So what happens when your boundary survey shows problems?

If your place has ever been surveyed in the past and you have the description you can use a GPS to walk the lines and place markers and be really close.

I bought property that used to be part of a large farm of several hundred acres. I had 17 acres more or less with a huge barn on it. When the actual lines were run it took about a third of my barn. I just went to the guy who had bought next door and offered him the equivalent land in trade. He accepted.

In our area we use the "meets and bounds" system for the legal description. The legal description will read something like.... "Beginning at a stone by the creek, a corner to Smith, thence with Smiths line north 27 degrees, 15 minutes west, 187 feet to a leaning beach tree, thence up the creek.......... so on and so forth all the way around the property until it gets back to the beginning. The surveyor takes these distances and degrees of direction and draws out a scale map of the boundarys of the property in question. He then looks up the legal descriptions of the adjoining neighbors and matches the lines where the various properties meet. If everything matches, his job is easy, he just finds one or two existing markers and "runs the lines" from them. Sadly, in our area those "calls" seldom match and owners then have to come to an agreement and establish an "agreed line" based on the best information available. The surveyors job is simple enough when things go well, it can also be extremely difficult when they have to deal with really old, inaccurate legal descriptions or greedy property owners who want that extra 3 feet of land that joins theirs.

One of our surveyors has been dealing with a farm in an adjacent county for over 5 years trying to get the adjacent owners to establish a couple lines. Everytime he attempts to establish a corner, the owners will tell him "nope, that aint right, I dont know where the corner is, but I know its not there". They then will argue the issue in court, delay the process, and hold up the adjoining land owners ability to sell their property.

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"Nothing so needs reforming as other peoples habits." Mark Twain

Yvonne's hubby

When the situation you describe surfaces (Everytime he attempts to establish a corner, the owners will tell him "nope, that aint right, I dont know where the corner is, but I know its not there") and one wants to sell, the quit claim deed is a good solution provided the land is not terrible expensive or substantial in size. Time and a number of funerals usually resolve these issues. I am aware of a landowner in my community that has had 3 surveys on his 27 acres and still cannot accept the outcome. The surveys get him his 27 acres but he keeps claiming he owns addition land that abuts his. He wants an additional 6 acres and to only place to get it is off neighbors but none of the neighbors have any errors that come near that amount. The landowner will die fretting over someone that he is not entitled to have.

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!

In this case there is quite a few acres involved as the tracts are well over 2000 acres, the questionable areas could amount to 100 or so acres. The land value is not all that much, rugged backwoods country, no utilities and miserable access, but there is a lot of good timber back in there.

I had a good friend once that died while quarreling over land that he "believed" should have been his. The quit claim deed was the culprit in that case. When he bought the farm it had a new survey and he got what he paid for at the time. He learned there had been some disputes previously and that the folks he bought the place from simply went along with the neighbors finally, surveyed and sold the place accepting the loss of acreage on three sides. My friend however decided he want to stir the pot, got them to sign over a quit claim deed to the disputed areas and the battle raged on once again! Had the previous owners never granted that quit claim deed, the problem would have been solved the day my friend bought the place.

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"Nothing so needs reforming as other peoples habits." Mark Twain

These stories are exactly why I have preached that the survey should be considered as just one more closing cost. If you get a survey as you are moving in, any problems can be resolved as business transactions, instead of festering later if you should happen to become friends with your neighbors. Your surveyor can also put wooden stakes and flags near the problem spots, so the problems will be obvious to everybody and speak for themselves. Needless to say, I didn't do that--even though the neighbor on the other side of him came over, livid, and warned me that he had even moved a boundary iron stake.....The surveyor I hired asked me, at the beginning if I was having a dispute. Well, sort of--on the one side---he took a look, and said, "I see your point." When he got done the one side was filled with flags, and the neighbor's dog had wrapped his chain around one of the flags and was sleeping--still a good ten feet into my yard. For the neigbor on the other side of me, I took the flags down the next day--after I had photographed them, but for the problem neighbor, I left them up until the wooden stakes rotted off....

