The dangers of GIS!

[Plumb Bob]

At a recent Christmas party a friend mentioned that their neighbor had moved and the house had been empty for a while. As the existing adjoining fence was in a bit of a bad state they thought it was a good time to replace it.
Along comes the other neighbor and says "have you seen the City's GIS it shows you where your properry line is and if you look at the picture for our houses your fence should be about 5 feet further back" Guess where they put their new fence! Yes, 5 feet away - now it looks just like the picture!

[LS_8750]

Good for business?

[-D-A-]

We get those phone calls too. Something along the lines of: "My neighbor just showed me a photo from the County's/City's Website of his property line and his property line goes right through my garage...."

[NickL]

It's hard to expect the public to be educated in property boundaries, with what little information the typical homeowner has been exposed to regarding such.

Do County/City online GIS apps have bold disclaimers that would help the public understand they shouldn't rely on the displayed "property lines?" I would expect this to be the first educational step.

But as Clark mentioned.. good for biz! Sorry to hear about the mis-located fence =(

[land butcher]

Actually it makes it hard on us.

Finishing a lot survey once the neighbor came home and asked if the City was going to check my work. People are going to believe the cities GIS over some guy in levis and plaid shirt, not that wearing a suit and tie would make any difference.

Then there was the story several years ago about the eastern state county recorder that would not accept a surveyor's RS because it didn't match her GIS.