Surveyors?

[wrigh003]

Any surveyors on here? This falls under the category of "General Garage Discussion" because I can't build anything away from the house until I find my property lines, plus there are plenty of smart and experienced folks on here.

I have a house on 2 acres. Probably 2/3 of that property is fairly flat/level, and the back third slopes down sharply and includes the area that a small creek/spring has cut out of the mountain (somewhere in that cut is the side property line). All I really care about is finding the corners of the lot and marking the boundaries between me and my neighbors- as much so we'll just know as so that I'll know where I can build.

Story:
I cleared some scrub/trash brush yesterday between my house and my neighbor's up toward the road, thinking I was on my side of the line. He came out, apparently felt that I was on his side. No harm done, we had a laugh about it and both agreed that we don't know for sure where the line is. So now I need to find out - neighbor doesn't want me to clear a bunch of pine trees that are currently screening his back yard and pool, and I am pretty sure that some/many/all of those are my pines, and they're in the way of me building a fence to enclose/expand my back yard.

What should a survey cost me for 2 acres? I know it varies by locality/terrain, but a ballpark? Also, how do we know that the survey is done right? E.G., I can already tell that the neighbor isn't going to like it when/if he discovers that the pines that are screening his back yard are coming out over his protests, and he might go so far as to challenge the results- what then? Anything else I should be looking for? How the heck do they mark property boundaries that are 6' deep in scrub brush?

Sorry for the novel and 400 questions, I guess I am kind of venting.

 

[NWOhioChevyGuy]

I purchased a property in Michigan this last year and the 6.66 acres would cost me $500 dollars to have the surveyor come out and mark the corners.

I do have a current plot from the county offices so all they would be doing is measuring and marking the corners of my property. The reason I looked into it is the farmer that farms around our property has tilled up and been farming part of it for years. The property is rectangular and the feild edge is not even close, I would guess that htey have around .75 - 1 acres of mine in the field.

But no problem so far, I'm going to measure it out and set a flag and if he don't agree we will split the $, if he agrees on the spot it will be a done deal and I'll plant a post.

 

[Wardster]

Get your deed, find the property description, and try to find the pins yourself. If that does not work, then be prepared to pay somewhere in the neighborhood $100+/hr for a two-man crew to survey your property.

-Wardster

 

[mtwaterguy]

When I was getting ready to redo fences this last summer I couldn't find my property pins. I had a survey co come out and find the pin on the north east corner. From there I did the measuring. The survey co sent one guy out with a GPS and set the pin for $100.

 

[wrigh003]

I don't know that I'll be able to accurately find the lines, since the front two pins are on one road, and the rear two pins will be 50' or so lower (on another road). If it were anywhere close to flat, I could beg borrow steal or rent a transit and a stake and get it close enough for us, I think, but I don't know how to go about trying to get around that elevation change.

 

[truck]

If you think you are going to have a dispute then definately get a professional surveyor to do this, then you are covered.

Truck

 

[fotoflojoe]

truck is spot-on correct. If you're gonna CYA, a certified plot plan will definitely back you up.

 

[Willy Victor]

I paid $850 last year in SW Lower MI. One guy all day. Glad I did as I picked up two feet on one side. I'm sure my former neighbor( now deceased ) messed with the stakes. Oh did I mention I don't miss him one bit. It seems prices vary quite a bit. This land has been surveyed several times. In fact the same guy did a survey over twenty years ago. He found his original markers with his number on them. The current neighbor looked at the stakes and said that can't be right. He hired his guy for $800 plus. His surveyor came up with the exact thing my guy did. I don't care a whole lot for my new neighbor either. Have I been any help at all?

Willy

 

[FunfDreisig]

Once you find the property stakes drive a 2' piece of 3/4" or larger iron pipe OVER the stake leaving a small amount above ground. Even if they get covered upa bit, you can usually find a piece of metal that large with an inexpensive construction nail pickup magnet.

