One Missing Pillar, One Found Out of Position, One Registered Overlap
A client holds a Certificate of Occupancy issued in 2009 for Plot 14 in a government layout in Enugu, described as 0.2147 ha, with a survey plan showing bearings and distances from two concrete pillars. You are asked to prepare a fresh plan for a mortgage. On site you recover one pillar, standing 0.8 m from the position computed from the 2009 plan; the second pillar is gone. Your survey, closed on two nearby layout control pillars, gives a computed area of 0.1985 ha. A 2019 plan by another firm for the adjoining plot shows a 3.6 m overlap along the common boundary, and that plan has already been used to register a Deed. The client insists his area must be restored to 0.2147 ha and wants a clean plan for the bank by Friday.
1. What governs the position of the boundary here: the record dimensions, the monuments on the ground, or the stated area? Reason it through for this parcel.
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A registered plan and the monuments placed under it define the parcel; the stated area is a computed consequence, not a guarantee. The order of evidence is therefore original monuments first, then record bearings and distances between them, then proportional reconstruction where monuments are lost, with area used only as a check.
Here one pillar is 0.8 m from its computed position and one is gone. On a 2009 layout plan, 0.8 m is far outside any plausible survey error, so the found pillar has probably been disturbed or re-set, and the fall in computed area to 0.1985 ha is consistent with that reading. I would not use the found pillar as the origin of the survey until it is tested against other evidence: the layout control pillars, the control diagram on the 2009 plan, monuments on the adjacent plots, and the scheme's beacon recovery records.
If the layout control agrees with the record dimensions, the missing pillar can be re-established by bearing and distance from control, and the found pillar treated as disturbed and reinstated. The 0.2147 ha then follows if the geometry is right, not because anyone demanded it.
2. What are your options for the 3.6 m overlap, and what must you not do?
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Options in sequence:
(a) Establish the facts. Plot both parcels from their own record dimensions onto common control, and check whether the 2019 survey used the same datum and control as the 2009 plan. A 3.6 m overlap on a common boundary is large enough to be systematic, and it usually comes from a different control origin, a mis-set instrument, or a beacon accepted without checking.
(b) If the 2019 plan is wrong, prepare a technical report with the comparison and let the Office of the Surveyor-General and the Registrar deal with the registered instrument. You cannot correct a registered Deed by drawing a different line.
(c) If the overlap is genuine and neither plan is in error, the two titles conflict; that is for the parties and ultimately the court, and your plan should show the conflict rather than resolve it.
What I must not do: trim or shift my client's boundary to manufacture 0.2147 ha; produce a clean plan that ignores the 2019 registration; or sign a plan whose boundary is disputed without a notation. Issuing a plan that overlaps a registered parcel without notice would mislead the bank and expose both the client and me.
3. What goes on the plan and in the accompanying documentation, and what advice do you give the client?
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On the plan and in the report: the datum and control used; coordinates and condition of every monument found, with a sketch of the 0.8 m displacement from computed position; monuments not found and how each was re-established; record dimensions against measured; computed area against the 0.2147 ha; and a schedule of the comparison with the 2019 plan giving the 3.6 m overlap in bearings and distances.
Add an explicit notation that the boundary is in dispute with a registered adjoining parcel and that the plan is issued for the client's information and for referral, not as evidence of a settled boundary.
Advice to the client: take a solicitor's opinion before any dealing with the bank. The mortgage will be delayed, which is a commercial problem; an indefensible plan is a legal one. Offer to survey the whole layout block jointly with the neighbours so that a single consistent set of monuments is agreed and documented for the Office of the Surveyor-General, which is the only route that produces a boundary everyone can register against.
Do not accept instructions to produce two versions of the plan, one for the bank and one for the file.