One of the good things about Michigan is that it was a part of the Northwest Ordinance, which divided the Northwest Territories into six mile square Townships, then, it was surveyed and the sections were established early on with permanent markers. Trees die and streams meander, but it's pretty hard to move cut stone and concrete. My deed , beginning in 1839 with the land grant from the United States to the first owner, starts from the East Quarter post of Section 21...............

Some areas around here were settled by the French. Their land claims were measured by a bit of shore frontage, then extending back a few thousand feet. Everything was these strips of land at all sorts of different angles. These deeded parcels were eventually divided up as the city developed. It is a real survey mess.

Most of this state is divided up in mile square sections. Many are not a mile, and many are not square. I own a quarter of a section, listed as the south east quarter of that section. Along the south side, that section is 60 feet short of a whole mile. So, my half mile of road frontage is short by 30 feet. The rest of the section, along that road is short the other 30 feet. It has ben divided up into 5 or 6 parcels. Each parcel has the length and width listed in the property discription. However, there isn't enough land for everyone to have the full amount listed on their deed. Somehow, that 30 feet shortage has to be accounted for. So far nobody has checked it out, they just don't know there is a shortage. But someday.....

When people buy a 40 acre parcel, they assume it is 1320 feet square. May be more, may be less. Sometimes a lot less.

I had a neighbor that owned 80 acres. She wanted to keep 2 acres for her house and sell the remaining 78. Her house was on a corner and the road is a 33 feet easement on two sides. She had her property discription written up as starting at that 33 foot mark. Sort of hard to discribe but the property she sold includes a "frame" around two sides of her 2 acres, 33 feet wide. She gets a full 2 acres and he got 78 acres that includes the road easement around her 2 acres that he can't really use.

Yvonne's hubby

In my thinking regarding the 2000 acre tract, I would have been satisfied in that the property I paid for matched the deed in my name. I would have still wanted the Quit Claim deed. Not that I would have done anything with the Quit Claim deed unless the adjoining neighbor decided to do some more encroaching. In court, with the Quit Claim deed and the encroaching neighbor unable to substantiate his claim, I believe that in arbitration I would at least recover 1/2 of the area in question.

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!

Geo in Mi is right. You have a survey done before you buy the place, and have it explained to you. If there's a problem, make sure it's worked out before you pony up your money.

I had a problem a couple of years ago. New people moved next door and did not know how to read a deed. Stated my barn was 1/2 on their side. I had it surveyed, turned out their septic and leach field were on my side.(they had to move it) They also cut trees on my propery way past the line.(had to pay for the trees). It sucks having neighbor problems. Make sure all parties understand the deed, and a survey done, where the lines are. It helps in the furture also if property is sold.

I guess it depends on if your neighbor purposely moved the fence or not. A lot of old parcels around here were staked, actually you still can stake them to this day as long as they are approximately 10 acres or larger. So most of the property lines aren't perfectly straight and most of the time the amount of land usually doesn't quite add up. A 40 acre parcel maybe be 38.5 acres or 41.2 acres. Also just because one has a survey it doesn't always mean that they are automatically entitled to the other person's land. Adverse use comes into play in this state mostly due to the before mentioned process of staking instead of surveying land. I figure best bet is to leave it alone. My current place the boundaries are off. My neighbor cuts hay on a sliver of my land but the line on the other side is also off in my favor a slight bit so it works out in the end.

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http://www.xanga.com/shackman A blog about whatever

Been there done that, 1 1/2 times. The half time was when the FiL was going to sale a property. Why he didn't have it surveyed before he bought it I don't know. But he discovered the propane tank was on the neighbor but a large part of the neighbor's yard was really his.

Before we bought our current property no one but us thought a survey was needed. OUR agent, OUR "lawyer" and OUR banker (we called the Larry, Curly and Moe) all thought we were being silly to demand one.

