How accurate is a property line survey?

[Eagleview]

A very good point has been made . It's YOUR fence on YOUR property , what are you telling me about it for ? Do what you like with it . I think how it may have come about is that the string line has been run on the center line and then the posts stood against that line and back filled , which would make it around 3" out on one side . If he wants a block fence and you want timber i would let him put up his block fence at his cost and you clad the other side with timber at your cost , making sure the join is in fact on the center line .

 

[RonMar]

Well I am no lawer(but I did sleep in a holiday in last night). When he says he is going to sue, say "For 3 inches?, Go right ahead" What is the worst you have to loose? Even using his survey, 3" is not much. If you go to court, I would take in any old pics you have of the place showing the history of the fence.

You have 30 years of history showing that fence as being the delinieation of your property and the adjoining lot. And for that length of time, you have honestly believed that to be the accurate line based on the old surveys. 3" surely does not show any intent to defraud, by whoever built the fence. 30' might, but not 3". Heck 3" is probably less than the thickness of the fence.

Oh, and when it is your turn to speak to the judge, I woud start, just how you started here. "My new neighbor approached me to ask me to pay half HIS new fence cost, to which I refused. Then he had his survey, and here we are arguing over 3"..."

It was mentioned before, that existing structures are rarely torn down, that is why it is important to catch transgressors before they get something built and can establish history. Worst case, that is all the judge will order, as there are surely no damages associated with 3" of property use. That is what you would be out if you cave to his threats/demands, so what is the risk? Politely call his bluff, then go have your day in court, if your new "Neighbor" is willing to risk the lawer fees on 3" of gain...

Since you have been using and maintaining that 3" strip for so long, I think you have an excellent case for adverse possession. When you call his bluff, you might ask him if he knows what adverse possession is. If he dosn't, tell him to ask his lawer about it...

Good Luck.

 

[tractor888]

I'm just thinking here..

You take the fence down carefully, saving all. Cut the posts flush with the ground. Move off to a safe spot.

Let him build his new wall..

Now stand your old rustic panels against the new wall, with any luck you will just be able to fasten the posts to the new wall.

So from your side you still see your rustic fence, and he has his ugly masonry wall on his side.

I would only do that if I there's no other options... I owned the property with the fence already there for 22 years. He bought the property about 8 months go and his home still under construction. My communication skill must be horrible. Even some of you here believe that I pissed him off because I don't know how to properly say no and it's understandable for him to be come after me. I guess I'm too old to understand this stuff.

I'm just thinking out loud here. What if this situation is reversed? I move next to a millionaire's house with a wall all around his castle. I post a note at his door and ask him to call me. When he calls, I propose to him that we should tear down his wall and ask him to pay half the cost to build a cattle fence along our property line. What do you think his answer would be? Is there a better way for him to say no.

Anyway, back to my question on the topic of this thread... Anybody know that's the typcial tolerance for a property line survey? If it's +/- a few inches then I can just ignore him. I will personally defend my fence when it becomes neccesary. I don't want to waste my money on lawyers or paid to get more surveys. If the accuracy is a fractions of an inch, then I probably have to move my fence or try bluffing with the adverse procession route.... I don't think it worth the effort to actually try to claim 3 inches of land. Thanks for your comments.

 

[WarrenF]

AWWW heck....simply call up your local TV Station and tell the reporter your tale of woe. Make sure you have not shaved in a day or two, and wear some fairly grubby looking clothing, when they come out to interview you.

Tell them about your large wife and family you have to support and how this money grubbing millionaire is threatening to sue you over THREE INCHES of land. You might even wonder out loud how you can afford to buy milk for your children. Tell them with a tear in your eye how it was that very fence that attracted you and the wife to this home TWENTY TWO YEARS AGO. Make sure you show them some notches on the fence where you tracked the growth of your kids....and where the dog chased a cat through the rails. Maybe make your hands shake all the time they are there, so they can see the STRESS this tussle has created in you. Have the wife show up for the interview with her mascara smeared...tell the TV Station how she can't sleep anymore and her eyes are stained so badly from crying and her mascara running.

Then sit back and wait. If you finally get to court go to court the same way.

Seriously, don't fold because of a threatened lawsuit!!! I know some have chastised you for your answer. Were it me and someone threatened me with a lawsuit, I would tell them to first of all get in line....and please come to my house and use my phone to call your attorney. Then just sit and watch. Remember you are now playing poker. Don't fold to early and don't show your aces too soon. I would bet he is simply trying to bluff you.

