In this video we talk to Wayne who is a licensed surveyor. Wayne tells us why it's important to get a "Property Iron" or "Property Pin" locate before installing a fence.
VIDEO HERE (10:47 minutes)
In this video we talk to Wayne who is a licensed surveyor. Wayne tells us why it's important to get a "Property Iron" or "Property Pin" locate before installing a fence.
VIDEO HERE (10:47 minutes)
"I use a shovel...." classic!
ReplyDeleteI am surprised that the first thing out of his mouth is I call 811 to locate all buried lines.
DeleteThe last thing you do before construction of the fence is call 811. To locate the property line does not require knowing where buried utilities are at. I am dual registered as professional Engineer and Professional Land Surveyor.
DeleteI loved his answer about easements etc, "I don't know"... That's a question for the planning department.
ReplyDeleteMy summer job all through high school years was the dumb end of the chain via machete and digging holes for perc tests and monuments with post hole diggers. My friends dad owned a land survey co. It was a fun job except for the occasional property disputes.
ReplyDeleteKlaus
Same here. I was a helper '77- '78. Steel tape (chain), machete, plumb bob, sighting rod, rod level, dip-needle and an old transit on a solid wood tripod. Nothing fancy. Some days could be a real character builder.
DeleteWhen I find the corners, I pound in a foot and a half of 5/8" rebar and leave at least 10" showing. Then I tap down a white PVC sleeve with a cap over that rebar. Very easy to spot over the years.
ReplyDeleteUnless you are a licensed surveyor and produce a valid survey, reported to your county assessor, that is not a legally valid product.
DeleteUm Sure, OK. Suggestion, watch the video. Did you notice long it took him to locate the corner monuments on a small residential plot? Would a monument be easier to locate if, say, something visible was located nearby, maybe even right next to it, for example, something durable and easily spotted? Something that might last a little longer than a softwood stake with surveyor's blaze on it? Something like that, I dunno, might be kind of convenient as an easily-checked reference point from time to time, when stringing barbed-wire fences through the thickets and that kind of thing. I could be wrong.
DeleteOhio requires a minimum 30" long minimum 5/8" pin as a corner monument. You can use concrete, or a pipe, however. 18" is fine in NC where I live now.
DeleteTHIS!
DeleteMy dad decided to mark the rebar & steel pipe with white PVC pipe extensions and hang white chain over the pipe sticking out of a cliff side shortly after they were placed. It made finding those pins so much easier for me some 35-40 years later. If they weren't marked, I probably wouldn't have found them despite Google earth and a known corner pin / azimuth.
Always mark your pins with high visibility pipe. It also makes them safer since you never know who might tromp around looking for them and trip on a rusty old spike sticking out of the ground.
- Arc
Surveyor pins are a convenience, but they themselves do not set property boundaries. Once upon at time, they did, but nowadays the property boundaries are set by longitude and latitude, not physical pins or boundary stones. Nevertheless, pins are usually set, although they are not legally determinative.
ReplyDeleteThe issue with fences is that hey must be entirely on the owner’s property, not on the property line itself. There are other issues. Privacy fences must be set with the finished side out, etc.
Your first paragraph is entirely inaccurate.
DeleteRegarding fences, might what to check local and state regulations.
Quite true. I have as yet to see any description where the corners are referenced by Lat/Long. I have seen state plane coordinates, but never geographic.
DeleteBuilding a fence without knowing where the property line is actually located is not a wise act. Zoning and development regs might have requirements for fences.
My (probably incorrect and outdated) understanding is that if the land is resurveyed, established fences or structures of 15-20+ years that are on adjacent property are "infringements" listed on the survey or adverse possession applies and whoever was maintaining the property takes ownership. The deed itself lays out the lat/long and corner markers for property boundaries while the metal pins are simply a "close enough" solution down to a few feet; GPS gets it down to a few inches these days. Before GPS, physical markers placed with the ole "drag and chain" method from an impartial third party were the best people could do and served for effective boundary markers. Most people can't afford to throw around several thousand dollars for a new survey so they still use the vintage pins placed by previous generations and I wouldn't be surprised if the concrete corner markers by the freeway here date back to the early 1900s.
DeleteI rebuilt a perimeter fence on the other side of the farm and both my family and my neighbor's made sure to agree upon the placement of the posts going in next to the rebar pins because that fence will likely remain as the property boundary for another 100+ years. (They actually got a little land back because the original fence was shotgunned.) The pins and that fence might not be the property line when compared to the deed (lat / long), but it is the property line for all practical purposes and does have legal weight after being in use for decades. The fence seems to keep cattle in well enough and my neighbors are welcome to resurvey that leg of land, pull all the posts up and move the fence a few feet over if they really think they can do better.
