When purchasing a property, a valuation is usually undertaken for the purposes of the lender in order to determine the market value. As a buyer, however, you are also advised to have an independent survey was done which can confirm the valuation but also check whether the property is structurally sound and establish any potential problems with the property. Usually a qualified surveyor would have the knowledge to provide a thorough survey of the property but it is possible that you could be left with a few nasty surprises upon purchasing your home which is why many people are now choosing to undertake their own survey as well as a home-buyers survey.
This allows you to thoroughly examine the property yourself but of course, it is important to know exactly what to look out for. Firstly, you should prepare well for the survey. Also, take a circuit tester and a pair of stepladders as well as somebody to help you with any difficult areas. Then create a home inspection checklist which you can use to record all the information you find. Start from inside the property and check the walls firstly for bulges, cracks or peeling. Check the level of the floor in each room and tap to establish whether it is hollow or solid if it is a wood floor.
We measure lengths in feet and inches, don't we? Well, the surveyor uses either feet and tenths of a foot be very alert for this! Don't panic at this. A chain measures 66 feet. Why 66 feet? Because it's convenient for land computations. Ten square chains equal one acre — which means to compute acreage rapidly, all you have to do is find the number of square chains, then move the decimal point once to the left.
Also, one mile stretches exactly 80 chains. A hundredth of a chain — about eight inches — is called a link. I find that if I'm faced with a description written in bearings and chains when my equipment reads in azimuths and feet, my brain reels at the prospect of translating and tramping about at the same time.
It's far better to translate all the degrees and distances on paper before you set out. Step one: Always start from a known point. It must be something you can absolutely match with the written record. It may be a marker on your boundary, if someone has already made a positive ID of it.
More likely, it will be a road crossing, a section corner, or even a neighbor's marker garnered from that plat you unearthed in the public records. Don't trust ditch lines or fence corners, unless the record mentions them. Step two: Measure off the course, direction, and distance exactly as the deed says.
Flag the line with your ribbons as you go. Make sure that your flags all line up straight and in the right direction. Your assistant can be a great help here. Watch out for any iron or steel objects or anything carrying electric current while you walk — they can attract the compass needle and throw your readings off. If you come to a large obstruction, you can measure a line exactly parallel to your boundary line for a short distance until you get by the obstacle Figure 3.
Surveys always measure distance on a horizontal plane, not along the ground slope. Unless you have a calculator that's well versed in trigonometry for equating slope distance to horizontal , you, too, must measure on the level. To do so, whenever you're traversing hilly land, you and your assistant need to hold your tape or a measured length of string along your directional line and exactly level use your level to determine this.
Then, let your plumb bob hang vertically down from the tape or string end to determine where on the ground that horizontally measured distance falls Figure 4. Repeat as needed to accurately measure across rises and dips. Step three: Once you've traveled the full distance in one direction, search for the boundary marker. This is always my favorite part.
Will you know it when you see it? If you're lucky, your plat or deed will mention how the surveyor marked corners. If not, you're in for some Sherlock Holmes-style detective work.
You are looking for some object artificially placed in a certain spot Figure 5. What kind of object? If your documents omit mention of the markers, look for a date of survey, a clue to the type of marker used.
Nowadays, surveyors use well-anchored pipes or steel rods, capped with brass, aluminum, or plastic, embossed with the surveyor's registration number. But years ago, they used anything handy. That included railroad spikes, wooden stakes, even broken glass usually from a convenient whiskey bottle. If you know you're seeking a buried pin, you can use your compass as a metal detector Figure 6.
Stand so the compass needle is pointing due north, then turn the compass vertical — so the needle points up. Keep facing north and move the compass back and forth over the approximate pin location, holding it about a half-inch to an inch off the ground. If the needle spins downward and points to the ground — dig. The public land surveyors often spent months or years on the frontier, and couldn't afford to carry around a load of markers.
Thus the identity of their monuments varied widely. In the prairie, they filled pits with charcoal. In the mountains, where they spent most of their time hacking brush, they simply left an etched stone buried at the section corner.
