suubdivisions have some kind of concrete with metal, like a brass or copper pin to stop decomposition.
I always taught my guys to "tie" every important point down to at least three objects, like nails in trees, "X's" on rock or concrete, or a buildiing corner. Then you could always replace it quickly.
"like nails in trees..."iffen I didn't kinda like you, I'd put a pox on your house...."there's enough for everyone"
Sounds like you might have trained my older brother. Fortunately for we builders he went on to other interests and left his interest in surveying behind him.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
Title insurance, in Oregon at least, will doing nothing for a survey error.I had a similar thing happen years ago when I lived in Eugene; I was selling the house to move down here and the buyer wanted a survey. Original surveyor was a family owned business that was no longer in business and the owners were deceased.I lost 15' of poison oak and brush off the back of my lot, and had to dump $1k off the selling price...but it kicked off a new survey of the entire plat, which was pretty built up since the original survey....Those in a newer development behind me had small lots and big houses and it was a real mess. Though it wasn't my fault, they'd have probably burned me out if I'd stayed living there!
As I said the problem got solved without to much trouble. The city was more than willing to work with us since if they didn't they would have had to foot the bill to change the street, well that and just across the RR tracks from the lot I was selling was the oldest church in town.
It too sat into the city street right of way! God and Govt can work wonders when they combine forces . ;-)
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
Are you sure that's the way it works in all States?I've run into some folks before who had peculiar notions about survey and who came from a State that begins with a T.
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
~ Voltaire
Probably Toklahoma...
Here banks typically require an as built foundation survey for the construction loan.
I have not seen that. But on mortgage they will have a mortgage survey. And they are stamps as only to be used for that purpose.And the neighbor to the north's mortgage survey had a line mark Assumbe Boundry, which was well over on my side, but it was built in 1935.The new owner had a survey done and it shows the encroachment, but 7 ft different than what my survey shows the encroachment.And the corner of the guy across the street is in the middle of the road.The laid the road out with nice sharp changes in directions. But roads hve gental curves.And all the title insurance that I have seen has a speicific clause that they don't cover boundry disputes..
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Never seen such a thing as a mortgage survey. We do see the occasional requirement of an ILC: Improvement Location Certificate
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
~ Voltaire
Hey Matt, I was under the impression the house had to pinned to the lot (cantilevers and all) to convert the construction loan to a mortgage... at least that's what BB&T requires. If dogs run free, then what must be,
Must be, and that is all.
True love can make a blade of grass
Stand up straight and tall.
In harmony with the cosmic sea,
True love needs no company,
It can cure the soul, it can make it whole,
If dogs run free.
I don't know about that....
And I guess I should as I have a BB&T mortgage that was converted from a construction to perm loan.
OTOH, I'm not involved with people getting mortgages on the houses I build...
Not around here.
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
~ Voltaire
The 2 banks we use (my company) require as-built foundation surveys. We have been over and over this with them as both myself and our book keeper feel it's is a waste of money since the surveyor has already been out there at at least once if not twice to mark the house location. The only variable is weather I built the house where the surveyor pined it. If the setbacks are extremely tight to the building envelope I can see it, like 2" to spare - but as long as there is a foot or so I say no worries. Banks tend to worry though...
As an un-related item, in a subdivision I am building there are 7 lots that the adjacent land owner think are encroaching on his land. In question is a strip of land that starts at a width of zero and widens out to around 6' over something like 600'. The old guy's survey was from something like 1947. We suggested he get a new survey. He hired the same surveyor the developer was using. WRONG! Anyway, the crazy thing is that the discrepancy between the new surveys and the old one from 1947 leaves a "no man's land" strip between the properties of a few feet. The bottom line is that the old guy, over a course of 50 years or whatever, just plain forgot where the property corner was. He kept telling me there was an old car axle driven into the ground. I used a metal detector and looked for that axle for at least an hour - no dice. So, really where he thinks the property line is is something like 8' further than it is. Although none of his buildings (house and out-buildings) are encroaching on the true line one of his sheds is very close and his fence is like 7' over. To me though, the funny thing is if you have 5 or 10 acres of land, why build right up to one side? It is pretty flat land... My own surveyor checked the 7 lots and they are in the proper place. Of course the old guy is pi$$ed at his old neighbor for selling out to a developer...
The lesson being is not to trust surveys that weren't done with modern survey equipment and techniques, and worst still, don't trust someone's recollection of where property lines are.... Known points of reference have to be used too. My surveyor was telling me that sometimes they have to use a monument (terminology?) as much as a mile away, but the use of GPS (I think he said) has made that a whole lot easier. I guess those monuments are set by USGS?
As far as the OP - he says he had a survey done and the pins (steel pipes I assume) were put in the wrong spots, and he had it corrected on paper but the irons were not corrected. Since then it has caused problems. No doubt that hind sight is 20-20, but maybe he should take a look in the mirror for the one who didn't see that things were done properly and followed through with in the first place...
If you put up a fence along those false monuments, you'll eventually own it from them.
Bob's next test date: 12/10/07
Maybe.
"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."
~ Voltaire
I am not sure I understand.
Are your the false pins located 4' inside your actual surveyed property or 4' outside your actual surveyed property.
You either stand to gain 4' or loose 4' of property after this amount of time.
sorry i lost my email. What happened was the surveyor went back to a monument, way back. When he did this he was right and trumped all other surveyors. This caused 2 streets to be completely off 4 feet. My lots are 200 feet deep and go from street to street.
So i lost 4 feet on one side and just gained it on the other side. When the fellow built behind me he pulled off my rods that are on the road. I lost nothing but he does not know his property is 4 feet more in front.. As you said they fix things fast and act like so what.
You do it though and its a different story The city just shifted both streets. If i had not had such a good surveyor it never would have been found
Now I understand. If you are using all of the property your surveyor said you have and
the neighbors are using none of it then you are in good shape, if not
Jim may be right though about the Adverse Possession bit. Oregon has some tough laws on that issue is what I understand.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
Its from street to street so it means nothing to me. Whats so funny is he got caught digging up the rods on his side yard trying to steal 5 foot from the widow next door. She called me and i went over and told him its against the law so he stopped. Its karma he does not know his front yard goes 5 foot further into the street then it really does.
Must make you chuckle to know what you know.
They can't get your Goat if you don't tell them where it is hidden.
I thought it was illegal to move a survey rod.