PA Land Surveyor cheat sheet

A licensee may only practice land surveying within areas of competence; accepting work outside competence without supervision is a violation even if the final product is technically correct.

Sealing a plat or description certifies personal or direct supervisory responsibility for the work; a seal on work not performed or reviewed by the licensee is grounds for discipline.

Most state boards require written notice to the board and often to clients when a licensee discovers a material error in previously delivered work.

Contingent fees based on a percentage of property value or on a boundary outcome are prohibited; compensation must not depend on the survey result.

Advertising must not be false or misleading; use of "certified" or "registered" must match the actual credential held in that jurisdiction.

Confidential client information may be disclosed only with consent, when required by law or subpoena, or to defend against a complaint.

Conflict of interest: a surveyor with a financial interest in the boundary location or transaction must disclose it and may need to decline the assignment.

Comity/reciprocity: licensure is jurisdictional; practice in another state requires that state's license, temporary permit, or firm registration as applicable.

Record retention rules vary by board; typical minimums are 5 to 10 years, and plats, field notes, and computations may be subject to board inspection.

Priority of calls in a description: natural monuments, artificial monuments, courses and distances, then area; written calls generally control over area.

Adverse possession elements: actual, open and notorious, exclusive, hostile (or under claim of right), and continuous for the statutory period.

Prescription establishes an easement by adverse use; unlike adverse possession it does not transfer title, only a use right.

Practical location and acquiescence: long-standing occupation along a boundary line, accepted by both owners, can fix the line even if the deed line differs.

Easements by necessity arise when a parcel is landlocked by severance; they terminate when the necessity ends, not by mere nonuse.

Riparian and littoral boundaries: boundary shifting with gradual accretion or reliction; avulsion (sudden change) does not move the boundary.

Senior rights govern in junior-senior conflicts: the earlier conveyance or patent controls to the extent of its calls, leaving the junior grantee any remainder.

Unwritten rights (presumption, acquiescence, estoppel) require proof of the elements; a surveyor must not relocate a boundary based on occupation alone without legal analysis.

Water boundary surveys must reference the ordinary high water mark or meander line as defined by state law, and be tied to the appropriate datum.

A metes-and-bounds description must close; a misclosure within the stated precision is acceptable, but a large closure error signals a blunder or ambiguity.

Calls to adjoiners ("bounded on the north by the lands of X") are generally inferior to calls to monuments but superior to courses and distances.

A deed must identify the grantor, grantee, consideration (where required), granting clause, legal description, and signature; recording provides notice, not validity.

Chain of title: a title search must trace each grantor's acquisition back to a common source and check for gaps, wild deeds, and unreleased encumbrances.

Recording acts: notice, race-notice, and race statutes determine priority between competing conveyances; know which type applies in the jurisdiction.

Ambiguity in a description is resolved by the court using the priority of calls and the intent of the parties as shown by the whole instrument.

A description by aliquot parts (e.g., the NE 1/4 of the SW 1/4) is interpreted in the Public Land Survey System context, including correction lines and section subdivision.

Plat vacation and replat procedures are statutory; a replat does not extinguish private easements or rights without proper legal action.

Principal meridians and base lines define townships; township numbers count north or south from the baseline, ranges east or west from the principal meridian.

A regular township is 6 miles square, containing 36 sections of 1 square mile (640 acres) each, numbered boustrophedon starting at section 1 in the northeast corner.

Standard parallels (correction lines) are run every 24 miles to correct for convergence of meridians; guide meridians close the 24-mile blocks.

Section subdivision: half sections are 320 acres, quarter sections 160, quarter-quarter sections 40; further aliquot division continues to the smallest legal subdivision.

Fractional sections along the north and west tiers of a township absorb the excess or deficiency from convergence; the regular sections remain nominal.

Lost original corners may be restored by proportionate measurement between existing accepted corners, following the original survey record.