They would use witness trees in their notes to relocate the marker through triangulation. Remember, markers don't last forever. Wooden stakes may last less than 10 years. A "10 inch pine" in ancient notes may be a inch pine today — or a rotting stump. Step four: Proceed to the next point. Don't give up if your search has so far proven fruitless. The next corner may lie in plain sight. And that's a bonus, because the more corners you find, the greater your chances of finding the remaining ones.
You'll know what you're looking for and be able to zero in on it from two sides. One possible monkey wrench that may be throwing you oft: Your deed bearings may not be written in terms of magnetic north a compass actually points to a "false North Pole".
They may be written in true north referring to the real North Pole or even in grid north referring to an artificial regional standard that uses parallel "north-south" lines. Then too, even magnetic north shifts some over time. So if your bearing readings seem to be causing you trouble, take a compass reading between two known points of your deed or plat, and compare that to the recorded bearing.
If there's a significant difference, adjust all your bearing readings as needed to compensate. They are considered legal boundaries only as long as they remain exactly where they are. You cannot move them to where you think they ought to be. Only a licensed surveyor can do that. If there are serious legal problems with your boundary, you will need a surveyor. So what have you accomplished? A lot. If you found some corners, you may have staved of a boundary war with your neighbor.
Show him or her what you've found, so you'll agree. Then paint a few trees or pile rocks around the spot so it doesn't go to weeds. Don't force your grandkids to go through the same search. Even if you didn't turn up any corners, your time hasn't been wasted.
You've probably dug up some useful old records, and that's half of what you'd pay a real surveyor for. The normal hand compass is marked off in azimuths. An azimuth is a direction — from 0 degrees to degrees — measured clockwise from due north.
Thus, north is 0 degrees, east is 90 degrees, south is degrees, and west is degrees. Bearings start with the same degree circle, but it is divided into quadrants of 90 degrees each. On either side of due north are the NE and NW quadrants. With over 16 years of experience, Nick specializes in large residential projects such as new construction, developments, major renovations, additions, and hillside construction. There are 8 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page.
This article has been viewed , times. A property survey is used to assess where the boundaries of a property lie. If you're planning on buying or selling a property, or planning construction on one you own, you'll need to hire a professional surveyor to perform the survey.
However, if you're simply curious where your legal property line is, you can perform an approximate property survey yourself with a bit of research, measuring, and footwork. To do a property survey, start by finding the known corner, which should be referred to in the deeds, so your measurements are accurate.
Then, measure from the known corner to the next corner of the property, using a compass so you stay on course. Once you reach the corner, make a note of the location of the marker or give an approximate location if you can't find it.
Alternatively, hold your compass close to the ground to see if the needle points downwards, which will tell you that the marker is buried underground. Repeat the process for the other corners on the property. For tips on how to hire a professional surveyor, keep reading!
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Related Articles. Article Summary. Part 1. Determine if you need to survey the land. The primary purpose of conducting a property survey is to prevent disputes about property lines.
A neighbor's fence or buildings could be on your property, or vice versa, without your knowing about it. Surveys are often performed prior to the sale of a property, the beginning of construction on a building or fence, or when a property is being subdivided for sale. In essence, a property survey gives you the ability to know exactly where your property legally ends and the adjacent property begins. Understand that existing boundaries may not be accurate.
In many cases, and especially for rural properties, it may be the case that existing boundaries are not the real, legal boundaries of a property. You and your neighbor may have a fence or a natural boundary, like a ditch or creek, dividing your land. However, your deed may specify another line that must be used when determining the actual boundaries of properties. Decide to survey the land yourself. However, keep in mind that doing so will not provide you with the same benefits of a professional survey.
An amateur survey cannot be used in court, as part of bank-required information in a property sale, or as a way to move existing property markers to make them more accurate. When you click Project, ExpertGPS will create a new waypoint at the property corner, and prompt you for the next call bearing and distance. Move around the property in this way until you have entered all of the calls. You can now send the waypoints and route to your GPS, and head out into the field to locate the property corners.
Please realize that there are limits to the accuracy of your GPS receiver. This technique should get you within a few feet of a property corner and will help you narrow down where to search to find missing survey monuments. To create a legal land survey that you can use for selling property or establishing boundaries, you should consult a licensed land surveyor. Bearings are most often assumed, based on one line of a section, being a cardinal direction.
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