Cadastral Surveying and Boundary Determination
Boundary evidence
Cadastral surveying determines and re-establishes parcel boundaries. The legal boundary is the line created by the title and the original survey, not simply the line a surveyor measures today. Evidence is weighed: natural monuments, original artificial marks, original bearings and distances, occupation, and area. Coordinates are a representation, not a substitute for evidence. Re-establishment requires recovering original marks or reconstructing them from the best available original evidence and adjoining surveys.
Practice rules
- Search the title, registered plan and adjoining titles before fieldwork.
- Identify and preserve original monuments; record condition and ties.
- Use redundant measurements and close checks.
- Compare field evidence with occupation and title diagrams; explain discrepancies.
- Prepare a clear plan and report, and do not mark a boundary you cannot support.
Worked example
A corner mark is missing. You recover two original marks on the same parcel and an original bearing and distance to the missing corner. You set the corner by running the original bearing and distance from the best original mark, then check against the adjoining title and occupation. If the computed position conflicts with a long-established fence, you do not simply adopt the fence; you investigate original evidence and report the discrepancy. The reasoning is that original survey evidence normally outweighs later occupation, but occupation may explain ambiguity.
Traps
Treating GNSS coordinates as boundary truth; adopting fences because they are visible; averaging incompatible evidence; ignoring adjoining titles; and reporting an area as proof of boundary.