California Surveyors Forums

The job is an ALTA. I did some online research and found a PM that recorded in 2010 and actually did a breakdown of the lot I am working on. The north line of the PM is *supposed* to be the south line of my lot. I also was able to get the current ties for the surrounding streets.

Looked nice, but it seems Murphy always shows up on a job and applies his own law to fit the situation. This time, the situation was the boundary.

Starting with the ties to the north, which is Pt No 3 on the PDF.

When the contract surveyor who did the pre construction tie out and the subsequent post construction monumentation submitted the final ties, a standard note was placed on each one of his ties. It reads...

"No claim is made as to the relationship of the points or lines shown hereon to true boundary, centerline tie or centerline locations"

Ok, I agree to that. So the filing surveyor is saying, without a shred of doubt, Use at your own risk. This tied out point needs to be verified by surveyors doing retracement.

The tied out point may only be the intersection coming in from the north. The intersection coming up from the south where I am working, may intersect offset to where the tied point is. The point is, you cannot trust ties that have that disclaimer on it.

The PM however just did a blind acceptance and because the recording surveyor did that, he notes Pt 6 on his PM and calls an original tract corner 0.12' away from what is now a True Corner. Surveyors are setting too many True Corners.

Well..long to short is that I have found some serious flaws in the 2010 PM. It looked good on paper, but in the field it just did not wash. I haven't shown every flaw on the PDF. The monument set at the SE corner of my lot is an inch off. This is proven by the two original monuments we found that are north and south of his monument. Using the two originals and prorating in a new position (0.02' different from record) the PM monument, No. 11 in the PDF, is 0.09' south.

To some an inch may not mean much, but this is a special situation.

My line is between Pts. 11 and 14.

Something happened when the building on the south was constructed. The building was placed 6 inches over line. In 1997 an easement was granted for this situation that occupies the southerly 6 inches of my parcel. Using the 2010 PM monument would, may, cause a clear building line to be over by an inch.

I don't know, we have one more day to run the last of the job, but I definitely need all the room I can get on that south line and having two original monuments displace a 2010 PM monument is pretty nice. Unless I find contrary senior evidence, I usually accept a monument in place. From the appearance of everything, no one has used that 2010 monument for anything.

Anyway...take a look at the PDF..I also thought the note of the least squares establishment of my north line was 'cute'. Never seen that before and I hope I never do.

I really hate it when I come across sloppy work, but fibbing on a record map is just the worst!

PS The abbreviation on the PDF "SFNF" stands for 'searched for, nothing found'. I have found three different places where that statement is 100% untrue.

The county of Orange has that blurb on almost all it's tie notes, reason being they tied out whatever they found without spending the time and money to determine it's location or purpose. To me it was a great way to tie out whatever was there as hundreds of street mons were lost to rehab. And it is our job to verify any monument we use anyway.

As one surveyor told me "CL mons are just reference points to the property corners". Too many today will hold a subsequent CL mon and call a old PC corner off. I had a "office" LS one time tell me my field work was bad because it didn't fit a well mon. Turns out the well mon was not where it was supposed to be. Took his boss agreeing with me before he quit calling my field work shoddy.

Seems like the easement was intended to allow the building to occupy the encroachment. Senior evidence supports the intent of the easement. Junior evidence indicates the building is still encroaching. Interesting ALTA...

Too bad they wrote up an easement in lieu of a LLA and RoS...

sorry...double post..see below

The attached PDF is a portion of the easement instrument.

I think the reason an easement was done in lieu of a LLA/RS is money.

The easement fixed the problem at nominal cost. The city this is in was out of the picture and all the involvement the county had was recording the document.

Financially, it was the best way to handle it. Of course, not having to deal with the city or the county for approvals was a huge benefit.

Until I get the building that occupies the south 6 inches of the lot located I am still up in the air about how the line will run. One particular concern I have is what did the surveyor who located the encroachment of the building prior to the easement being written use as control. Since the easement was written in 1997 it's possible he used the two originals that are north and south of the 2010 PM monument that is supposed to define one end of my south line. Then again, he could have just used the centerline monuments that exist and came up a record distance, locating the building by record angle.

The next day, this Tuesday, when I go back to finish the survey I am going to speak to the owner of the building to the south and see what develops. I may get lucky.

A side note on the 2010 monument at my SE corner. On the PM the surveyors note for that monument (Pt No 11) is "Found chiseled cross in top of curb (original monument) per R1. Set lead tack and tag, LS xxxx" . I took a long hard look at that tag and all I saw were scribe marks. The other chiseled crosses had about 1 1/2 inch arms. The tag had been counter sunk in the concrete with a 1 inch bit (I'm going to measure that Tuesday) but even then, some of the cross arms should have been visible..none were. I am also going to do a much closer inspection with a good magnifying glass. If I do see any remains of old cut arms, I may just accept the tag...but the scribe lines are bothering me since they were at a 45° angle to the curb line. The other crosses I found were normal to the curb line.

Obliterating evidence just doesn't seem right. The PM surveyor could have just as easily set a S/W on centerline instead of drilling through an original.

An "easement for building encroachment" trumps the dimension call... No? Seems to me the easement was granted to deal with the building encroachment. Encroaching building in this case would be the monument? Easement line would then be drawn to grant use of the "encroaching"area? Dimensions and calls to ips would then be junior to the location of the building?

Otherwise you might have a calamity situation?

Evidence is only evidence.

LS_8750 wrote:An "easement for building encroachment" trumps the dimension call... No?

Yes..I fully agree. The easement width is what *may* change. I attached a rough plan view. Until I have more information on the south line I cannot come
to a decision. The easement width will not be less than 6 inches.

The south line establishment is independent of the easement width.

Sure glad it's your survey and not mine.

land butcher wrote:Sure glad it's your survey and not mine.

So am I !

Actually this one is pretty simple.

The client was referred and when he called he started with a short interview, starting off like asking "So tell me, just how would you do my survey? Tell me a bit about yourself". That kinda threw me a little so I answered him and said "Well, I am 64, been doing this for over 40 years and I don't cheat people"

Interview ended immediately and he just handed me the job

It's a nice area..Ventura, just about a mile from the beach. Friday was about 74° and this nice breeze just makes it better. A bit hotter Saturday but the breeze was still doing it's thing. I'll be onsite working at 6AM or a bit before.. so glad to be away from the Los Angeles heat even if it's just for one day.

Looks like a tough call to have to make, but it also sounds like you have already made up your mind on how to weigh the evidence.

It sounds like junior monuments invite calamity and the seniors retain harmony.

I hate "True Corners"! The dang things are always floating around this way & that. It's like trying to catch a bat on a pitch black night!

I'm really glad when I find an old monument that has nailed one of these elusive things down already. I just call to the monument and make the other guy look like the smart one. He caught the "True Corner". I'm just drawing attention to it.

I'm really amazed at those guys who are able to catch a slippery "True Corner" after it's wiggled out from under the original monument that once nailed it down. How do they do it?!?






[for those who couldn't tell, and I know you're out there, this post was 100% sarcasm]

E_Page wrote:
I'm really amazed at those guys who are able to catch a slippery "True Corner" after it's wiggled out from under the original monument that once nailed it down. How do they do it?!?

I like that.

E_Page wrote:
I'm really amazed at those guys who are able to catch a slippery "True Corner" after it's wiggled out from under the original monument that once nailed it down. How do they do it?!?

Same way they hunt quail, they sprinkle salt on it.