Property corner markers

[oosik]

Let me make a suggestion. My 80 acres is a pure rectangle - 1320 x 2640. Three corners are on dry land - one is out in the middle of a 125 acre lake.

Each of the three dry land corners have an above ground post or big 'ol pine tree. Each also has a buried marker. Since each of my corners is a quarter section corner - three have brass cap ID. The brass cap is on a three foot long chunk of 1" rebar and is buried about 8" below ground.

The above ground post or tree might get cut down or moved. Unless you have a metal detector and know where to look - you will never find the brass cap. Besides - you don't know it's there, in the first place.

The brass cap is the official - surveyed in - corner.

So...... your property has been surveyed or you know where the corners are. Drive down a chunk of rebar - top to be below ground. You know where it is. If you forgot - find it easily with a metal detector.

 

[RalphVa]

Not sure why you're writing. On the 3 corners, I'd want some 4 ft or so posts beside the buried marker. Could have an anchored floating market in the middle of the lake if you want to mark it.

Ralph

 

[oosik]

There IS a post on two corners and a tree on the third - Ralph. I've tried just about everything for the corner out in the lake. The ice removes it every time. Then I realized. No need to mark it. It's out there and nobody can change its location.

Somebody decides to pull or remove your corner post. It's nice to have a below ground, official reference point.

 

[Buppies]

Just had some property we have marked in the county over due to possible encroachment by others $950 expense. Three were ipf

 

[Diggin It]

My lot is what used to be two, that at one time were both owned by one that was split into many.

Simplified, one family owned hundreds of acres. They split it up, sold some, kept some, then sold more to other people. There are now at least three of us with multi-acre parcels. I bought one parcel from a second owner 22 years ago, then another parcel from the original owner about 15 years ago. The deeds use terms like 'meanders along a line approximately ...' and while they've been combined into one tax bill, they've never been formally 'merged'. My lots border a county road and much of the original family property is on both sides of it. To my knowledge there are no corner markers and probably never were. There are wire fences on metal T-post and wooden posts along three sides of my irregular shaped property and then the road.

When I was thinking of buying another parcel that would have had to have been split off a larger parcel, the surveyor estimated a minimum of $1,200 but wouldn't give me a high end limit ... 'we'll just have to see how long it takes ...'. That section was heavily overgrown and it was not possible to see from corner to corner let along walk or run a surveyor chain.

The whole process needs to be dramatically simplified nationwide. With technology, I see no reason why everything isn't done by GPS coordinates, with deeds simply referencing those digital points. Trees die and decay, rocks and pins get moved. Consumer level devices are accurate to within 10' usually and higher resolution equipment is available for legal description use.

Pins? Pins? We don' need no steenking pins!!!!

 

[oosik]

The reason three of my corners are surveyed is because adjoining property was sold and the sale went thru a bank. Otherwise, the original survey is by meets and bounds. IE - a page long, verbal dialog. The original survey was in 1892 and was to transfer a homestead grant from the federal government to a private citizen. My father purchased this land in 1939. Paid cash - no need for a bank or survey.

My little lake is named for the original homesteader - Martin Lk. View attachment 653150

 

[MikePA]

When I was thinking of buying another parcel that would have had to have been split off a larger parcel, the surveyor estimated a minimum of $1,200 but wouldn't give me a high end limit ... 'we'll just have to see how long it takes ...'. That section was heavily overgrown and it was not possible to see from corner to corner let along walk or run a surveyor chain.

Pins? Pins? We don' need no steenking pins!!!!

I'd imagine many/most? surveyors do use GPS (assuming a clear view of the satellites) and lasers these days, but there still have to be markers in the ground so the land owners know where their property lines are, for all kinds of reasons, e.g., building setbacks, right of ways. Every deed I've read simply lists compass directions and a distance.

 

[oosik]

The last corner surveyed in was my NW corner. The survey crew used GPS equipment. The brand was Trimble.

 

[repete]

I am astonished at the accuracy of surveys from a hundred or more years ago in the forested areas with hills and lakes. Our property was described in "chains" which were very close to 66' in length. But property lines are not respective of hills so there must have been some rather serious calculations that took place in conjunction with the chains.

In my 40 acres of pasture it is flat, no problems with chains but then it goes up a hillside that is about the same acreage, that was covered by 5-6' diameter fir trees, how did they calculate the hillsides using a chain that could not go through a tree but must go around two or three.

