California Surveyors Forums

Attached is the Parcel Map I prepared for a 2-unit condos subdivision which is being reviewed by City.

Land to be subdivided per deed: The west half of Lot 999 except the west 50 feet thereof.

City contract surveyor insists that the east line of the distinctive border must be paralleled to the west line of Lot 999. I disagree.

My opinion: As long as I can proof the west half equals to east half in area, the dividing line between said halves can be anything. It may not be paralleled to the west line of said Lot 999. Wattle 7.24.

Am I missing something?

Hmmmm... That is about 0.01' you're tussling over.

As I get older, I realize that there are fights that must be fought, fights that are fun to fight and fights that just aren't worth the trouble.

The City Surveyor is "book learned wrong". There are no solid standards for bearings of "by area" descriptions. It's more common to make the line parallel with the side from which it is drawn, i.e. - in this case the west lines would be parallel. However there are no statutes that force this. Mean bearing, weighted mean bearing, cardinal direction...I've seen them all.

Now, the issue that the CS SHOULD have picked up on is the fact that Lot 999 is not indicated in the map.

what Ian said.

My opinion would be based on who has senior rights? If the west half of Lot 999 was created first, then I would agree that the west line of your Lot 1 should be the same as the west line of Lot 999 (intent).

Now – I’m assuming the east half of Lot 999 was written as the “east half of Lot 999” and not the easterly ???? feet of Lot 999, I can’t tell – no record data on the map.

Again my opinion is, who has senior rights will determine what line controls.

Is that "distinctive boundary" with the 14 solid circles required by the local agency?

Totally dislike that - unless you happened to find 14 iron pipes at some consistently weird pattern of offsets around the property. Sorry, I know you are posting about something else, but it just screams at me.

Joe:

Could you please provide your reference and/or citation?


Brian:

I agree!!!

I agree with you Boundary Man and also Ian. This is quite nitpicky of the map checker. Generally, I think map checkers need to spend less time on this kind of stuff and more on the general compliance issues with the SMA and the PLS Act.

Amazing.. I would make it parallel and move on down the line

JoeC wrote:My opinion would be based on who has senior rights? If the west half of Lot 999 was created first, then I would agree that the west line of your Lot 1 should be the same as the west line of Lot 999 (intent).

Now – I’m assuming the east half of Lot 999 was written as the “east half of Lot 999” and not the easterly ???? feet of Lot 999, I can’t tell – no record data on the map.

Again my opinion is, who has senior rights will determine what line controls.

JoeC,
The east half was written: “The east half of Lot 999”. As such, Jr/Sr right does not exist. It boils down to equal area.
However, if the east half was written as “the east 103.81' of Lot 999”; then Jr/Sr right exists.

Gentlemen:

Jr/Sr Rights are based on date of conveyance (with one or two rare and esoteric exceptions). The descriptions used here are perfect examples of J/S screw up potentials! Please review Sequential Conveyances in Brown's book and any other survey text you can find. (If you attended any of my Boundary Reviews, I failed miserably...)

However, that's just a red herring obscuring the real issue. If the line has never been determined before, it's up for grabs. There is no statute that requires one method over the other. All are just as valid.

In this case, it's completely moot! The difference is almost unmeasurable!

If this were my map, I would politely decline to make the change and request a written explanation as to why the CS thought their method was better...including references.

The license held by the CS is issued by the same agency that mine is. Being then CS requires no more training than what my position does.

To be sure, the opinion of the CS is a valuable one and one I have been grateful for many times. (Thank you for your patience, Gerry Stainer!) but, it is no more important than mine - or of any other surveyor licensed to practice in California.

If this were my map, I would politely decline to make the change

This is probably the inclination of most of us, but the reality is that while it might be my map, it's my client's project, and he doesn't want to bear the cost of delay while I tilt at windmills. Even if the City Surveyor is so wrong that he'll lose his license as a result of a complaint, the process of proving him wrong and getting him out of the way takes so long that the project will have died of carrying costs long before I can claim victory. Letters to the City Council, the City Attorney, and the editor of the local paper are likely to do little to change the outcome.

When it comes to discretionary map approvals (as opposed to a mandatory filing, like a Record of Survey), once the City Surveyor decides to back his map checker your best option is generally to shake your head in disgust and make the change. A letter to the CS is probably a good idea as an educational matter, but unless the change would constitute negligence on your part, it's time to suck it up and move forward, or risk losing a client.

P.S. Venting here is always a good way to manage the frustration!

.

I agree with you about slowing down the client's project, Jim. However, I have found, with very few exceptions, that a well reasoned discussion with the agency staff is all it takes for us to get on the same page.

Sometimes it goes my way, sometimes they have a valid point I did not consider.

