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Property boundaries!

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NutmegCT

NutmegCT

Great Pumpkin
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Probably beyond the ken of BCF, but ...

If you have a town, county, or state "parcel map", showing the boundaries of your property - how do you actually find where the boundaries are when you walk the property?

The parcel map shows the boundary lines - but gives no indication (GPS, GIS, lat/lon etc.) of the lines or line points.

We can walk the property with a GPS, but since we dont' know where the lines physically are on the property - we're just guessing! The land surveyor says he has to use the parcel maps - but admits he can't be sure of the lines, without some sort of two dimensional (or digital) plot of each line or line point. There are a few "pink ribbons" hanging from trees, but they seem unrelated to the lines on the parcel map.

good grief!
 
NutmegCT said:
Probably beyond the ken of BCF, but ...

If you have a town, county, or state "parcel map", showing the boundaries of your property - how do you actually find where the boundaries are when you walk the property?

The parcel map shows the boundary lines - but gives no indication (GPS, GIS, lat/lon etc.) of the lines or line points.

We can walk the property with a GPS, but since we dont' know where the lines physically are on the property - we're just guessing! The land surveyor says he has to use the parcel maps - but admits he can't be sure of the lines, without some sort of two dimensional (or digital) plot of each line or line point. There are a few "pink ribbons" hanging from trees, but they seem unrelated to the lines on the parcel map.

good grief!
Click to expand...
Shouldn't that info be on your deed to the property?
 
Deed reads "2020 Tom M. purchased property formerly owned by J Fred Muggs, described in the Muggs/Molly title transfer".

previous deed: "1965 J Fred Muggs purchased property formerly owned by Golly Miss Molly, described in the Molly/Whacko title transfer".

previous deed: "1919 Golly Miss Molly purchased property formerly owned by Alfred E Neuman, described in the Neuman/Cumberbatch title transfer."

etc etc etc

So there's no actual "description" - just "formerly owned and described".

As we've heard before - "It's turtles all the way down".

(Property was originally purchased/stolen from indigenous people in 1730.)
 
Hard to imagine that the recorder of deeds does not have the information on file.
 
Seems to be a problem in many New England areas. Surveyors are happy to set boundaries on newly developed land - but reluctant to attempt that in "old" land, due to having to backtrack over one or two centuries.

My previous home had deed descriptions from the 1830s, with boundary lines like "Beginning at the stone near the north end of the pond now or formerly of one Jacob Wedgeson for a distance of 308 feet, to an iron rod, thence west 24 degrees 57 minutes west ..."
 
When we bought ours it came with the survey - as I presume yours did. We were told that for a minimalish fee (a few hundred dollars) a surveyor could come and stake the boundaries. Turns out the stakes were already there so we didn't need to.
 
Ay, there's the rub!

Surveyors need to know where the stakes are, or at least the starting point, measurements and compass bearings.

But there are no stakes anywhere! Guess I'll have to go vegetarian.

:jester:
 
NutmegCT said:
Probably beyond the ken of BCF, but ...

If you have a town, county, or state "parcel map", showing the boundaries of your property - how do you actually find where the boundaries are when you walk the property?

The parcel map shows the boundary lines - but gives no indication (GPS, GIS, lat/lon etc.) of the lines or line points.

We can walk the property with a GPS, but since we dont' know where the lines physically are on the property - we're just guessing! The land surveyor says he has to use the parcel maps - but admits he can't be sure of the lines, without some sort of two dimensional (or digital) plot of each line or line point. There are a few "pink ribbons" hanging from trees, but they seem unrelated to the lines on the parcel map.

good grief!
Click to expand...
When we were considering a major remodel of our house we needed to have a surveyor come out and do a map.
Our community has + signs on the curbs indicating property lines.
 
We had our property surveyed when we bought it, we found out that the next door neighbor had encroached between 10 feet on one end and 30 feet on the far end which is all wooded. Official survey put stakes where they should be as marked on the deed and we recovered about 3.5 acres of land. The neighbor wasn't happy when he had pull all his posts to move his fence on that side further back on his property. Only fair. :rolleyes2:
 
The surveyor had a copy of an old survey map Tom, appeared to be around the turn of the century, not sure though.
We have a 50 foot easement across the front of our property where a stagecoach line was run in the early 1800s which in now a paved road. Our survey pins are actually across the road to the North!
 
PAUL161 said:
The surveyor had a copy of an old survey map Tom, appeared to be around the turn of the century, not sure though.
We have a 50 foot easement across the front of our property where a stagecoach line was run in the early 1800s which in now a paved road. Our survey pins are actually across the road to the North!
Click to expand...

Gee, Paul, sounds like you should set up a toll booth! :p
 
NutmegCT said:
Thanks gents. When you had your property surveyed, how did the surveyor know where the correct boundaries were?
Click to expand...
There should be survey marks somewhere in your community and possibly your neighbourhood that a surveyor would measure from. Basically reference points.

en.wikipedia.org

Survey marker - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
As JP said, there is usually a semi buried cement post with a bronze marker on top with a location number. They can get buried over the years, if the general area of it is known a metal detector can usually find it. Surveyors use it to triangulate with other markers and set deed survey stakes.
 
There are surveyors and there are surveyors. We recently sold some open rectangular boundary described land. The buyer's cookie cutter house closings attorney could not find anyone in the group of surveyors he used who could do the work. An old firm I knew from Miami had no problem. If what you have so far been told is the final answer, there would probably be no mortgage or title insurance business in your state. There appears to be an office within your DOT that deals with land surveying and they might be a lot of help. There is an act of congress that establishes the boundaries of your state by legal description tied to the ground; there would no doubt be a legal description tied to the ground in the act of your legislature that established your city/township/etc. And so on down the chain to your plat. What you need is not undoable, you just need a more remote starting point than what you are seeing.
Bob
 
Thanks Paul and Bob. Surveyors say there are no markers in this part of the county. Records for land - that was indigenous then British - are all paper based, and usually include phrases such as "previously owned by xxx" with points such as "300 feet south of the large stone near the apple tree".

An adventure!
 
There does not need to be a monument on any particular parcel to find an objectively described point of beginning. That point could be hundreds of miles (or more) away but still allow calculation and location of another point or points to astonishing precision.
Bob
 
I hear you there. I'm sure there are points for our state, county, and township boundaries. Triangulation from known land points would establish where my property is related to the known points (town, county, etc.) - but I don't see how that would establish the actual boundary lines of my property. The boundary lines for my property aren't stated on the deed of transfer. Just "property formerly owned by xxx".

I'm probably not using the right language to describe what I'm looking for, and the county records office tells me my boundary lines are copied from their maps from the 1920s and '30s. (Which just show lines - not locations).
Thanks for hanging in there with me on this.
 
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