I thoroughly get why property markers are moved as technology changes. I assume all property lines are based upon a theoretical 0' elevation so a property that is at 8000' elevation might in fact be slightly larger than if it were at sea level if we assume a starting point that is at the center of the earth.

I am no surveyor and have to the best of my memory never stayed in a Holiday Inn.

 

[dodge man]

I would discourage people from driving rebars next to existing corners. Rebars are commonly used for corners in some places and the rebar could be mistaken as the wrong one. A post or something else is better. A technicality, but if you have an 80, two of the corners could be quarter section corners but the other two would be quarter-quarter corners.

One reason coordinates won’t replace actually monuments, plate tectonics. The earth is moving. Over short periods of time not an issue, but over a period of years, it can amount to a lot. This also varies by region.

 

[Jstpssng]

Setting pins is easy; if that was all there is to it, anybody could be a surveyor. It’s all of the research of not only the lot in question but all of the abuttors. When the cost goes up is if the description has been copied and recopied for 150 years and still says “ by the land of Smith to a pine stump; thence in a westerly direction to where the old cow lies down in the afternoon”... giving no tangible bearing or distance. They need to recover time spent working up estimates for jobs, only to have Joe decide that it’s too much. Or when Farmer Jones had a 100 acre tract, and sold five 30 acres lots off it back in 1963; those are times when the science becomes an art. They also have liability insurance to pay for, and on occasion may even find themselves in court defending their work. Like any trade, all of those things affect what we pay.

 

[dodge man]

Setting pins is easy; if that was all there is to it, anybody could be a surveyor. It’s all of the research of not only the lot in question but all of the abuttors. When the cost goes up is if the description has been copied and recopied for 150 years and still says “ by the land of Smith to a pine stump; thence in a westerly direction to where the old cow lies down in the afternoon”... giving no tangible bearing or distance. They need to recover time spent working up estimates for jobs, only to have Joe decide that it’s too much. Or when Farmer Jones had a 100 acre tract, and sold five 30 acres lots off it back in 1963; those are times when the science becomes an art. They also have liability insurance to pay for, and on occasion may even find themselves in court defending their work. Like any trade, all of those things affect what we pay.

Well said.

 

[Diggin It]

Setting pins is easy; if that was all there is to it, anybody could be a surveyor. It’s all of the research of not only the lot in question but all of the abuttors. When the cost goes up is if the description has been copied and recopied for 150 years and still says “ by the land of Smith to a pine stump; thence in a westerly direction to where the old cow lies down in the afternoon”... giving no tangible bearing or distance.

But that's exactly what needs to go away. My deed refers to people and places that no longer exist and haven't for many years. Even without listing coordinates (which I still feel would be best), all of the hullabaloo could be eliminated by stating bearing and distance, even for irregular boundaries. Property descriptions do not need to remain so archaic. There is no reason to have to pay a surveyor hundreds or thousands of dollars to snip off a piece of property when everyone involved agrees to the points and those points can easily be articulated on paper.

 

[oosik]

The surveyor who did the NE job showed me something I would have never known. For whatever reason he did the survey in the dead of winter. He came in our house for his lunch break and to warm up/dry out. He asked to see the old government meet & bound description for our property. He showed us in the description - there would/should be two old trees with "scribing" on the cambium layer. Most likely hidden under bark now. We followed the verbal description and found one tree with the scribing on it. Had to knock off the bark - there it was. They had used some type of very sharp cutting instrument to scribe survey data on the cambium layer of this now old, ancient pine tree.

It's still down at the beginning of the driveway and is still visible. One of these days I should rub soot into the scribing and take a picture.

 

[fried1765]

Setting pins is easy; if that was all there is to it, anybody could be a surveyor. It’s all of the research of not only the lot in question but all of the abuttors. When the cost goes up is if the description has been copied and recopied for 150 years and still says “ by the land of Smith to a pine stump; thence in a westerly direction to where the old cow lies down in the afternoon”... giving no tangible bearing or distance. They need to recover time spent working up estimates for jobs, only to have Joe decide that it’s too much. Or when Farmer Jones had a 100 acre tract, and sold five 30 acres lots off it back in 1963; those are times when the science becomes an art. They also have liability insurance to pay for, and on occasion may even find themselves in court defending their work. Like any trade, all of those things affect what we pay.

A good explanation of what few understand.
Many hours of detective work are often necessary.

 

[BrokenTrack]

It does not take long down at the deed office to go off on a rabbit trail...

