Land Surveying - Massachusetts Practice, Boundaries, and Plan Law
What this domain tests
Massachusetts-specific practice: the statutory definition of land surveying, the boundary doctrines the Commonwealth's courts apply, the recording and Land Court systems, the State Plane Coordinate System, and subdivision control. Questions are practical - what a plan must show, and which call controls when evidence conflicts.
Core rules
- Licensure. The Board of Registration of Land Surveyors (Division of Professional Licensure) regulates practice. The regulated practice covers locating and measuring boundaries and preparing plans, plats, and metes-and-bounds descriptions offered to the public.
- Monuments control. A called monument governs over courses, distances, and area. Distances are recomputed to the monument; area is the weakest call in any description.
- Water boundaries. Under the Colonial Ordinance of 1641–1647, tidal uplands generally run to low water mark, subject to public navigation and fishing. On non-tidal streams, a grant bounded by the stream reaches the thread where the grantor owned both banks.
- Two recording systems. Recorded-land plans are filed at the Registry of Deeds. Registered (Land Court) land is governed by the decree plan and the court's Manual of Instructions, and registered title is not lost by adverse possession.
- ANR plans. Under G.L. c. 41 § 81P, a plan showing adequate frontage may be submitted for an approval-not-required endorsement; the planning board must act within 21 days or endorsement is deemed granted.
- Coordinates. Massachusetts State Plane, NAD83, has two zones, Mainland and Island. Grid distances require a combined scale factor before comparison with ground measurements.
Worked example
A deed runs "S 62°15' E, 214.36 feet to a granite bound." The crew finds that bound intact at 214.72 feet. Hold the bound: the 0.36-foot excess is absorbed in that one course, whose bearing and distance are recomputed to the monument, and area is computed from the monument's position. Preserving the deed distance by shifting adjoining lines would override the best evidence of the original survey.
Traps that cost marks
- Reporting grid distance as ground distance without stating the combined factor.
- Rotating a survey to magnetic north without recording declination and date.
- Treating a recorded plan as proof of title rather than as the surveyor's opinion.
- Reading an ANR endorsement as subdivision approval.