Well come to find out one neighbor had part of his pig pen on the property (he moved it when asked) and another "lost" over half of "his" back yard.

In both cases it was nothing more than talking to the other owners and showing them the legal docs.

If that doesn't work its time to call in the lawyers.

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Remember, when seconds count. . .
the police are just MINUTES away!

Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. . .Davy Crockett

Our property has 6 neighbors with surrounding properties. We had a survey started within the first month of moving in. We wanted to make sure of the boundaries prior to putting in fences, but also to resolve a few problems.

The survey showed that the boundary between 4 of the neighbors was dead on. The boundary lines with the other two were off. One was only off by 2-3 ft in favor of the neighbor where the second was off from 5-65ft in favor of us. The survey also showed that a well in question was ours and that a neighbor's septic field was on our property.

Overall, we simply went to the various neighbors, introduced ourselves, brought some fresh eggs, and talked about the survey findings and our plans. Asking if they had any problems. The 4 where the boundary line was right are simply allowing us to replace the old fencing. None of them have livestock and the old fencing was an eyesore to them. One of them is in fact gaining some additional yard since we are not putting the fence on the boundary, but in 16 ft so we have an alley for a future possible driveway in from the county road. (Before anyone says anything, we have put nails into the ground to claim the property and will maintain it.) All of them were friendly and thought it was nice of us to come and talk to them.

The fifth neighbor was also very kind. It had been believe that the wood/brush line that separates our properties was the boundary. It actually wasn't and instead was 2-3ft in on our side. The brushline is approx. 30 ft wide and they have no interest in clearing it to utilize the property so we were able to get permission to put the fencing on the boundary line, but to do some landscaping on their side of the fence to create year round privacy plantings. It isn't going to cost of any true money since we are using transplants, cuttings, and freecycle/craigslist finds. This way we don't have to take any area away from our pastures and we will never need to see their house.

The sixth neighbor has been the problem. Not only did we officially own all of the fencing, but we also owned the well in question and her septic was on our property. We tried talking to her as we did with the others, but she is very passive aggressive. You think everything is ok, but then come to find out that it isn't.

Initially, she didn't voice her opinion to us, instead she made harassing calls to our surveyor behind our backs and went to the county offices to complain. When those avenues didn't work, she then confronted us. Again, being polite and trying to keep it friendly we tried to explain everything to her, but when she started demanding tens of thousands of dollars from us, we decided it was best to stop the discussions.

We sent her a certified letter outlining our findings and how we were going to proceed. We did not give her any room to argue and refuse to rehash this over and over.

The fencing is currently in the process of being moved even though she is still complaining. She has been informed the septic needs to be moved, but we are not being as proactive about it for now. According to her boyfriend, she is almost into foreclosure which means she doesn't have the money to deal with the septic. Also, we figured that if her farm is foreclosed upon, we can buy it for pretty cheap since it technically doesn't have a septic.

I would be great to be friendly with all of the neighbors, but sometimes it just isn't possible. At least this isn't a "war", but more of a mutual politeness.

I would definitely encourage anyone purchasing property to get a survey done and by a reputable surveyor who will do all of the deed research. The other great thing about our survey was that we actually gained 1/4 acre. While doing the deed research, he found a dead space between our properties that none of the surrounding deeds had claimed yet so he was legally able to claim it for us. All we needed to do was submit the plat to the courthouse.

Bfly Farmer
I run into boundary problems related to my forest interests from time to time. In the case with the sixth individual, let me share some awareness. Their deed may call a different set of meets and bounds and may actually encroach onto what you perceive is your property. Because you had a survey done by a registered surveyor doesn't not give you ownership if the survey does cross someone else. Both deeds could be correct or both deeds could be incorrect or anything in between. It is a matter of what was the original reference point and when the property was surveyed. If your sixth neighbor decides to have her property surveyed and her surveyor finds that the area she has been using for fence and references matches her deed and she is inclined to protect her parcel by going to court the chances are real good that she will reclaim what you are saying is yours because her survey may predate yours. If the fence is old and the others in the community have come to recognize the fence as the line she can also claim adverse possession.