 

[Wayne County Hose]

Tractor888,

After re-reading your original post, there probably isn't much you could have told this guy to not be in the situation you're in with him. probably the only thing you could have told him to satisfy him is something like this- "Okay, send me an estimate and I'll write you a check." Anything other than that, and he is going to do what he did.

Basically, just the way I am, if I wanted to put up a fence, I would not be asking my neighbor the share the cost. If you want a fence on your property, you pay for it. Maybe call him up and tell him you would like to put up a new garage on your property and maybe he could pay half.

You want to do a dirty trick? If he's never around, go move the stake 6" onto your property. Why you ask? Because........you let him put up his costly, almost impossible to move masonry fence on the line. Then, have a survey done showing the fence on your property. Now, take him to court to have that big expensive fence torn out and redone. Ever try to move a masonry fence? I don't care what kind of masonry fence, it ain't easy.

Revenge is a dish best served cold.

 

[CurlyDave]

I've been told that with the GPS tools that are now used in surveys, that property lines can be identified to within fractions of an inch. Before GPS, surveys could be off by several feet, as Curly Dave noted.

So, it certainly seems possible that a GPS based survey could accurately identify such an error in a property line that was last surveyed 30 yrs ago.

Whoever told you that GPS will get things within fractions of an inch is blowing smoke. The very, very best that civilian GPS can do is +/- 10 ft. And that is under ideal conditions.

- - - -

Another note: Just because someone has a laser rangefinder which can measure to half a hundredth of a foot does not mean they can absolutely place a corner to anything like that accuracy. They might, under very good conditions, place corners relative to each other (although that is debatable), but to tie this to an absolute co-ordinate system to that accuracy is just plain not possible.


- - - -

Tractor888: I think this whole thing is going to blow over if you just stand your ground. There is no law that says you have to respond to any of what your neighbor, or his lawyer, says. In fact your best bet is not to, just don't respond. I know this is hard to do, but you will be far better off for it. But, if there is a lawsuit do not attempt to defend it yourself. At that point you have to get an attorney. No non-lawyer stands a chance in court against a lawyer.

 

[jinjimbob]

Whoever told you that GPS will get things within fractions of an inch is blowing smoke. The very, very best that civilian GPS can do is +/- 10 ft. And that is under ideal conditions.

Incorrect, the ones that surveyors use can get to witin 2 mm
Home - Leica Geosystems
They are very expensive though, they also use these for monitoring bridge movements.

A hand held unit can get to within a metre. They use a combination of satellites and land stations.

A device made for the driving/hiking market might only get within 10 feet though.

The military accuracy is also available to all commercial devices now, has been for years. They can disable this at anytime though.

 

[MikePA]

You want to do a dirty trick? If he's never around, go move the stake 6" onto your property.

Odds are the stakes you can see are simply guard stakes. The real ones marking the line are flush with the ground. So, moving them won't accomplish anything.

Also, no surveyor worth the title would be happy getting within a few feet on a survey. Particularly in this situation, a subdivision lot.

tractor888 - It's not going to cost a lot of money for you to get one of your property lines marked. Subdivision lots are the easiest to do and take the least research. Spend a few bucks to know for sure.

 

[Egon]

I'm only familiar with survey equipment and accuracies of days of long past and in Canada only and those memories are very dim indeed. If I can correctly recall there were at least four levels of accuracy for monuments starting with the Geodetic level down to the legal land system. Perhaps some of the principles remain the same.

I would assume the local land surveys are on the bottom of the list for accuracies and are taken from monuments that are of higher order. Each order will have a definite limit on accuracy variation. I would also assume that the present local surveys must all start and stop at an existing monument or pin to make a circuit and complete the loop.

Therefore I would assume there is margin of error that is present in the survey. For some reason my feeling is that three inches would fall into this allowable error margin when all the other allowances get added in.

Hopefully there is someone here who can properly explain what I'm trying to say.

For the original poster go talk to a registered land surveyor in your area to get more information on accuracy and allowable deviation.

 

[RobJ]

Now stand your old rustic panels against the new wall, with any luck you will just be able to fasten the posts to the new wall.

If I alone just paid for a new fence on my property and someone starts fastening things to it...after all this...then we're going to court. At this point I'd stay away.

 

[charlz]

So what do you really want out of the deal?

a) Things to stay the way they are, just the wooden fence, nothing behind it (on his side)

b) Wooden fence and you don't care what is on his side.

c) You don't really care, just don't want to pay anything.

