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Old 08-05-2016, 07:32 AM
 
4,567 posts, read 10,601,144 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by historyfan View Post
Did you buy title insurance when your property was purchased? That coverage could cover losses you may suffer if the property line was not accurate.
Typical title insurance normally does not cover property line inaccuracies. Separate insurance would need to be purchased. You would know it if you bought it.
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Old 08-05-2016, 07:51 AM
 
16,986 posts, read 21,667,967 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mawipafl View Post
Disclaimer :-) I'm not a surveyor nor real estate expert, but I can look at a survey and understand its symbols and drawings. I just might not use the proper lingo.

Question: if survey markers and reference points no longer exist, how can a lot of land be surveyed to show proper boundaries?
Hire your own licensed surveyor! The few hundred bucks will certainly make you feel better knowing the actual lot boundaries. Also keep in mind that you are going back 50+ years so memories/hearsay or what grandpa told you isn't exactly iron clad.

I had a neighbor dispute with a property line. Hired a surveyor and for $200 I got my property re-staked. Neighbor was wrong and had to move about 80 ft of hedge planted on my property. He was pissed but he mistook a street pin for a rear property line (it wasn't) and planted his hedge on that incorrect line which was 5 ft onto my property.

I was putting in a pool so that 5 ft was crucial for set backs.
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Old 08-05-2016, 08:25 AM
 
Location: ☀️ SFL (hell for me-wife loves it)
3,671 posts, read 3,518,000 times
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Down here at least, there are metal rods 'nailed' into the ground at the corners of the property. A good old metal detector could find them.
Of course, we paid 400.00 and had the surveyor tell us this before we found out.
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Old 08-05-2016, 08:41 AM
 
Location: MID ATLANTIC
8,643 posts, read 22,804,519 times
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If the property has been in the OP's family for 50+ years, chances are an individual survey, not any title policies exist. This sounds like acreage is involved, so the expense is likely more than a few hundred dollars, more like a few thousand dollars. But the answer is the same, hire a licensed surveyor. Contact some real estate attorneys or title companies and ask for recommendations. They usually have several they hire for real estate transactions. And when you call, drop their name. Many of these surveyors charge the title companies less than someone calling from the www.
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Old 08-05-2016, 10:55 AM
 
5,401 posts, read 6,474,072 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by 399083453 View Post
Typical title insurance normally does not cover property line inaccuracies. Separate insurance would need to be purchased. You would know it if you bought it.

I have always purchased title insurance on all real estate purchases. I have also collected on title insurance. Tiltle insurance defines/guarantees what you purchase. Perhaps title insurance requirements are different in different states.
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Old 08-05-2016, 01:49 PM
 
Location: Turlock, CA
323 posts, read 373,620 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mawipafl View Post
This is all great info everyone, especially the concept that a starting point, some permanent known marker somewhere, doesn't have to be nearby. I hadn't thought of that. Would mean more time for the survey crew to do the job, but I can see where it could be possible.

The deeds I've looked at thus far for the lots in the development are not very descriptive. This is the legal description of my family's property:

"...bounded and described as follows:

Westerly by [roadway] 100'
Northerly by other land now or formerly of [original developer] 269.49'
Easterly by land of railroad 156.24'
Southerly by Lot 30 on plan hereinafter mentioned 144.44'"
(the lengths are spelled out, but I didn't write them that way here)

The next paragraph references the Lot # itself and that it can be found described on the 1964/65 plan (giving the plan book number and page).

That's it. Not much to go on.

Even the original deed when the developer bought all the land has very little to go on. Boundary descriptions remind me of something one would see on a 1764 deed, not a 1964 deed!
The boundary description is a little odd, since all the lots, the highway, and the railroad that you reference should have been shown on the 1964 map, so a simple lot and block description would have been enough. Not out of line though.

As far as the starting point goes, it's not at all out of the ordinary. Even if the corners of your property were still in the ground, the surveyor would want to check the dimensions to neighboring corners to verify the positions of your corners. Since your deed is bounded by the railroad and the highway, they will need to lay out both of those based on their controlling corners or description. It sounds like your lot is junior to both, so they get their full width and those lines override the position of yours if there is a conflict there.

