Original Pipes, a Non-Record Hub, and a 57-Year-Old Fence
Your firm is retained to retrace Lot 14 of Tract 3187, a 1924 map recorded in a rural county. The map shows Lot 14 as 100.00 ft wide between 1-inch iron pipes at the front corners, with 60.00 ft of frontage on the county road. In the field you recover both 1924 pipes, undisturbed and well set, and measure 99.62 ft between them. You also recover a 2-inch redwood hub 0.9 ft south of the northeast pipe; it matches the map bearing but not the distance. A woven-wire fence runs 1.4 ft east of the line between the pipes and appears to have been maintained by the owner of Lot 15 since about 1968; the fence returns along the rear and encloses a shed. The owner of Lot 14, who is selling, wants the boundary monumented on the fence "because that's how it's always been," and wants the plat to show the fence as the property line. Title is a standard policy with no survey exception.
1. How do you weigh the 1924 pipes, the redwood hub, the record distance, and the fence? Where do you set the missing corners?
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Rank the evidence before touching a stake. Original monuments called for by the map control over courses and distances. The two 1924 pipes are original, undisturbed, and consistent in bearing, so they fix the line; the 0.38-ft difference between record (100.00 ft) and measured (99.62 ft) is about 1:263, larger than ordinary error for 1924 work but not enough to overturn original monuments. Do not proportion between the pipes. Proportioning applies to a lost corner between two found corners; here both termini are found, so each pipe is held where it lies. The redwood hub is not called for in the record, so it is a non-record monument and does not control; describe it and its position. Set the missing corners by record bearing and distance from the pipes, holding the pipes fixed, and show the record-versus-measured difference. The fence is occupation evidence, not a monument, and it does not move the line.
2. The owner wants the fence shown as the property line. What is your professional and legal position, and what do you tell him?
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A surveyor locates and describes; a court or a written agreement adjudicates. A fence maintained since about 1968 can support theories of boundary by agreement, acquiescence, or prescription, and it is evidence of where the parties behaved as owners. None of those is yours to decide. You cannot label the fence the property line on a Record of Survey or a plat, and you should not monument the fence as the corner. Show the record line, the fence, the 1.4-ft offset, and the shed, with a clear note. Explain to the client in writing that the record line is where you will set monuments; that he should consult counsel about the fence; and that a lot line adjustment with the neighbor or a quiet title action are the legal routes to make the fence the line. If both owners sign a boundary line agreement, you can survey and monument the agreed line, but get the agreement in writing first.
3. What must you file, and what should the map show?
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File a Record of Survey. Business and Professions Code section 8762 requires one when a survey discloses a material discrepancy between the record and the field, or evidence of a non-record monument. A 0.38-ft discrepancy on a 100-ft line is material for title purposes, and the redwood hub is a non-record monument. The map should show the basis of bearings; the record and measured distances; the pipes found and the corners set; the fence and its distance from the line; the shed; the non-record hub; and notes stating that the fence is not a boundary of record and that the discrepancy is unresolved. Deliver a copy to the client and follow the county surveyor's filing requirements and the filing period under the Act. Before filing, check whether a prior Record of Survey or corner record already covers these pipes.