CA Land Surveyor cheat sheet

Evidence hierarchy for locating a boundary: natural monuments (rivers, bluffs, ridge lines, trees) outrank artificial monuments (pipes, rebar, bearing trees), which outrank courses and distances, which outrank area or quantity.

The original survey controls. A retracement surveyor locates the footsteps of the original surveyor; a corner is not moved merely because a new measurement of the record distances differs.

Obliterated corner: position still recoverable from evidence such as ties, accessories, or bearing trees. Lost corner: no such evidence survives, so the position must be reestablished by proportionate measurement, not by remeasuring record distances from one end.

Single proportionate measurement relocates a lost corner lying on a line between two accepted corners; double proportionate measurement (granting) relocates a lost interior section corner or closing corner from four surrounding accepted corners.

Senior rights: where two patented boundaries conflict, the earlier grant and its survey control the common line, regardless of the acreage recited in either deed.

Agreed boundary requires (1) uncertainty as to the true line, (2) an agreement, and (3) acquiescence shown by occupation or monuments. Boundary by estoppel adds reliance and detriment on one party.

California adverse possession: five years of open, notorious, hostile, exclusive, continuous possession plus payment of all taxes assessed (Code of Civil Procedure section 325); title cannot be acquired against the State this way.

A call for an adjoiner's line or for a monument controls over a call for course or distance; a call to a natural monument such as a river or bluff usually controls over a meander line call.

Prescriptive easement: five years of open, notorious, adverse use that is not exclusive, with no requirement of tax payment because no title is transferred.

CCS83 uses a Lambert conformal conic projection with two standard parallels; six zones are defined, each with its own central meridian, standard parallels, false easting, and false northing.

Grid distance = ground distance x combined factor; combined factor = map scale factor x elevation factor, so ground distance = grid distance divided by the combined factor.

Scale factor equals 1.0 on the standard parallels, is less than 1.0 between them, and exceeds 1.0 outside them; zone width is chosen to hold distortion within acceptable limits.

Elevation factor = R / (R + h), with R about 6,371,000 m (20,902,000 ft) and h the height above the ellipsoid; at 1,000 ft elevation the factor is about 0.999952.

Geodetic azimuth = grid azimuth + convergence angle, where convergence is approximately (lambda - lambda-zero) x sin(phi-zero) and is positive east of the central meridian.

A combined-factor distortion of 1 part in 10,000 equals about 0.53 ft per mile; boundary work commonly targets a combined factor near 1.0 or adopts a project datum elevation.

Coordinates must state the realization and epoch, for example NAD83(2011) epoch 2010.0, because North American plate motion shifts positions by centimeters per year.

CCS coordinates in a deed are supplementary: they must state zone, datum and epoch, and units, and they do not control over monument calls found on the ground.

PLSS framework: an initial point establishes a principal meridian running north-south and a base line running east-west; California uses the Mount Diablo, Humboldt, and San Bernardino meridians.

Township = 6 miles square = 36 sections; section = 1 mile square = 640 acres; quarter section = 160 acres; quarter-quarter section = 40 acres.

Section numbering begins with section 1 at the northeast corner and runs west to section 6, then east in the next row, ending with section 36 at the southeast corner.

Standard parallels (correction lines) are established every 24 miles to absorb convergence; township lines are run east on the standard parallel, and sections are laid out from the south and east boundaries of each township.

Fractional lots (government lots) occur along the north and west township boundaries and along meandered water; the meander line is run for area computation and is not itself a boundary of title.

Subdivision Map Act (Government Code section 66410 et seq.): a division creating five or more parcels requires a tentative and final map; four or fewer parcels require a tentative and parcel map.

A tentative map expires 24 months after approval unless extended under Government Code section 66452.6 or local ordinance; the final map must be recorded within that life.

A lot line adjustment under Government Code section 66412.6 shifts land between four or fewer existing adjoining parcels, creates no new parcel, and requires no new subdivision map.

Final map certificates include the surveyor or engineer, the owner, the city or county clerk, the recorder, and any required lienholder consent; monuments must be set before recordation unless the agency authorizes deferral (sections 66495-66496).

California's tidal boundary is the mean high tide line; the State holds tidelands and submerged lands in trust, and the upland boundary is ambulatory.

Non-tidal navigable waters are bounded by the ordinary high water mark; State ownership of navigable beds rests on the equal footing doctrine as implemented by statute.

Accretion (gradual and imperceptible) and reliction (gradual recession of water) add to the upland owner's title; avulsion (sudden and visible) leaves the boundary at the former channel or shoreline.

Erosion gradually moves the boundary in favor of the State; artificial fill placed by an upland owner does not extend title beyond the natural boundary.

A meander line is not a boundary of title; the water is the boundary, and the meander line serves only to compute area of the fractional parcel.

Non-navigable streams: each upland owner ordinarily owns to the thread (centerline) of the stream, subject to public easements and the rights of the opposite owner.

Riparian rights include access to the water, natural flow, and reasonable use; littoral rights attach to ocean and lake frontage rather than a stream.

The public trust easement protects navigation, fishing, commerce, recreation, and environmental values, and cannot be substantially impaired by upland development or legislative grant.

A Record of Survey is required when a surveyor establishes a corner or line not shown on a recorded map, sets monuments for a division not mapped, or finds a material discrepancy with the record (Business and Professions Code section 8762).

When a monument is set or reestablished and no Record of Survey is filed, a Corner Record is prepared and filed with the county surveyor to perpetuate the evidence.

Monuments must be preserved; if one must be removed, ties and references are recorded first, and willful destruction, removal, or injury of a survey monument is a crime (Penal Code section 605).

Establish control before locating evidence: at least three horizontal control points and a stated vertical datum, verified by redundant observation.

GNSS practice: use network RTK or static tied to continuously operating reference stations, and verify with a check shot on known control each session while recording datum, epoch, fix type, and PDOP.

Total station practice: forced centering, observations on both faces, correct prism constant, and curvature-refraction and scale corrections applied to long sights.

Tie every monument with at least two bearings and distances to accessories, and record type, size, cap stamping, condition, and depth.

Field notes are permanent records: date, crew, instrument and serial number, weather, station descriptions, sketches with north arrow, and the basis of bearing.

ALTA/NSPS land title surveys require the negotiated Table A items, a stated accuracy standard, and monumentation at all corners of the surveyed property.

Random errors are normally distributed: about 68 percent of observations fall within plus or minus 1 sigma, 95 percent within 2 sigma, and 99.7 percent within 3 sigma.

Standard error of a sum or difference of independent observations = square root of (sigma-1 squared + sigma-2 squared); standard error of the mean = sigma divided by the square root of n.

Weighted mean: assign each observation a weight of 1/variance so that more precise measurements dominate the computed value.

Least squares minimizes the sum of squared residuals; the posteriori variance and a chi-square test show whether the assumed weighting is consistent with the observations.

Net curvature and refraction correction is about 0.0206 D squared feet with D in thousands of feet (about 0.574 D squared with D in miles) and is applied to long sights.

Relative precision = misclosure divided by total length; 1:10,000 corresponds to about 0.53 ft of closure per mile of traverse.

Angular misclosure allowance is commonly the instrument's stated standard times the square root of the number of angles turned.

Blunders are detected by redundancy: a misclosure far outside the expected random error indicates a mistake rather than a precision limitation.

Grid inverses must be converted to ground distances with the combined factor before comparing them to measured distances on the ground.