Survey or not to survey?

[PatinPA]

An acquaintance I hunt with bought a farm, mostly woodland, advertised as 100 acres, more or less. It was priced at 100 acres...more or less. Upon transfer my acquaintance had the land surveyed. I don't know about situations in your parts of the world but I have been surprised more than once about how much land has not been surveyed. Anyhow, it turned out there were about 150 acres in the acquired parcel. The seller sued the buy demanding additional compensation for the "found" acreage. The court said to the seller, "Sorry but you sold it more or less.!

My good friend's father was in the land speculation business. He bought something like 500 acres of timberland and sold part of it to a timber company without a survey. The two parties agreed on the acreage and the deal was done. For more than 20 years my friend paid taxes on the 250 acres. He recently sold it and had it surveyed before the sale. There were only 207 acres still in his ownership. There's no backward looking for adjustments.

I have several more stories like this, enough to make me question any assumptions made about who owns what.

Don't guess.

Oh ya I have the original deed and it says such and such corner marked by the fencepost of the neighboring farm or it's the large oak tree. Well that fencepost/tree is long gone. I talked to the farmer beside me and he said he had multiple surveyors come in and try to figure it out before he finally found one that did. That's when they found out that the camp was built on his property and the land swap occurred.

 

[Buckly]

Over the years I was able to survey myself about 130 acres through deed descriptions and updates from 1865 to present. Using a lensatic compass, tape measures and a whole lot of flagging tape. The longer sections (1200-1300 ft were a bit more time consuming and some was through swamp so frozen conditions were a help. I did easy ones first. I was able to find all corners and then flag straight lines to them with some trial and error. IE: I would set a degree path on the compass and flag as I went. If I ended up 10-15 ft off at the end then I would go back and readjust my readings. I was confident I was within a foot at any point in my flagging and corner work. When I sold the place the buyer needed a survey from the bank So had to have the whole thing surveyed. I think it was only 4-5K. They used GIS and put in new pins at the corners. My own survey was pretty much dead on. the whole trick is to get a starting point. So it is possible to get a good handle on it yourself but, on a small parcel like 12 acres a survey wouldn’t cost very much I’m guessing.

 

[gjs4]

Just an random FYI for those who have found OnX or similar to be incorrect in acerage or ownership listed....

When you open the parcel at the bottom of the window there is a "report" button. You cna provide inaccuracies there.

Stating this not as a fan-boy but as someone who wanted to make sure the listing was corrected after a purchase.

 

[hunts_with_stick]

So one surveyor got back to me and said 1k to survey just the the strip along the road and down both sides about 300’. It might be about 400-500’ along the road. My property is basically a rectangle so straight lines is what he would be doing. Does that sound about right? 1k? To me that sounds a bit high for as little as he is surveying.

 

[S.T.Fanatic]

So one surveyor got back to me and said 1k to survey just the the strip along the road and down both sides about 300’. It might be about 400-500’ along the road. My property is basically a rectangle so straight lines is what he would be doing. Does that sound about right? 1k? To me that sounds a bit high for as little as he is surveying.

I have no experience with this but im guessing you aren't going to get anyone to drive to your property for under that amount.

 

[Howboutthemdawgs]

So one surveyor got back to me and said 1k to survey just the the strip along the road and down both sides about 300’. It might be about 400-500’ along the road. My property is basically a rectangle so straight lines is what he would be doing. Does that sound about right? 1k? To me that sounds a bit high for as little as he is surveying.

It’s all the office work we don’t see that takes time. They have to research your deed and maybe neighbors deed to put together the puzzle pieces on that line. The field work is the easy part

 

[hunts_with_stick]

I also asked for a price on the whole thing, but never got that... from this one surveyor. I need to get some mroe quotes

 

[FarmerDan]

The cost will depend on what you want done. At its simplest a survey can locate corners and pin them if they aren't already. At the other extreme is the legal boundary survey involving preparation of plats and the recording of the same with the county. Be sure you know what you want and communicate that to the surveyor. Every function entails a cost. Any surveyors here?

 

[Maddog66]

My friends wife has been a surveyor for many years, he’s retired. They always have new atv’s, utv’s, snowmobiles, trucks, SUV’s, nice house, cabin….etc etc

So yes….$1k for an hour of work seems about right.