I just don't roll over. I know you well enough to know you don't, either, Jim.

We're both of an age to know when to battle and when to not battle. How the heck did that happen,Jim?

Okay - I stand corrected. I can’t find any publications or references on how to properly define “half of” descriptions. Brown’s Boundary Control and Legal Principles, Fifth Edition – Section 13.8 – Angular Direction of Dividing Line on “of” Descriptions, goes into using the mean bearing as the dividing line on near parallel lots. I think this is the case here.

BoundaryMan – I agree with Ian. I would have a professional discussion with the CS.

This brings up another issue. Where in the world can we find real property court cases and rulings on the internet?

Want to know the truth? I THINK ALL CALIFORNIA LICENSED LAND SURVEYORS NEED TO PAY ATTENTION TO THIS!

I contacted the map reviewer. It happened that said map reviewer is a contract City Surveyor company who contracted this portion of work. I called said company that I need to speak to the person who is reviewing my map. I also asked that if the reviewer a licensed land surveyor. The answer I got was that map reviewer is not licensed but he has over 30 years of experience.

I declined to talk to him as I know I will be wasting my time over boundary resolution with unlicensed. I told said company that I need to talk to someone who is authorized to practice land surveying, no unlicensed person is authorized to review & make comment on my map....

Does anyone know why California Land Surveyors are slow on works? It's not because California is low on surveying works. It's because there are bunch of unlicensed practice out there who is taking away licensed surveyors' works.
Do the math, California has 37 million peoples. California has only approx. 3,000 active licensed land surveyors. How can the licensed land surveyors in this great state cannot find surveying works?

In reviewing the “Minimum Standard Detail Requirements for Land Title Surveys” adopted in 1962, I found the following paragraph at the end of §3.

“When the surveyor has doubt as to the location on the ground of street or lot lines being within the tolerances cited above (for such reasons as street and lot lines being undefinable (sic) or indefinite because of insufficient monuments or markers in the ground or where errors arc found to exist in the descriptions of legal or recorded plats or maps of streets and lots), the surveyor shall clearly indicate the nature of the difficulty or discrepancy and give his professional opinion as to range and scope of differences possibly involved and the effect, under the circumstances, of same on the surveyed positions. It is expected that the exercise of professional judgment by the surveyor will minimize differences of opinions with other professional surveyors exercising equally prudent judgment in such situation.”

Read and re-read that last sentence.

Those words, from 50 years ago, are as important to understand today as the day they were written.

How much of this sort of stuff could be resolved before it even became an issue if we actually lived by those professional words?

Hold the phone here!

It is expected that the exercise of professional judgment by the surveyor will minimize differences of opinions with other professional surveyors exercising equally prudent judgment in such situation.”

The professional judgment to be exercised in this matter is to make the line parallel like the CS is requesting and not hold up the clients project or create ill will with the people responsible for giving the map an all clear to the City for further processing to recordation, especially when the point of disagreement cannot possibly be located in the field, nor would this insignificant value impact any improvements along that parcel line.

Edit...

Since Ian had posted that the point of contention was 0.01', well, I just took that and ran with it. However, I just took a closer look at the subject map and the difference in brearing from what is on it, N 00° 21' 59" W, and what the CS wants shown, N 00° 22' 01" W, is a 3 second difference! My Gawd! It seems that the OP is arguing over an amout of 21/10,000ths of a foot!

Common sense needs to be applied here, to hell with professional judgement. Change the damn map

Well, I personally do not bend on principal. The technical side of land surveying and civil engineering exists in a legal sense to support an argument. Unless presented with better evidence, or proven wrong, then i do not bend. Period. I owe my clients that much.

As for Mr. Woolley's words: Exactly one million percent spot on. Yet with those same exact references, I once, having no other evidential recourse, actually split a 1/16 section by area using weighted mean bearing. My solution maximized harmony between neighbors, it gave each neighbor the maximum setback between existing buildings and other associated improvements to the boundary. Every other solution, Brown, Bryant v. Blevins, etc., seemed to promote disharmony between occupation. I used judgement, I was dealing with far more than 0.01 ft. Right or wrong, I can defend my position.

Would you please tell me how much 'principal' an inversed bearing has on a map that was not proofed before submission?

BTW..the difference is 2 seconds, not 3 like I had said.

ANOTHER REASON for suggesting the bearing should be parallel to the west side of Lot 999 is that the distances shown along the northerly and southerly lines are identical (50.00 & 53.81) - suggesting parallelism.

I don't buy that "west half" implies the dividing line be parallel with the west lot line. I understand aliquot descriptions, but would prefer not to write one because of the inherent ambiguity.

I don't get the 59" though... I'd average the side lines of lot 999 and use 56", although that doesn't change the location.