Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Aldeer General Forum Survey question

Buddy of mine has had a 40 acre tract for over 50 years. The fence running down the line has been there he knows for over 60 years. Survivor comes thru yday and put a pink ribbon about 10 foot over on his side how does this work? Does the fence stand where it is or does it have to be moved I compliance with survey

Depends on what the survivor survived from.

Some surveyors aren't worth a rip. What they flagged is basically just that one surveyors opinion, not the law of the land that fence is the property line unless there's more to the story

I think if an established fenceline (property boundry) has been present for many years, maybe 30?, and never challenged and the current owners have treated the property up to the fenceline like it was theirs, ie: trimming/mowing etc, then they could go to court and probably successfully challenge a survey line inside the fence. But I would think the cost of doing this might be prohibitive.

I’d start by attempting to keep an open dialog with the other landowner. You may be able to convince the surveyor to double check the calculations. After that you’d probably want to hire another one to check the first’s work. At a last resort you could hire a lawyer but things will start getting costly fast. I think a jury would be sympathetic to your friend if the fence has been accepted for such a long period of time.

And I gotta say it must take some balls by that surveyor to just walk right next to an apparently old, rusted fence line and mark tape 10 feet from it like he knows better than the historical marker. Mighty ballsy. If your buddy has some money to burn I'd get someone in there asap to mark it up again using the historical property line and see what happens from there.

Had a similar situation with a new owner who attempted to “survey” our common line with his iPhone! I proposed we split the survey and he didn’t want to! I was fortunate that we located a 1975 survey attached to a deed that showed the old fence line as the survey line. I had kept the old fence flagged even though it was on the ground in places. The “neighbor” had the gall to paint trees on my property!

By no means is this post about trying to make trouble over the footage on land line. Just curious about the time line on fence being there. Times change so much

IF the pink ribbon is indeed supposed to be a property line, and the folks want to pay to move the fence, then it's their problem. I take it that he is happy with the fence where it is.
You have several interrelated physical and legal issues. First, the fence at this point is just where it is. Unless he can tie it to pins or irons, it's not really a survey.
I would assume that before he allows them to tear down that fence and build a new one on what he considers "his" land, he will demand his own survey. All depends on what that survey , and/or what he judge thinks of the 2 surveys, if it gets that far.

True story. USS carefully monitors their lands. My brother is a RE attorney, and did a fair amount of work for them for a while. They had a neighbor who they discovered had carefully moved the pins, cut down the painted trees, and repainted new trees, in order to show the line down his quarter quarter about a hundred feet on USS land, effectively giving him 100 feet times 1,440 feet, or 3 1/2 acres of extra land. A lot of work for 3 ares of Walker/West Jefferson county holding the world together land. Aaand, he got caught and sued for fraud. People be crazy.

I'm not going to get into the "squatter's rights" or adverse possession aspect of the question. Adverse possession almost never works out in court, but after 60 years, there might be some chance it's meaningful here.

Didn't stay at a Holiday Inn last night, but grew up in the survey/engineering business, and have been appraising for 40 odd years.

Under Alabama law that fence IS the line even though it may be crooked. You need to Formally let the survey company and the other owner know you do not agree with the survey and why. This would best be done by your attorney who could point to the law and also case study. You probably will need to flag or stake the old fence line too(check with your attorney).

The fence is evidence of the boundary line until proven. Be careful with fence line surveyors. What do the deeds say? 1/4 sections? Have both parties lived up to and agreed that the fence is always been the boundary? What are the surveyors using to establish the line that is 10' over? I would walk to both ends of the common line and see what they are holding.
What county is property located?

Stay out of court if possible. Will be a headache. I would go talk with landowner. Contact who is doing the survey and talk to them. If this doesnt work hire your own suveyor.

The survey is probably right. Many times people will intentionally build fences well within their own property. Or the person building the fence may have been guessing. But a fence line that has been historically used as a boundary will hold up in court.

All I know about surveyors is I had the same one survey my property twice. And the second go round, he moved my line 12 feet over, which would have basically given me 12 feet by about 150 feet of a neighbors property, but given my other neighbor 12 feet by about 1000 feet of mine.

Get a metal detector and see if you can find the pins.

And surveyors act like they can be on anyones property without permission. So if your fence is posted, well, you might be able to have some fun with them.

Find the corners, follow the fence line and the tape line and see if there is a buried marker at the corner. If the original land survey was done correctly there will be a marker in the ground.

Never bought land in AL but back in the early 2000’s we bought a 30 acre piece of land in TN. It became a nightmare due to the survey and the perceived results. The area where the land was hadn’t had a survey done in the local area in years. The issue with that was, there was no survey done in the current system. Said differently based on what I was told, the old system contained errors and a new/recent survey would either correct the errors or establish a new starting point in the new system. Due to all of this, even finding a surveyor that would jump into that mess was difficult and it ended up costing a pile of money. The surveyor that did take the job took all the risk, contacted the adjacent landowners and made them aware of the mess that was going to ensue, coordinated times and dates for access etc. He was physically threatened by one of the adjacent landowners even after they signed to allow access to conduct the survey. Someone was going to gain and someone was going to lose. In the end, we ended up slightly on the plus side and two other adjacent landowners lost a little each. This was straight up mountain land. The biggest issue was water. There was no water on that mountain except for 3 springs that were all on the original survey and they remained on our 30 acres. The adjacent landowners had been using all 3 springs for generations and were going to continue to use them. They tried to blame the new survey on the whole thing and it had absolutely nothing to do with that. We ended up buying and selling the land with just over a year period of time.

A friend of mines dad had property that surrounded another guys small little home place. Small as in less that an acre. The small land owner decide to dispute the property line on one side of his house and found the fence was over by just a couple of feet. He threw an absolute fit and wanted his 2’. Wanted the fence moved NOW. The larger land owner had all the land surveyed and did find his fence was over a couple of feet. He also found the small land owner had a whole lot less land than they both thought and that it was so small that the house places steps coming out of the back door actually landed on the larger land owners property. So not only was the small land owners entire back yard not actually his, but that his house was built within about 5’ of the property line, and he couldn’t even access his back door without falling on someone else’s property. Guess what, he all of a sudden didn’t have as big of a problem with the fence line after that.

My folks bought some land about 20 years ago 40 acres square. Fence on one side been there long enough to have grown 10in or so into trees. Had survey done that fence was probably 40-50 feet off. My folks gained more land. Adjoining land owners were not happy they had a road through there as well. They took it to court and my folks won. Just because the fence has been there for years and that’s where they thought it was isn’t always the case.

Half the old fencelines in alabama were never surveyed it was just guess work. They should go off what the deed says. Just because grampaw put that fence in 30 yrs ago because he thought it was the line in my opinion doesnt make it right for someone to try and claim it now.

Doesn’t a fence have to be a foot or so off the line anyway? I know at least some municipalities require it. Seems to me that wouldn’t affect the property line. If it did, that’s like saying I want to fence in my property so I’m going to give away 1’ or so to do it.

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