Surveying Practice and Professional Responsibilities
Domain 2: Surveying practice and professional responsibilities
This domain tests how Georgia law and professional standards govern boundary evidence, plat preparation, sealing, business practice, and ethics. Questions often turn on the surveyor’s legal authority: what may be certified, what must be recorded, how boundary evidence is weighed, and when a surveyor must decline or disclose.
Boundary evidence and Georgia practice
Georgia follows the general common-law priority of calls: natural monuments, artificial monuments, courses and distances, then area. Original monuments and undisturbed evidence carry great weight; a deed distance generally yields to a certain monument. Junior-senior rights matter when a grantor conveys overlapping parcels: the senior conveyance is protected. Georgia also recognizes boundary by acquiescence (commonly seven years), prescription (20 years), and adverse possession (20 years, O.C.G.A. § 44-5-161), each with distinct elements. Do not treat any of these as a substitute for retracement evidence.
Licensing and the seal
Land surveying for others for hire requires a Georgia license under O.C.G.A. Title 43, Chapter 15, administered by the Georgia Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors. The seal and signature certify the surveyor’s professional responsibility. A licensee may seal work only if it was performed by the licensee or by subordinates under the licensee’s direct supervision and review. Sealing a plat prepared entirely by an unlicensed technician, without supervision, is misconduct even if the plat is technically correct.
Plats and records
Record plats must meet Georgia recording and plat-content requirements: surveyor’s certificate and seal, bearings and distances, monument ties, scale, north arrow, and required signatures. A boundary survey plat is not a title opinion; it shows evidence found and the surveyor’s professional location of boundaries, not a guarantee of ownership.
Worked example
A deed calls “thence N 45°00′00″ E 250.00 ft to a stone.” You recover the original stone and the beginning iron pin; the measured distance is 248.62 ft. Because the stone is a certain artificial monument called for in the deed, it controls over the distance call. Hold the stone and the beginning pin, correct the distance to 248.62 ft, and recompute the area. If the stone were a later, unrelated marker, it would not control; the call would require further evidence.
Traps
Sealing work outside your direct supervision; accepting client pressure to move a line to a “more convenient” location; ignoring easements or senior rights; treating a mortgage location survey as a boundary survey; and recording a plat without the required certificate, seal, or monument ties.