re: Property Lines

As a licensed surveyor I would like to add the following.

When you clicked on the assessors maps there was a disclaimer, read it.

Aerial photos are taken in what looks like an inverted ice cream cone. As you get away from the center of the photo distortion comes in to play. A cad tech is reading everyone's deed and with his/her best guess drawing property lines on the photos. This info can easily be several feet off. Their purpose is for the assessor to have a better understanding of approximately what you property looks like. It has no more legal standing than using a crayon on toilet paper to represent your property.

Your property lines are determined by your deed which contains a description and most likely refers to a subdivision plat which may be recorded in an earlier document. Most likely metal monuments were set at the corners after the plat was approved and before it was recorded. These original monuments typically rebar or iron pipe control the location of your property. If your deed says 100' wide lot and your original monuments are 99.5' apart you now have a 99.5' lot. Nothing except in very rare instances can anything overrule them.

If one or more of the monuments get destroyed then the surveyor uses what is found plus the plat to reconstruct the missing monuments proper location and then reset it. If it is done wrong these reset monuments can have error. As a side note some monuments may not be set on the corners, the subdivision plat should give you this information.

To know for sure you need to hire a licensed surveyor, and don't let the lowest price influence your decision. I have spent many days in court disagreeing with the cheapest surveyor where they reset missing monuments.

You are paying for a professional opinion, so do you want the best or the cheapest.

quote:

---

My neighbor had a survey done when he was doing some work and my fence was about a foot on his property.

---

Same here. I bought the empty lots directly to the east and west of my property. I had to pay for a survey to be able to extend my privacy fence and the survey showed my fence was a foot on to my neighbor's property. I'm not the original owner.

I caught him outside and explained it to him. I offered to buy the one foot strip, but he turned me down. I told him that I would move the fence when we extended it and he laughed at me and told me he wasn't worried about it.

I'll probably have the fence guys move the fence line anyways. Is rather do it up front instead of 4 or 5 years down the road.