Why do I need a Land Surveyor?

[CBarrett]

Hey everyone, this is a quick blurb I wrote as advice intended for non surveyors, mostly SFR owners and small residential lot owners, to give some basic information on why one would want or need to survey their land. I posted it on LinkedIn and Facebook and to my pleasant surprize it is gaining a little bit of traction.

I am sharing it here in case anyone would like to improve upon it and use it, or wants to share constructive thoughts. (Feel free to use both, text and graphic if you wish). It is fairly short, in order to fit within the linkedin 3000 letter limit.
I am testing the waters a little bit as I am thinking about how to tackle some of our public outreach efforts (since I am on that committee now).
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Why should I have my land surveyed - public at large often asks?

As opposed to trusting GIS databases or my real-estate agents' opinions.

Many GIS systems including those which realtors use are approximate. Depending on an area, it can have differences of few feet to few hundred feet. Much of it can depend on property size, but also on history of the area.

This is not accounted or in GIS systems because their purpose is not meant to show precise and accurate property boundaries. Their purpose is to get you to the vicinity.

When you are planning on adding to your property, for example, a sunroom addition, a pool, placing a fence or expanding a driveway, you have to get a building permit. To get a building permit your proposed plan has to confirm to California building code and many other governing laws, including zoning ordinances which determine property setbacks. These dimensions need to be rather precise. In most cases +/- 1 foot is not precise enough. Required precision is closer to +/- 0.1 foot. Accuracy too is an issue which non surveyors are not trained to address.

Another common reason when residential property owners need to know where their property boundaries are hostile neighbors.

In both cases, you need a surveyor licensed to practice in your state.

To address the first concern, the precision. Land Surveyors are the only ones who have the training and the equipment capable of measuring land at that level of precision and guarantee accurate results. There is a lot more to measuring than just taping a line on the ground. Each circumstance requires specific methodology and the ability to explain that methodology so that your contentious neighbor cannot easily challenge it in an argument. Not only are Land surveyors only one that have this training but are also the only ones allowed by law to do it. (because of the specialized training)

Second concern is legal standing. When you are retracing property lines, you are not just measuring, you are also reviewing the entire body of evidence surrounding specific property location so that it can be defended in the court of law. There is evidence and decisions that even lawyers cannot make without surveyor. When your land is surveyed, the survey has legal standing. While surveyors do not practice law, their opinion on boundary location evidence is admissible in courts.

Your Realtor, GIS databases, Architects and Civil Engineers licensed after 1982 cannot offer this. Your Landscape Contractor, your General Contractor, your Pool guy, or your neighbors' computer savvy kid cannot offer this. Using sources other than Land Surveyors to locate property boundaries is a good way to end up in litigation.

Yes, properly done boundary survey can be expensive. From about $2500 dollars to $15,000 or more depending on size, history and complexity. However, land litigation or having to demolish ill-placed improvements is exponentially more expensive.