Funf Dreisig

 

[mtwaterguy]

Since you seem to be on friendly terms with the neighbor, you might ask if he'd be wiiling to split the cost of the servey. That way you'd both know for sure where the property line is located.

 

[tdkkart]

It's possible you already have a survey. Around here most banks require a survey of the property when the mortgage is written, just to protect themselves from current and future issues. Check that stack of papers that you signed 100 signatures on, you may find it in there, or check with the county assesors office, they may have it also.
I've had the survey paper on both the houses I've bought.

 

[hblock72]

I bought the house i'm in now a year ago and had it surveyed to fence in the back yard. I have just under 2.5 acres and it was ~$600 to have the corners marked and a stake w/ orange flag placed every 50 ft along the boundries. The extra stakes really made laying out the fence alot easier, especially when on grade or working around large trees close to the property line I didn't want to take down. As for you question about the surveyors getting through the brush, the one's that did my lot had a machete (sp?) they used to hack there way where needed to place the stakes.

 

[hblock72]

PS

My surveyor said he'd been challenged before in court and had never lost.

 

[timgr]

I've had the survey paper on both the houses I've bought.

AFAIK that's a plot plan, and not an actual surveying of the property. If it's like here in MA, the plan is just copied out from the city/county property records. Mine says 'locations of buildings not surveyed' or some such disclaimer. It does show the official lengths and orientations of the deeded property though. I expect a surveyor would use it to actually survey the property and put down stakes.

 

[wrigh003]

AFAIK that's a plot plan, and not an actual surveying of the property. If it's like here in MA, the plan is just copied out from the city/county property records. Mine says 'locations of buildings not surveyed' or some such disclaimer. It does show the official lengths and orientations of the deeded property though. I expect a surveyor would use it to actually survey the property and put down stakes.

That's what we have here, as well. Somewhere I have a piece of paper (if I can't find it I'll have to visit the courthouse again) that shows the rough rectangular/trapezoidal shape of the property and tells me how long each side is. If (IF!)I can find the stakes, from there it should be a fairly simple matter. I guess I'm going out looking again. Would a cheap metal detector help, or am I just going to turn up old nails?

 

[wrigh003]

So far, I am hearing about what I expected ($500-600)- I hoped to be able to throw a couple hundred bucks at this problem and be done, but it looks like I might have to save my pennies a bit and pay a little more.

Thanks for all the replies- you guys are awesome.

 

[tdkkart]

AFAIK that's a plot plan, and not an actual surveying of the property. If it's like here in MA, the plan is just copied out from the city/county property records.

Apparently it varies by location, mine have shown all the pertinent measurements of the house and buildings from all the corresponding lot lines.
Both properties I've had the garage was sitting cockeyed on the lot by about 1 foot.
Maybe the local surveyors haven't figured out that they're loosing money??
We'll find out, I'm in the process of buying another place as we speak...........

 

[kbs2244]

I agree with mtwaterguy.
Take advantage of good relations while you can. Even if he won't split the cost have a real surveyor do it. Their drawing and descriptions go into the county records and have legal status.
You can do a lot with a rented metal detector to find old markers, but a new survey will go with GPS descriptions as well as the old "100 rods at a 32 degree angle from" type of survey.
Once registered they can be money in the bank for either of you.
BTW
For those of you around high power lines or underground pipelines. Do no be surprised to find guys walking around in your area. All these cos are
re-surveying their right of ways to get GPS locations for their markers. These guys may be back in the woods, swamps, mountain valleys, anywhere. Sometimes they even get helicoptered in and out. They are not G-men looking for hooch or grass plots. Just guys trying to find a spot where the pipe or wire turns.
If you hear any gun shots, they are just shooting snakes, not poaching deer.
Ask me how I know.

 

[Will67]

I had a legal boundry survey done by Licensed Land Surveyor done to the legal description on my deed (or assessor description?)...Cost $1,500 for it. Found my back fence was encroaching on my property by 1.5 to 2 feet (its angled so angle is wrong). The reason for such a high cost was the surveyor had to bring in County control points from quite a distance. I was told having a legal boundry survey increases the value of my home (by a realestate agent) by how much I could not say. If there is ever a battle over the property lines when I go to move the fence I am not just whistleing out my ***.

