How is a boundary survey performed?

 

CLIENT CONSULTATION

The first step would be initial contact with the client, where property description, location and any questions or concerns about what needs to be done will be addressed. With the amount of data readily available to surveyors on the internet a site visit is not always needed to come up with a plan of action to best achieve the client’s goals. Once a plan of action has been agreed upon the next step would typically be for the surveyor to start doing research.

RESEARCH EXISTING RECORDS

The surveyor will start the process of gathering all the data they will need to help them with the rest of the survey process. These records may include but are not limited to deeds, maps, legal descriptions, easements, highway plans, benchmark information, government corners and control points. Record keeping is a very important part of the surveying profession, without the proper knowledge going into the field the final boundary determination could vary significantly. Once the research has been completed the next step is to perform the field work.

FIELD WORK

All available evidence (monuments, fences, roadways) that pertain to the subject property are found and measurements made to create a direct relationship between all the pieces of the puzzle. Often times all structures and various other improvements on the parcel are also located including (driveways, water bodies, wells) or anything that looks like it may encroach onto the parcel or an adjacent parcel. Once everything in the field has been located the process of computing the boundary can begin.

COMPUTATIONS

Boundary computations can be done in a variety of ways. A smaller more simple boundary can often time be solved right in the field with the help of the surveyor’s data collector and reliable field notes. More complex boundary solutions are often solved in the office on the computer using drafting software that can show the whole picture in a much clearer detail. All professional surveyors are regulated by the state and have had to prove their competency through various testing, education and experience requirements. Once the surveyor comes to the final boundary solution the lot is ready to be monumented.

MONUMENTATION

Monumenting the parcel boundary can be accomplished in many different ways. Sometimes there will be acceptable monuments already in place that will be held as the corner of referenced to the actual corner if within tolerance. Other times no monuments exist and the surveyor will place all new monuments at all the corners of the parcel boundary. A map will be provided to the client showing all monuments set and or found and their relationship to the boundary.

SURVEY COMPLETION

Once the survey has been completed a map will be provided to the client and to the appropriate recording agency with the county. This map will be a visual representation of the parcel as well as any other pertinent information that needs to be shown. The map will show the basic solution of the surveyor’s computations for all land surveyors to reference in the future. All questions and concerns the landowner had prior to the survey should have been addressed by this time and the client should have peace of mind knowing exactly where their property lines are.