Single proportionate measure: restore a lost corner on a line by proportioning the record distances between the nearest existing corners.

Double proportionate measure: used for a lost interior section corner, proportioning from the four surrounding section corners in both directions.

Total station: horizontal angles are measured by theodolite portion; distances by EDM. Instrument and target heights must be recorded and applied for trigonometric leveling.

Traverse closure: linear misclosure divided by total traverse length gives relative precision (e.g., 1:10,000); angular closure is compared to the allowable based on number of angles.

GNSS static/RTK: network RTK requires a fixed solution and an independent check; accuracy degrades with multipath, canopy, and poor satellite geometry (high PDOP).

Differential leveling: misclosure is distributed proportionally to the number of setups; earth curvature and refraction correction is approximately 0.0206 m per km squared (0.0675 ft per mile squared).

EDM atmospheric correction: apply temperature and pressure corrections; the speed of light changes with refractive index, affecting measured distance.

Prism constant and instrument offset must be set correctly; a wrong prism constant shifts every distance by a fixed amount.

Field notes are the legal record: record instrument setup, backsight, occupied point, weather, and any deviations from the plan.

Level loops should be closed on a known benchmark; allowable misclosure for ordinary work is often 0.05 ft times the square root of miles (or local standard).

State Plane Coordinate System: zones use transverse Mercator (east-west extent) or Lambert conformal conic (north-south extent); scale factor varies with distance from the central meridian or standard parallels.

Grid to ground: ground distance equals grid distance divided by the combined factor (scale factor times elevation factor).

Elevation factor approximates R/(R+h), where R is earth radius and h is ellipsoid height; it reduces ground distance to the ellipsoid.

NAD83 and NAVD88 are the current horizontal and vertical datums in most U.S. work; NGS is replacing them with modernized datums (NATRF2022/NAPGD2022), so check the project datum.

Geoid models (e.g., GEOID18) convert ellipsoid heights to orthometric heights: H = h - N.

Map projections always distort; conformal projections preserve angles locally, equal-area projections preserve area, neither preserves both.

Horizontal datum transformation requires published parameters; do not mix NAD27 and NAD83 coordinates without transformation.

GIS and survey data integration requires metadata: datum, epoch, projection, units, and accuracy statement.

Horizontal curves: tangent distance T = R tan(Δ/2); curve length L = RΔ (Δ in radians) or πRΔ/180; external E = R(sec(Δ/2) - 1); middle ordinate M = R(1 - cos(Δ/2)).

Vertical curves: parabolic; the rate of change of grade is constant. Elevation at any point uses the tangent elevation plus or minus the parabolic offset.

Stakeout: set control points with known coordinates, then use total station or GNSS to set offsets and grades; check with independent measurements.

Slope staking: cut and fill are computed from design grade versus existing ground; batter boards or slope stakes mark the limits of excavation.

Earthwork volumes: average end area method (V = L(A1+A2)/2) or prismoidal formula; check for shrinkage and swell factors.

As-built surveys compare constructed features to design; tolerances are project-specific and must be documented.

Machine control and GPS grading require a site calibration to local coordinates and verification against monumented control.

A written contract should define scope, deliverables, schedule, fee, standard of care, limitation of liability (where enforceable), and dispute resolution.

Standard of care is that of a reasonably prudent surveyor under similar circumstances, not perfection; document decisions and field conditions.

Change orders must be written and signed before additional work proceeds; verbal scope changes create collection risk.

Project budget: track labor, equipment, and subcontractor costs against the estimate; a survey is labor-intensive and field time drives cost.

Quality control: independent calculation checks, field-to-office review, and a second-licensee review before sealing complex plats.

Survey records (field notes, calculations, plats) support defensibility in litigation; retain per board rule and contract.

Lien rights and prompt-payment statutes vary by state; a surveyor may have a mechanic's lien for services on improvements in some jurisdictions.

Insurance: professional liability (E&O) covers errors and omissions; general liability does not cover professional services.