I had also a topo map done too (for grading).

 

[BooUrns!]

You guys are getting it easy. It costs $1800 ( I priced shopped this too) to get a real property report done here. That includes staking of foundation excavation but not placement of footing. They charge $150/hr for anything extra. It's a requirement for permits.
If you don't want to tear it down, get it professionally surveyed.

 

[Charles (in GA)]

I just had one of my lines staked so I had line of sight from one stake to another. Its about 700 ft, partially overgrown and the neighbor has their place for sale. I knew their detached garage was close to the line or possibly over it, but I did not know. Now, $185 later, I know.

Mine was probably cheap, it was marking one line, no paper survey. The surveyor had just finished a 95 acre wetlands mitigation project just behind our subdivision and so he had nearby pins he knew the accuracy of.

If you have ever had a survey done, it might have been filed in the court clerks office in the plat books, just as if it were a deed. Check with your county appraiser/assessor's office to see if they have any plat book references to your property.

If you are in Jefferson County, go to their web site for info on your property.

http://www.jeffcointouch.com/ecourthouse/

Charles

 

[6768rogues]

Usually an instrument survey of a typical piece of residential property in our area is $500 and up. I have found metal property stakes with a metal detector and by guessing where it is and digging around with a shovel. The price of the survey, of course, depends on how much work it is. I have the starting point on my property clearly marked with a steel stake. The other 6 corners are a matter of angles and distances. Without that starting point, our property starts 4000 some-odd feet from the intersection of two roads. I did not have to pay for that measurement because I had the starting point. Also, there is a metal pin in the center of the road near our house, so it can be found with a metal detector.

 

[Northstar9126]

You guys are getting a bargain. I live on 40 acres of forest that I wanted to get the corners of marked. Surveyor told me a minimum of $4000.00, which I thought was nuts. The guy had surveyed the highway in front of my place several years ago and said that he had placed markers along the highway at that time so I didn't think it would be that difficult to find the corners of my property. I never had it done because I haven't had any problems with my neighbors, I was just curious where the lines truly are.

 

[sneezer41]

It really depends on how far a surveyor has to go to get a known good measurement. Sometimes they have to survey half your neighbors just to get to a known good, and it gets pricey. If you have a good reference nearby, it should be reasonable. 'IF' your front stakes are good, it should be reasonable.

 

[kbs2244]

If you are in farm country those corner sticks can be down a ways.
In Illinois it is not unusual for them to be "below plow level."
That means the top of the 3/4 inch pipe is 24 inchs down.
They use good metal detectors.
But all this angle and distance stuff is why they are going to GPS locations.
A one degree mistake in angle can be a ot when you are 500 feet or more away.

 

[john56h]

I'm not a licensed surveyor, but I've worked for them in a survey crew and have a decent bit of knowledge...that I'll try to share.

When you have a Surveyor perform a survey and create a mapping of your property, he needs to base it on several factors. Usually the first thing he'll consult is the "tax map" which will show a schematic view (in very small scale) of your lot or property as it relates to the other properties in the same area. There will be a tax map parcel identification number associated with your lot on the tax map. That number probably shows up on your tax bill and is also used by many other entities as a reference number for your property.

Next the Surveyor will perform research at a county clerk's record room or such. He will pull your deed and previous deeds of the same property from prior owners...sometimes going as far back as records have been kept (1800's). He'll also probably pull deeds for adjoining properties and he'll also check for any Subdivision maps that may have been filed that are relative to the property.

The surveryor will then make "deed plots" of the written descriptions from the deeds he found. He'll note any monuments or landmarks referenced in the deeds or shown on Subdivision maps. After he's done a bunch of preliminary work, he'll go out to the site and look for the monuments, landmarks and anything else that gives physical evidence of the boundary (fence lines, stone walls, etc..).