Once the senior lines are established, they can look at the lines within the subdivision, which are considered to be simultaneously conveyed at the time the first lot in the subdivision was sold, even if sales occurred over the course of many years. This means that they need to look for evidence of the original location of the line per the subdivision map. A good surveyor will weigh the evidence of substantial reliance on a mathematically "incorrect" boundary position though. Things like the setback lines should come into play in his considerations, but he will go with what the evidence shows.

There's a lot that needs to go into the issue you've described. I'd ask the surveyor to send you a copy of his recorded (or final, I'm not sure if Massachusetts records like we do here) map with his findings. It should contain all the information on how he came to his conclusions.

Aside from that, if you want to get your own survey done, there's no reason why you can't do so. If it only is going to cost you a few hundred dollars, there's little reason not to. I've said this before in similar threads, but that is ridiculously cheap for a survey. Especially in a case where you're retracing exterior boundaries of an older map with a potential boundary dispute, I'd have expected at least in the $5000 range.
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Old 08-05-2016, 03:18 PM
 
Location: Black Hammock Island
4,620 posts, read 14,925,154 times
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Digesting everything you've all written ... thank you muchly!

When the development was being built, which happened rather quickly (first house built 1966 (model home), last house built 1968/69), there were rebar pins on every lot's corners. But they weren't much more than 2' if that, and obviously not expected to be permanent (nor even semi-permanent) since they are not shown on the plan. Not many, if any, still exist - pulled out as residents planted grass or gardens or hedgerows or erected fences. The front corner pins may have been pulled out as soon as a house was completed - I honestly don't recall rebar stakes anywhere along the road or sidewalks being there for very long. (I know, memory can play tricks.)

The stone bounds, a different story. I can't remember the exact dimensions, but they were granite squares, maybe 8-9", with a hole in the center. They sat essentially flush to the ground between the sidewalk and the street (a space about 3' wide). By the way, everyone owns right to the street with no city easement for the sidewalks.

Markings on the plan are simply straight lines intersecting with other straight lines (rarely perpendicular since very few of the lots have square corners). Where these lines meet are the typical short and curved dotted lines to "point" to the length of the run written (100' or 249.49' or what-have-you).

Regarding title insurance, no. We still have all the paperwork including the P&S of the lot (with a drawing, not a survey, of the lot as it's seen on the original plan), contracts and change orders with the builder, and the original mortgage package (which was paid off long ago), and I saw nothing in there, not even a requirement for purchasing title insurance for the lender ... maybe that kind of thing wasn't required by all lenders in the 1960s? And maybe it wasn't something buyers automatically thought about when purchasing back then?

We are assuredly going to have our own survey done. No doubt about it. But because we've recently had other things taking priority, we've been using this time to become smarter, to become more in-the-know about surveys and boundaries and so forth. Thanks for contributing to this smarterness!
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Old 08-05-2016, 07:46 PM
 
Location: Myrtle Creek, Oregon
15,293 posts, read 17,579,169 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mawipafl View Post
Digesting everything you've all written ... thank you muchly!

When the development was being built, which happened rather quickly (first house built 1966 (model home), last house built 1968/69), there were rebar pins on every lot's corners. But they weren't much more than 2' if that, and obviously not expected to be permanent (nor even semi-permanent) since they are not shown on the plan. Not many, if any, still exist - pulled out as residents planted grass or gardens or hedgerows or erected fences. The front corner pins may have been pulled out as soon as a house was completed - I honestly don't recall rebar stakes anywhere along the road or sidewalks being there for very long. (I know, memory can play tricks.)

The stone bounds, a different story. I can't remember the exact dimensions, but they were granite squares, maybe 8-9", with a hole in the center. They sat essentially flush to the ground between the sidewalk and the street (a space about 3' wide). By the way, everyone owns right to the street with no city easement for the sidewalks.

Markings on the plan are simply straight lines intersecting with other straight lines (rarely perpendicular since very few of the lots have square corners). Where these lines meet are the typical short and curved dotted lines to "point" to the length of the run written (100' or 249.49' or what-have-you).

Regarding title insurance, no. We still have all the paperwork including the P&S of the lot (with a drawing, not a survey, of the lot as it's seen on the original plan), contracts and change orders with the builder, and the original mortgage package (which was paid off long ago), and I saw nothing in there, not even a requirement for purchasing title insurance for the lender ... maybe that kind of thing wasn't required by all lenders in the 1960s? And maybe it wasn't something buyers automatically thought about when purchasing back then?