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Agmantoo
If they can do it,
you know you can!

Agmantoo,

Thanks for the warnings, but we don't need to worry about it. Long story short, all of these properties used to be one so the deeds all match up. The division was all done at once and the descriptions all go off of the same references points. This was tripled checked by our surveyor so we would not have these problems.

As for the fencing, it is less than three years old and it was errected by the neighbor while she owned this property. After she sold it to her best friend, she continued to utilized this property for her horses and continued under the bank's ownership too. In fact, the day after we closed we had to personally move her horses out of our fields so we could take our goats off of the trailer.

If the law allowed her to claim fencing she erracted while owning this property, we would lose every last bit. We have been assured by our lawyer that she has no claim.

Thanks for the advice though. It is something important for people to know is a possibility. Hopefully someone will read this and when they go to purchase property will remember all of this great advice.

I've only had to say this once, but I can assure you there are few sweeter words in the english language than: "I have title insurance and my attorney is George XXXXXXXXX, please contact him if you have any further issues".

Oh brother! We went through boundary stress and fence line troubles for 6 full years and finally, last summer, we spent the money to have our own survey done. It was worth it. We were disappointed that part of our driveway is on the other guys land (it has been that way for about 26 years now!) but we also found that part of his main-gate and driveway is on our land....and has been for years. And we found out where a bold creek is on our side of the line whereas before they claimed all of it......

Basically it was worth the $1,700 to finally know for sure about the lines.

TIP: When you have it surveyed, buy several cans of bright spray paint to have on hand. When the survey people make their little small lines, connect the lines with spray paint so you can clearly see where the lines are. Then, get a digital or...any camera and take pictures of the whole line so later, when the lines have washed off, you can see where they are. We took pictures of the whole lines, wide shots to show trees and other markers. We also bought white PVC pipes ahead of time and set them in the ground to mark it more permanently.

For us it balanced out nicely. Good luck -

So what happens when a boundary survey shows a problem? Buy a really good shotgun(a Mossberg) a good rifle(Mini-30) and a good pistol, lots of ammo should those surveyors attempt to rob you of more land.

Then while you got the troops protecting your land, go to the county and demand eminent domain on your neighbors property for something to generate tax revenue.

Go to the man next door who still has 1177 +/- acres that you bought the 8+ acres from and tell you have some concerns about that discription. He will say," well lets fix it so there is no doubt that it is all the way to the river" whch is by the way closer to 11 acres. Then he says that you have been such a good hand for these 10 mounths, I'm going to give you clear deed to the property in exchange for a loan agreement for the same amount and you stll make payments the same way.

This really happened to some friends of mine yesterday morning at church. They are so thrilled they can't sit down. They were out all afternoon yesterday looking at a place where they have lived from November last year.

I went through this personally when I was a city dweller and had the proverbial neighbor from hell who made my life miserable at every chance he got. I finally put up the money to have my land surveyed when he kept disputing the boundary that separated him from me.

He started whining when he found out that his garage, fence and gas lines were 25 feet on my property line.

I told him frankly, he had two choices. Move everything at his expense, or buy 50 foot of land from me and pay the surveying charges.And I would only sell it to him if he would improve the property line as he had a ratty old fence up that was an eyesore.

He agreed, bought the land, paid up and cleaned up.

But stayed the neighbor from hell until the day I moved. Some things you just can't change.

ALWAYS get a survey BEFORE buying the property and get the problems worked out BEFORE closing on the property, it they do not get worked out to your satisifaction at this time DO NOT BUY THE PROPERTY. Surveyors give you their best guess on the correct property lines with the information/research supplied/provided. They go to the court house and pull the information on the subject property and the adjorning neighbors and plot it out to see if there are descreptionaries. They will alot of times research back 50-100 years to be able to propertly come to this conclusion.