Boundary Surveys and Legal Principles
This domain tests whether you can retrace an existing boundary in the District of Columbia and defend the result. Expect questions on monument hierarchy, deed construction, senior rights, adverse possession, and the DC record system of squares, lots, parcels, and reservations.
The hierarchy of evidence
- Natural monuments (river banks, bluffs, marked trees) outrank artificial monuments, which outrank courses and distances, which outrank area.
- A call for a monument controls a conflicting distance. If both ends of a line are marked by found monuments, the monuments control even when the measured distance differs from the deed.
- Original surveys create corners; retracement surveys only re-establish them. Never "correct" an original monument to make a distance fit.
- Senior rights prevail: the first conveyance from a common grantor, and the first survey, generally control over later junior descriptions.
DC record context
- Land is identified by square and lot, with parcels used for reservations and public holdings. Plats are reviewed and approved by the Office of the Surveyor before recordation.
- Adverse possession requires actual, open, notorious, exclusive, continuous, and hostile possession for the statutory period, which is 15 years in DC. Boundary by acquiescence or practical location is a separate doctrine and does not require hostility.
- Potomac and Anacostia frontage depends on the Ordinary High Water line and on statutes and grants affecting filled land; check Surveyor records rather than assuming the deed line reaches the water.
Worked example
A deed reads: "beginning at an iron pin found at the northeasterly corner of Lot 12, Square 1234, thence S 45°00'00" E, 100.00 ft to an iron pin." Both pins are found, but the measured distance is 98.62 ft. The pins control; the record distance is erroneous. The survey should show the measured distance, note the deed distance and the discrepancy, and hold the found monuments. Any area difference is a consequence, not a reason to move a pin.
Traps that cost marks
- Treating a GIS parcel polygon or tax map line as a boundary.
- Holding a distance over a found monument because the deed is "more precise."
- Ignoring senior deeds, unrecorded plats, or reservation parcels.
- Assuming a verbal neighbor agreement relocates a boundary; only a recorded instrument can do that.
- Reporting an area computed from deed distances instead of from the retraced monuments.