We are assuredly going to have our own survey done. No doubt about it. But because we've recently had other things taking priority, we've been using this time to become smarter, to become more in-the-know about surveys and boundaries and so forth. Thanks for contributing to this smarterness!
By "plan" do you mean the original subdivision plat? It may or may not show the location of benchmarks and pins. The stakes you were talking about were just corner stakes, which are not the same as corner pins. The actual corner pins may have already been buried so that construction equipment wouldn't hit them. You need to look at the survey on file with the local (county?) surveyor's office. That's the first thing a surveyor will do.
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Old 08-05-2016, 09:21 PM
 
Location: southwest TN
8,568 posts, read 18,038,502 times
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It doesn't sound as if it was a "record plat" meaning each parcel would have a number and not a metes and bounds description (which is what the OP posted). It isn't unheard of for a subdivision to be off.

Survey is necessary - next step would be attorney if you want to claim adverse possession of the property in dispute.
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Old 08-06-2016, 02:16 AM
 
9,891 posts, read 11,686,029 times
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Quote:
Survey is necessary - next step would be attorney if you want to claim adverse possession of the property in dispute.
One thing about Adverse Possession in most states, is that the count down only starts when both parties are aware of the problem.

Example: My son owns a highway frontage art gallery in a tourist area. Behind him is a large antique home owned by a woman who bought it to turn it into a short term tourist rental. Back behind her home, is a former large Stable building and storage she wanted to turn into a party house downstairs and the second floor into a large luxury short term tourist rental apartment. Her sewer line gave out and she insisted she could just dig it up and replace it. The city said she should change it a few feet. My son disputed her claim of her property and said no. She was real nasty, and they were forced to bring in a surveyor. Found that half of her carport was on my son's property, and that 6 inches of her old stables was over the lot line. Behind the old stables, the fence was 6 to 14 feet over the line (way fence was put in).

She had to tear off half of her car port. She had to get a lease from my son for the encroachment of the stable building or move it. She did for 20 years, and anytime the building is altered, it has to be moved off his property. The fence had to come down. She had to lease the rights to have people enter his property to fix the siding on the stables building and paint it. As she did not have the legal set back, she could not put the apartment in the upstairs of the old stables, and could not turn it into a party house as planned.

If she had not been such a B****, my son would have been a nice guy and not have forced her to pay $5,000 for the right to use that 6 inches, and repair and paint the building. Paid for his attorney, the survey, and a few dollars in his pocket.

As the OP and the neighbor do not know without a doubt where the new survey may prove where the lot line runs, until they do know, the count down for adverse possession would start after the boundary is determined by survey as in the case of my son.

As both parties were unaware of the exact lot line, until the survey was complete, neither could start a count down for adverse possession. He had called me for my advice when the problem happened, and he took my opinion and ran with it and it came out to his favor as I was positive it would.

I was an investment real estate broker from 1972 till finally retired. I have seen numerous problems like the OP has, and until the parties involved knew of the lot line error, the count down for adverse possession does not start till the lot line is defined and known by both parties.

From my time in the business, I have observed: On this type of lot line dispute, adverse possession is rarely successful, unless both parties are aware of where the lot line actually is, and I have known of many disputed lot lines over the years.

Two things, adverse possession, and perspective easements, are looked at by laymen, and thought easy to get. Two years ago, we had a neighbor who we let use a path trough our property to access his back yard and stable building by pickups and trailers as a friendly neighborly thing to do. In addition we let them pasture 2 horses for 8 years free of charge to keep it eaten down. When he sold the property he wanted to turn it into a permanent easement for the new owner by deeding him the easement. I said no, and he got a new attorney in town involved and were going to take it to court. She wrote me a nasty letter with all kinds of threats. I had an old timer attorney who really understands the easement laws as well as I do, and he wrote her a letter, and it stopped right there. The attorney was just out of law school, and she took a look at the law and said he had a right. She did not go very deep, and read court decisions that defined it, and when things were pointed out to her, she folded right now.

Adverse possession and perspective easements, are two things that most people do not understand, and are rarely used to gain property or easements successfully.
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