After finding and locating (with instruments and tape measures) everthing that seems important, including the structures, driveway, wells, utility poles and whatever else...the Surveyor returns to the office and plots out the "physical mapping". He then compares the physical mapping to the "deed plots" and determines whether there is enough agreement to "SOLVE THE BOUNDARY" for the property. If there isn't, he may need to perform additional research and/or field work before he can solve the boundary.

Once the Surveyor has solved the boundary (which may require making some mathematical calculations to correct errors), he can produce the certified survey map and he can return to the site and stake-out the boundary lines. Depending on the size and shape of the property, stake-out could be a simple rectangle or many, many angle points.

When he is finished (and many times the property owner opts to not have the final stake-out done because they don't want to incurr the cost) he will provide signed and sealed prints of the map which shows the boundary and the physical locations of whatever structures, etc.. exist on the property in relation to the property lines. Often the maps will show the distance from the buildings to the property lines.

Sometimes, Survey maps are filed with the county clerk or the town assessor, but more often than not, they are just provided to the owner of the property and any other entity that requires a copy, such as a bank, mortgage company or title insurance company.

Hope this helps, good luck!

 

[HacksawsGarage]

geo. is a metes and bounds system. unlike you guys in the west that have property set up based on the grid system, metes and bounds usually requires a ton of extra work in comparison. if a good class a survey is on file at the town hall, then for a few hundred bucks he may make out pretty good. if not, there could be quite alot of land records work as well as field work.

now i am not up 100% on georgia particulars, but generally, the original land grants were based on geographical feautures and broken down further ex: top of the moutain to the east, bounded by the creek on the west, 100 acres more or less. these properties were measured with the old rods and links system as well. sometomes they loose a bit in the conversion. to jump ahead to these days, if you have a sub division map on file, your good to go. if not, it gets tricky.

 

[ymehp]

You guys are getting a bargain. I live on 40 acres of forest that I wanted to get the corners of marked. Surveyor told me a minimum of $4000.00, which I thought was nuts. The guy had surveyed the highway in front of my place several years ago and said that he had placed markers along the highway at that time so I didn't think it would be that difficult to find the corners of my property. I never had it done because I haven't had any problems with my neighbors, I was just curious where the lines truly are.

The pins in the road are probally just the road alignment and not property corners...

 

[V-10 Killer]

I had a legal boundry survey done by Licensed Land Surveyor done to the legal description on my deed (or assessor description?)...Cost $1,500 for it. Found my back fence was encroaching on my property by 1.5 to 2 feet (its angled so angle is wrong). The reason for such a high cost was the surveyor had to bring in County control points from quite a distance. I was told having a legal boundry survey increases the value of my home (by a realestate agent) by how much I could not say. If there is ever a battle over the property lines when I go to move the fence I am not just whistleing out my ***.

I had also a topo map done too (for grading).

I'm glad I'm not the only one that ran into this. When I was applying for my variance last year, I thought about getting my property lines marked. But the survey companies around here wanted to charge me $1080 ish to do it due to the distance from the county control points. And I didn't even need the whole property, just one side, but it still takes time so set/move equipment...

I managed to get out of it by finding one post in the corner. OLD (I'm sure some guys here will laugh about that being called old) square concrete post with a piece of rebar in the center of it. And I just measured off of that. It was good enough for the variance committee here.

 

[NWOhioChevyGuy]

This post got me thinking so I finally went out and measured yesterday. North & South the property measures pretty much exactly as shown on the plot done in 1998. However East & West from the center of the road I measured back the property and the field starts at 270 feet, and our property is 360 feet deep. That's 90 feet of depth that I will gain the full width of the property which is 807 feet. With this information I will be able to locate the shop / building behind the house and pool instead if in the side yard.

I'm going to have to talk to the neighbor/farmer again, it's not as simple as them tilling up the corner of my property.

I set flags at the corners where I measured to, I may try and find a metal detector to find the pins at the road. From there I can easily measure to the back corners.

