Civil Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
It cannot be stressed enough that, in many cases, precise measurements, by
themselves, will not establish a property line in the correct location if the
legal rules concerning evidence and procedures for boundary location are
not understood and followed.
2.5 What a Surveyor Can and Cannot Do
A surveyor can locate a written description on the ground. In some cases the client
may provide the surveyor with a written description of the property. In other cases
the surveyor will need to search the public recording system for the deed. The
property description is found in the deed that the client received when the property
was purchased. In most cases the deed will be recorded in the public recording
system at the local, county or state level. The boundaries described in a deed are
often called
Record Boundaries
. Where property has been inherited, the client
may not have a deed in their name and, in such cases, probate records may need to
be searched. The deed may make reference to a plan. If so the surveyor will con-
sider both the plan and the deed as providing a description of the property to be
surveyed.
Although it was stated earlier that surveyors establish property lines, surveyors
cannot always determine the actual extent of ownership with finality. In some situ-
ations the client's deed description accurately describes the extent of ownership,
but in many cases it does not. A property owner can always claim to own all of the
property described in their deed. However, there are many factors that can modify
the record boundaries of ownership. For example, unwritten title, such as adverse
possession can change the location of record boundaries. Prior conveyances by a
common grantor can change the record boundaries. Mistakes in the survey that
created a series of subdivision lots can effectively change the record boundaries of
the subdivision lots.
When it becomes apparent to a surveyor that the record boundary locations
conflict with other evidence of ownership, or there are conflicting deed ele-
ments, all the surveyor can do is to establish the boundaries on the ground in
accordance with the legal rules governing boundary establishment and advise
the client to seek advice from an attorney on how to proceed in order to resolve
the issues. It is important to recognize that boundary locations are based on the
surveyor's opinion of the available evidence and application of the appropriate
legal rules. In such cases, unless the parties can come to an agreement over the
boundary location, litigation may be the only solution. Each client must recog-
nize that, even though they may have paid their surveyor a substantial fee for
locating a boundary, the location is really just an opinion. It does not have the
force of law. This will be discussed in more detail when we look at the survey-
or's authority.