 

[Tig]

My property was surveyed in 93. The neighbour survey his in 03. The neighbour's surveyor dug up one of my stakes and moved it diagonally 3' giving me 1' more property. Seems that there is room for very basic errors.
On the other hand my neighbour does like to treat my entire yard as his own when it comes to driving cars, delivering building materials, burning garbage, cutting down bushes, finding neatly piled firewood etc. I am getting those things sorted out with a series of discussions, T bar fence posts and bushes. In the mean time he has received a letter from another neighbour's lawyer regarding similar issues. A third neighbour sent him a bill for some damages that he did not own up to. After all that, I now seem like a lesser jerk to my neighbour.
Give your issue time and see where it goes. He may loose interest or be distracted by other "problems". Don't fight him, it will only reinforce the his will to win this "battle".

 

[sunspot]

In my rural area of Alabama, the surveyors just locate the old iron posts at the corners of the property. Do you have theses? If so, take an eyeball from one down the line.



I have an old 4 strand fence on my property and it's falling apart. The new neighbor wants to re-fence for a horse that is wife wants. He said he will put the new one 1 inside his/our property line. I told him "Thank you".
BTW, his estimate came in for 3 sides wire and one side chain link at $15,000.00 on twenty acres. He told me he will fence in less, he ain't got the money.

 

[Tig]

On my survey iron bars are indicated by I/B or IB (I forget exactly) but they are marks on paper and can be found resonably easy.
Someone mentioned moving them. That is a federal crime around here. Don't do that.

 

[Highbeam]

Surveyeors will not remove other surveyors stakes. That is bad mojo and a crime. Same if you pulled the corners that a neighbor paid to have set.

I paid 3000$ to have my corners set and the survey recorded. This stuff is not cheap.

As far as accuracy, it is "garabage in = garbage out" The tools used by surveyors allow extremely good accuracy. 1/16" or so. The surveyors aren't always given exact reference points though. One of my property corners is a "burnt cedar stump" which is also a section corner and this means that the surveyor uses his extremely accurate instrument to measure between a stump and a pinhead. Well let me tell you that the center of that stump is not in the same place it was 100 years ago.

Your question of whether 3" is within the range of accurate survey is not answerable.

 

[mjarrels]

IP = iron pin... usually will be marked IP found or IP set.

mark

 

[RonMar]

IF he takes you to court, I would NOT hire a lawer for this. It is simply not worth paying 10+ times the cost in laywer fees, of a 30 year old fence to defend that fence... Someone said it earlier. for 3", only the lawyers would win.

 

[tractor888]

So what do you really want out of the deal?

a) Things to stay the way they are, just the wooden fence, nothing behind it (on his side)

b) Wooden fence and you don't care what is on his side.

c) You don't really care, just don't want to pay anything.

B, B and B. I do realized nothing I can do on his side whether or not I care of like what's there. I do care a lot about my fence and want to keep it there. I can't prevent all the changes going on in the neighborhood but I don't want anything change on my property.
It's obvious to me now that this guy is out to pick a fight. If I have unlimited fund, I have no problem playing along. Unfortunately, I don't.
I have spoken to local land surveyors and they don't give you a straight answer. They probably already knew the situation and aware of whatever they do will be challenged. They don't give advice. They only do survey. Another word, pay first. You may or may not get the result you like and it comes with a disclaimer. If you pay again, they will look into it further and take more things into consideration. If you want them to be expert witness in court, pay more $$$$$. They will perform the survey to a certain standard and that standard is as clear as mud. Then the lawyers have to weight in and argue the results in favor of whomever paying them. This can go on and on and on..... You see, I'm land rich but cash poor. It doesn't make any sense for me to take out another mortgage to play this game. I might come out a winner, but at the end, the bank will own my property and ...the fence. So, what I'm looking for is a low or no cost method to play this game. If I can just delays it for another 20 years, I don't care what happen after that.

 

[MikePA]

I paid 3000$ to have my corners set and the survey recorded. This stuff is not cheap.

Tractor888 - How long is the property line in question? When I worked for my FIL (a civil engineer) we never charged more than a few hundred dollars for a complete subdivision survey. Less if all we had to do was locate one property line.

 

[TCBoomer]

How about getting a metal detector and trying to find YOUR property stakes, not the new ones?

I had a recent problem with property lines and I bit the bullet...paid $1K(here in the north east) to mark my 4 acres. Money well spent