I have about everything for markers here...rebar, granite posts, pins that have been removed, intersections of rock walls, pipes, pipes with caps...

 

[BrokenTrack]

I have been on a multi-year hunt now with no success...

It is pretty remote here, with about 17,000 acres of non-developed land in front of my house, and some 7000 acres behind it. So it is pretty isolated. But on my Grandmother's death bed she told me about some relatives that were buried along the town line, on the Foster Road. Well that is all well and good, but there is no cemetery on the Foster Road along the town line, but on the next road up, about a mile away, there is a cemetery on the townline, but she insisted it was on the Foster Road.

So I went looking, about this time of year when the snow is off the ground, and when the leaves are off the trees. I followed the town line, but found nothing, so I thought in her sickness, she was wrong.

Then I talked to a surveyor. He said she was NOT crazy. He was surveying and found the (3) headstones, but "he could never get there again."

So I talked to my neighbors, and she said her husband was hunting, got lost, and came across the (3) headstones, "but could never find his way back."

I have looked for the past 12 years, and I cannot find them. I even used Superficial Maps since they highlight gravel deposits, and old cemeteries were always in gravel banks because the digging was easy, and depth to bedrock was deep enough for burial. The soil is pretty thin up there, so the gravel is limited, but none of those locations had headstones.

So the hunt is still on...

 

[MikePA]

But that's exactly what needs to go away. My deed refers to people and places that no longer exist and haven't for many years. Even without listing coordinates (which I still feel would be best), all of the hullabaloo could be eliminated by stating bearing and distance, even for irregular boundaries. Property descriptions do not need to remain so archaic. There is no reason to have to pay a surveyor hundreds or thousands of dollars to snip off a piece of property when everyone involved agrees to the points and those points can easily be articulated on paper.

To convert a deed from 'archaic' nomenclature and references would take quite a while ($$$) in just research. The same people who complain about the cost would not pay for this. Saying it should go away is one thing, paying for it is when people need to pay up or... To 'snip off a piece of property' requires at minimum, an accurate starting point. You don't just 'snip it off' when what is being snipped may not belong to you. Deeds will always reference adjacent property owners, e.g., along the property now or formerly of Mary Smith. Mary Smith's deed might have a more accurate/more recent survey that is valuable reference information. And when someone's neighbor wants to install a fence, build a building, etc., there have to be markers on somewhere in the ground, not just on paper, or the same people who complain about cost are usually the same type of people who would yell and scream the fence is on their property. Also deed descriptions need to 'close', i.e., you need to end up at the same point you started at, after traversing all the sides of the property. This is something we did before ever going to the field.

 

[dodge man]

A couple of things. The eastern part of the US is what is known as “metes and bounds” where the rest of the US is known as PLSS, it where the ground is divided in sections of ground.

Metes and bounds seem archaic because they are. The often read “starting at a rock by Bob Smiths house, then along a stone wall to a brook, then west to a big tree............. and so on. That’s just the way it was done. Coordinates seem like a good idea but for a lot of reasons that are too long to list, it’s not a good idea. Short story is it’s not that easy to get coordinates and too many different ways to get them.

Trees with marks. Used to be very common. The original government surveyors when setting section and quarter section corners noted bearing trees. These trees would have been near the corner and marked in a certain way and a distance and bearing to them recorded.

I’ve been surveying since 1984 and have never seen or found an original government corner or bearing tree. This part of Illinois was surveyed about 1817. The corners were almost always a post in a sod mound (maybe really a stick in a pile of dirt) and any bearing trees would be 200 years old. Further west they often did stone mounds and other more permanent monuments. The University of Missouri Rolla had a chunk of a bearing tree cut out and on display. The scribe marks are very clear and that’s the only one I’ve laid eyes on.

 

[fishheadbob]

My deed has lines like "then hence about 1300 feet to the large Elm tree.." , and "to the centerline of the creek for 900 feet, then 95 degrees to the top of the bank on the other side", and my favorite "800 feet along the old barbed wire fence to the Beech tree." Folks, the old Elm succumbed to Dutch Elm Disease in the mid 1950s, and every 10 year flood widens the creek and changes the banks. The mentioned Beech tree is long gone but numerous new ones have suckered up where it may have been. If you can find one scrap of barbwire fence, you can find three. There are more surveyor posts out there than you can shake a stick at, all within a few yards of each other. Thank goodness I have been blessed with good neighbors, dry gas wells, and relatively poor soil.
Surveyors have a thankless job deciphering the gibberish that took place a few centuries ago.