 

[bigboreblr]

Most surveyors have dealt with sneaky little schnitz trying to move pins on them. MY last surveyor put 2 pins in each spot. One above ground, and a 2nd one level with the ground. All you got to do is sniff around with a metal detector, you may find pins.

 

[356]

Can't speak to the exact lines they show but OnX can kiss my A$$. I owned 114 acres that was listed as owned by an absentee power company. Everyone and their third cousin thought they could hunt it for about a year.

OnX had very little interest in my problem because their info came from the government who is never wrong.

Sorry rant over, back to OP..

OnX had our property listed wrong. After emailing them the first time, nothing changed. The second time I sent a copy of the deed. To that email I received a response, and in a few days the listing was updated. It would be helpful if their website instructions included the documents to be included, but it does not. I would also note that I had to update our county GIS data, which was wrong after five years. Same story…two emails ignored. The third included a copy of the deed. Within days the GIS was updated. Sadly, I doubt if OnX or the government workers have time and/or inclination to do simple research. Providing a copy of the deed made the difference in both cases.

 

[b116757]

On the last farm I bought I had one shared 1/2 mile property line. I could plainly see the fence looked more like a snake than boundary line and had two different surveyed corner markers an old concrete one that was not accurate and a much newer sign post corner both in the same area 15’ apart. I had it surveyed cost me $700. I gained a little on the west end where the multiple corners where marked lost a little in the middle and the east end was spot on. There was no real contention between me and the neighbor but I was replacing that fence line and wasn’t interested in the original crooked line. The new fence is straight as string for the entire 1/2 mile now. In your situation I would likely have it surveyed especially if you’re considering fencing it off. I have another 1/2 mile line on the other farm that if I ever get around to it I will likely have surveyed and install a single strand of 1/2” guy wire as an unmistakable property boundary. Neither I nor the neighbor run cattle along that creek bottom so spending to much money on an elaborate barbed wire fence makes little sense but having that guy wire pulled tight would make it easy for my deer hunters to know where the propert line is located at.

 

[Buckly]

$1000.00 is about a weeks worth of groceries in this day and age. You can’t buy much if anything for that. Anyways, what does that include? Just flagging the points? If they put in new pins on the corners that might be a bunch extra. Not just for the iron rod and time but, all the proper recording in the deeds office. Surveying is just as much investigating, researching and recording as is the field work.

 

[Bill]

OnX had our property listed wrong. After emailing them the first time, nothing changed. The second time I send a copy of the deed. To that email I received a response, and in days the listing was updated. It would be helpful is their website instructions included the documents to be included, but it does not. I would also note that I had to update our county GIS data, which was wrong after five years. Same story…two emails ignored. The third included a copy of the deed. Within days the GIS was updated. Sadly, I doubt if OnX or the government workers have time and/or inclination to do simple research. Providing a copy of the deed made the difference in both cases.

I've since sold it. But I did call them and it took a year for them to change it.

 

[gjs4]

So one surveyor got back to me and said 1k to survey just the the strip along the road and down both sides about 300’. It might be about 400-500’ along the road. My property is basically a rectangle so straight lines is what he would be doing. Does that sound about right? 1k? To me that sounds a bit high for as little as he is surveying.

Had a tricky 75 surveyed- wooded, brushy, hilly, briar laden- a big rectangle with two rabbit ears.....it was just shy of $11,000.

 

[buckdeer1]

You have to do research to make sure you are starting at the right point.My corner has a concrete pyramid and in research it said to find a flat rock with a X carved in it buried 24 inches deep and 32 ft SW of pyramid.Sure enough we found it and because it runs along the river and was a correction line you had to start from there as the south half of section was normal footage and north half was short.I also found that most of the sections along our county line are short by close to 300 ft.Then theres our town that got completely wiped off the map by a tornado so you can imagine what thats like to survey.Most places in country have surveyors that work the area and are more familiar with area

 

[T-Max]

Some of it can depend on other work that has been done in the area by the firm. We recently had a large powerline replaced a couple of miles away. The power company had all of their easement located for miles and miles. My buddy is a surveyor and did a considerable amount of this process. It cost the power company a ton of money, but now his firm has all of that fresh data to use as benchmarks for other projects. Since the legwork is already done, they are running a fire sale on property line locates in our area.

 

[b116757]

Mine was reasonable because I boarded the interstate on one side that is all sorts of surveyed