Boundary Surveys

Sometimes a boundary survey is as simple as finding property corners that have become lost over time due to the natural changes of the terrain. The monuments that mark the corners have simply become buried by blowing dirt or sand, or they have slowly been overgrown and covered by turf or forest debris. This type of boundary survey usually only takes me a few hours and includes performing research on your boundary lines to familiarize myself with the history of your parcel, then visiting your property to conduct the field survey where I search for the lost monuments, uncover them, take measurements to them, and then mark them with bright colored flagging so you can easily find them in the future. As the final step, I then compare my measurements with the measurements in the recorded survey maps and applicable deeds to make sure the monuments are still in the correct positions.

Boundary surveys become more complicated when a monument is missing, meaning the monument is completely gone. More research is required to ensure I put the new monument in the same location as the original monument so that property rights are not altered. The field survey also becomes more complicated as I must find and measure to your neighbors property corners to help me recreate the situation that existed when the missing monument was originally set. Depending on the situation it can take multiple field visits to find and measure to surrounding property corners.

Next, I return to the office and piece together all the historical survey documents as well as the data I gathered from the field survey, the result is a “Map of Survey” which shows the situation with your boundary and explains what I did to reestablish the missing property corner. This map is important because it will show future surveyors exactly what I did. Through the millennia, civilizations have found that precise and complete land records are necessary for the perpetuation of property lines, and without them history has show us that property lines become irrecoverably lost.

I then make one last visit to the property to set the missing monument in the correct location.

Lastly, I submit the “Map of Survey” to the county recorder’s office where it will be archived and occasionally retrieved and used by land surveyors for generations to come.

Often I am not able to tell what level of boundary survey is necessary until I visit your property and conduct an initial search for your property corners. At which point I would be able to tell you whether or not more work is needed.

Numerous problems can surface during a boundary survey and I never know what is going to show up if anything at all, until I dig into the details and begin to piece together the puzzle of your boundary. Sadly, this makes it difficult to estimate the amount of time and cost it will take to complete the survey.