 

[ymehp]

I always recommend having a survey done before putting up a fence or garage. Is it worth the cost of a garage, fence, time, and headache to misjudge something by only a couple feet and have a total mess usually involving the neighbor, lol. Heck, while the surveyor is there have him stake 15'-25' offsets each way off the corners of the proposed building. This will keep the building square to the world and lot. This also enables you to pull back over off each offset to find your actual square corner either before concrete or framing walls.

 

[wrigh003]

Just called the surveyor, they are going to take a look at my deed and plat map and give me a ballpark figure, then send out a crew if I am amenable to what they come back with. According to our plat map, our side boundaries (on my road, at least) are marked by longitude down to minutes and seconds. Seems like if I was decent with a compass ( I never DID get that Orienteering merit badge...) or GPS, I could probably get it real close, but in an effort to make it legal and all offishul-like, I'll probably wind up spending the money. We're going to be here long enough for it to make sense.

Since my side boundaries are ~400' long, I don't really know where the detached barn/garage monstrosity will go, I just need to make sure that I know where the lines are (for fence/shed purposes now, later for garage plans). I think I'll be buying a bundle or two of metal fenceposts and placing them in a line through the woods every 20' or so. Anybody else have methods for line/boundary marking that are semi-permanent but not too in-your-face? I'm not looking to make enemies of my neighbor, but I think he was trying to bluff me into leaving some of my property grown up with trash and scrub brush, which I am just not into.

 

[NSXSOON]

If you are going to have the survey company out go for the extra expense of having them install concrete monuments at the corners. These would be very hard for anyone to dispute and even harder for someone to "relocate" your metal fence posts.

Just a thought.

 

[HacksawsGarage]

ohio might be on neats and bounds also. not so sure.
anyways, the center of the road is usually the center of the right of way. NOT your property line.

 

[RPH]

Those posts in the road can be the actual corners. I am lucky enough to have my NW corner marked by one. I have pulled the top off the pot and lo there is a iron rod stuck in there. The surveyor will confirm that post is accurite. Of course the bad news was I own 3/4 of the road in front.

 

[HacksawsGarage]

well, you would need longitude AND latitude.

oh ya. michigan is a grid system state. sorry. i thought we were in georgia.
i still think its strange that you would have road going thru your property like that.
are you sure its a property corner?

 

[mikeyr]

Interesting replies, we are kind of in the same boat here. I am inheriting (well my wife is) a house and while taking measurements to figure where I am building my garage, we found our bedroom to be 14ft. from the fence. But then the next day while we were at the city going through the lot plans it claims the fence is 26ft. from the bedroom.

Problem is that my wife's father put in the fence and hedge in 1951 and the neighbors have since built to within the 8ft. setback from that fence.

We can't find the stakes to prove it, a friend is bringing over his metal detector and hopefully we will find them with that. Then its a big decision for my wife if the fence is really off by that much as to what to do about it. I already called the city and they won't do the survey without a surveyor saying there is a problem but once my surveyor says something is wrong the city will do a official survey for free.

The last post about lat/lon's gave me a great idea though, I have a GPS and I wonder how close it can get me for starters.

 

[wrigh003]

Hmm. Well, in my case, the latitude doesn't matter much. the front of my lot is defined by the road, the rear by a 50ish foot bluff and old Hwy 31. Neither of which I'll be building on.



How much are GPS units that will get down to minutes WRT coordinates?

 

[RPH]

Ya, the corner is 3/4 of the way across the road. Also have a 60 foot road easment with the cement post marking that. The surveyor that did the job clearly marked that as the corner start point. I learned this after buying the property but is not a problem. My back property line is almost 1/4 mile back so the few feet are moot. But is marked as the NW section corner as the point of beginning. Along with supporting data to confirm the point. So does this mean I can make that section of the road a toll road?

 

[Northstar9126]

After seeing all of those reports out of Iraq about how the Air Force can stick a bomb in a gnats azz using GPS guided bombs that they could survey land using GPS for next to nothing.