California Surveyors Forums

I've got to kick the hornet's nest a little bit this morning.

There was recently an article in a surveying magazine that warned land surveyors about the danger of determining property ownership. This got my wheels spinning, and at some point smoke came out of my ears.

I think the article had some valid concerns. For example: It probably isn't a good idea to show land ownership in a map without a note or other metadata that explains how these statements about land ownership were determined.

However, here are some questions that popped into my mind:

1) If land surveyors aren't qualified to make statements about the ownership of land, who is? (I'm talking about professional opinion here, not on the final decision on ownership that can be handed down by the highest court of the land.)

2) Are most attorneys or title officers more qualified than land surveyors to make statements about land ownership? Are most tax assessors or local agency land planners?

3) If other professions (like attorneys or title professionals) believe they are more qualified to make statements about land ownership, how do they deal with the problems of ownership location? How do you make a statement about land ownership without a related statement about the location of land that is owned? Is that even possible?

4) If a statement about land ownership requires some related statement or description of the land that is owned, doesn't this fall directly into the practice of land surveying as defined by California law?

5) Would it be appropriate for a land surveyor to make statements about ownership of land (shown on a map or other survey work product) based on [a] GIS data tax assessor data [c] landowner testimony [d] a preliminary title report [e] a title guarantee [f] a chain-of-title [g] a current vesting grant deed [h] research at the clerk and recorder research of survey records? Are some of these sources inappropriate while others are appropriate? What if the land surveyor included metadata or notes on the source of ownership information shown on a map or other surveyor work product? Would this change things?

These questions interest me for a couple of reasons:

1) I'm always curious about the role of the land surveyor in our economy and society. Not just our current role, but our past role, our future role, and the role of surveyors that would bring the most benefit to our fellow citizens.

2) I think sometimes land surveyors can be turned away from providing valuable services by fear cultivated by others, including other types of professions.

I'm eager to hear your thoughts. Please be warm and friendly to all that respond. I'm sure opinions will differ. :]

Landon

Good questions

Do title officers even have any land survey training anymore? All the ones I've dealt with didn't seem to have a clue. Even when doing a ALTA asking why I need copies of the backup docs.

If we can't make a determination from the deed and field evidence who can? I have never had dealings with a lawyer that specialized in land matters. I do know atty's in TX required a lot and block ALTA to have a metes and bounds description on the ALTA and then changed the recorded deed to a metes and bounds. insert bang head against wall emicon here.

The article I read in American Surveyor was talking about Title as distinguished from location. I think the author had good advice, do you search the local probate records, for example? I might label the tract "Smith/123 O.R. 321" but that is just a qualified statement of a source of information. I don't intend to say Smith holds title in that case.

Title is who owns it, whatever it is. Location is where it is and how big, etc, regardless of who owns it. The primary purpose of the description is to uniquely identify the property but is not necessarily conclusive on location, it is only one piece of evidence of location.

If the subdivision lot is physically monumented larger than the plat indicates there are no little strips of title around the lot, the lot owner holds the ground between the correct location and the monumented location by the same tenure that he holds the lot. Likewise if the boundary line is not precisely where we expect to find it by the description there is no strip of title between the mathematical or calculated location and the physical location.

We continually confuse location questions with title questions, oh well.

Dave wrote: "Title is who owns it, whatever it is. Location is where it is and how big, etc, regardless of who owns it."

Good comment Dave. I'll have to think about this some more.

I wonder if there are some aspects of land that make ownership issues a bit more complicated. For example: You can pick up a basketball and take it with you. That makes resolution of ownership issues a little simpler. It is a bit hard to do that with land.

Here are some things that make ownership of land a little more complicated than ownership of a basketball:

1) Possession can turn into ownership if certain conditions are met.
2) Ownership of rights can be severed from ownership of the fee.
3) Use and occupation may not correspond to land described in "title" documents.
4) The description of land in a title document may result in multiple locations on the ground.

You wrote: "We continually confuse location questions with title questions."

I suppose this is true if we are talking about the strict location of land described in a particular document, and if that document contains an unambiguous description of the land. I think this get's muddier when we start to think about the location of actual ownership rights versus the location of the bounds of a particular description.

Even simple descriptions can complicate questions of ownership. For example, consider this description:

"The south 1/2 of lot 10 of Peter's Tract".

Does that include the adjacent street frontage? How do you draw the line separating the north 1/2 from the south 1/2? What if a portion of Lot 10 is bounded by a river?

In this case, it might not be easy to locate the land description OR the actual ownership. Consider the boundary of Lot 10 along a river. The actual location of this boundary could be very closely related to the laws regarding riparian boundaries and the ownership of the bed of rivers, navigable or otherwise. In this case it might not be easy to separate the issues of boundary location and ownership.

Some more things for me to think about. Thanks again for the good comments.

Landon

The people who own the land are the most quailified to make statements on land ownership. This is part of your duty in our system as a land owner. The Court is more qualified to make statements about Land ownership since sometimes they are called upon to settle ownership disputes by the Land owners.

In the temple case posted by Dane Ince in the previous thread Surveyor Gardener filed a record of survey showing a conflict. If the Temple had never told the neighbors they owned part of the adjoining land, never blocked the road leading into the neighbors property and never filed a quiet title action against the neighbor then what do you think the odds are that the neighbor would have filed a suit against Gardener for Slander of Title?

The Court and the owners of property are absolutely more qualified to make statements about land ownership since the Land Surveyor has no power to establish legal ownership of property....but they do.

Describing and locating land boundaries on the ground is what Land Surveyors do but in doing this we are not required to make statements of ownership.

In Texas by codified law I am required to note the public record instrument that defines the location of the adjoining boundary to the property I am surveying. When I do this I am not makings a statement of who owns the adjoining property. What I am doing is demonstrating that I have reviewed and even surveyed the adjoining property boundary according to the (a) description of public record as it compares to the boundaries I am surveying. This is to give the consumer of the product (my survey) some confidence that there is no conflict (unless I am showing it on the survey) with the public record description of the property I am surveying placed on the ground with the public record description of the adjoining parcels. Once again none of these actions I engage in are statements of ownership.

Certain Land Surveyors and Lawyers have been pushing patently ridiculous notions about what Land Surveyors do and are suppose to do for a number of years now and this has led to confusion from the Court and some Land Surveyors about our profession. They are simply exploiting the fear they themselves have put into Land Surveyors by insisting that the classical role of a Land Surveyor in our society is dying or dead. That the Neo-professional land surveyor somehow needs to reinvent themselves in order to survive. Horse feathers!

My advice is ignore them because they don't know what they are talking about. Stick to Skelton and colloquial case law which can withstand critical review.

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