I'm aware the video is more of the small neighborhood dealings and can't really be compared to fencing in large areas of rough terrain but these issues aren't always clear cut across the whole country. Fences here probably wiggle back and forth through both properties and are more of a mutual matter in regards to maintenance.
- Arc
A good line fence makes honest neighbors.
ReplyDeleteMy first father-in-law was The Go To Land Surveyor in Dover Delaware, (aaahhh no history there). I worked with him off and on while I was in and out of the Active and Army National Guard. I learned so much from that guy, he was a serious awesome dude. (Side not he was on the DEARNG marksmanship team for years, all he did was shoot in competitions for the state). But yes a current, accurate, up to date survey of your property is sooo important. These fence folks are smart getting the lot corners marked. Fond memories as a land surveyor I have, and heading up the wetland delineation branch, performing 404 wetland studies. Now that is a can of worms for another day.
ReplyDeleteThanks Kenny, you always have the coolest content on the internet. HANDS DOWN!!!!!
Wetland delineation is something of a black art. You need to get a specialist to mark it, so the Surveyor can locate it and place it on any drawings to be used by a developer.
DeleteI built a house and moved into it and had a next door neighbor that we shared property lines with. He was gone fishing a lot and his wife was there. We had a wiener dog that we would let out and it would shit on their lawn once in awhile. All she had to do was say something and we would have figured something out. Anyway, rather than say something, she knocked on the door and my wife answered and the neighbor handed my wife a bag of dog shit and turned around and left. We got the hint but I always thought she was kind of a bitch for doing that.
ReplyDeleteA few months later the husband decides to build a fence separating our place from his. He got it started, string lines were in place, yada. After work I decided to take a look see down the property line and sure enough, he was about 6" on my property. I let him build it and then let him know about the bad news. I then told him about the dog shit incident and that I didn't want to hear another word about dog shit or any other problems again as long as I live here. Oh, and we'll keep that fence business between us.
It was a spec house I built and I moved a couple months later. Last time I lived in a neighborhood.
I can't see how this character was able to flag it up based on just finding 2 irons. He needed to find irons on either side of this property, load everything in his data collector and point stake the other irons. If they are in reason according to the plat he is good to go. He needs to prove where he is at. He didn't find any monuments, he found irons. Monuments are used as boundaries for entire subdivisions whereas irons are for individual properties. Some folks use rebar instead of irons. I never trusted rebar. Anybody can drive a rebar. A capped iron was primo, the cap has a 4-digit number (at least in FL) identifying the licensed surveyor. His robot might have been "total station" but he wasn't using it that way, he had a data collector on his rod. The technical name is "theodolite" but we just called it a transit or gun.
ReplyDeleteThis is not letting me post with my Google account, so To Whom It May Concern: I identify as Sheik Yer'booti.
Technically speaking, the iron rods used to mark the corners are monuments. Many locales have regulations as to the type of monuments used to monument the outside lines of a subdivision, usually capped concrete posts.
DeleteOhio requires iron pins or pipes to carry a plastic cap with the register number of the surveyor setting on the cap. You could use an aluminum or brass cap, if you like, with the same registration number requirement.
Anywayz, you point out the reason why simply recovering two rods and calling it good is foolish. A licensed surveyor is held to a fairly stiff standard of care and he accepts the easy stuff as dispositive, he is running a serious risk. You must locate other corner monuments, bot on the other side of the lot, as well as those on the other side of the adjoiner's lot to be sure those are the actual corner monuments.
Moved into a house and was given a property survey. It clearly showed the fence between my neighbors house and mine. The fence created an X crossing the property line from his side to mine. We talked about it and let it lie.
ReplyDeleteOver time, the incorrect fence will become the line in many jurisdictions.
DeleteNot so on the corners of lots if they are in a plated recorded subdivision plan. The datum will come from the plan. One can located the control, set a back site, establish the 360 degree horizon, then set the corners using the recorded datum from the plan. Of course when outside surveyors enter into the equation, those not of the firm whom designed the subdivision, they can induce errors into the lot corner pins.
ReplyDeleteNow if the lots are old and all helter skelter, one then needs to go way back to the first established property boundaries. And establish whom was first. Trust me I have seen this several times back in Delaware. I have some really cool stories about searching for stones, carved stones, that were established back in the 1700s. Even had scrolls with dukes wax stamp and signature to use as a reference. The story gets very cool, included even a beer challenge.
Original monuments control in every case. When retracement is required to set new corners, those are automatically considered in error. And if, by chance, the original is discovered and is in disagreement with the newly set monument the Surveyor that did not find the original may be in a spot of trouble. Much depends on the situation, but if a large building is erected in dependence upon the new monuments, and they are shown to be in error you can imagine the problem the Surveyor will have going forward.
DeleteSaw an old map that showed "shotgun barrel" as a property corner.
Deletethat is bs you can set your corner pin yourself if you have plat or another corner pin and a tapemeasuer.
ReplyDelete