Cartography and Surveying

And now for something completely different.

I am a cartographer by trade. That means I make maps. Specifically I make maps for a county assessor’s office. For states that have property taxes, maps are required so that appraisers can accurately gauge the size and location and special requirements for each property. They need to know these things so they can fairly value the property. These maps are made with care from deeds, surveys, and subdivision plats, but the maps do not constitute a legal representation of the property for anything other than taxation. Despite warnings to that effect on each map, everyone uses them for every purpose under the sun. Realtors, banks, title companies, insurance companies, and others, use these maps in ways they were not necessarily intended. But the Assessor map is so conveniently available and there really is no practical alternative.

I was hired as the Automated Mapping Cartographer (a rather redundant title). My job was to take all the old maps that had been drafted on Mylar or linen, and convert them into computer drafted maps. I said converted but really my job was to recreate these maps from scratch, running out every deed, every survey, and every road description in the county. It took me sixteen years to finish that job and I learned a lot along the way, some of which might be helpful to others.  

If you own property, how do you know where your property lines are? If you have never hired a surveyor to find out, the short answer is: you don’t. Perhaps you saw the fences around your property and assumed that they were the lines. Perhaps the person you bought it from walked you around the property and showed you stakes, bushes, or trees that marked the property lines. These are not reliable methods of determining where your property boundaries are. If you are planning on buying property, the same applies. Before you buy, you should know what you are getting. If the seller tells you it is two acres, should you believe them? In most cases they are telling you what they honestly believe, but that does not make it correct. Or, does the electric company have the right to dig up your yard including those nice azaleas you just planted? If they have an easement the answer is yes. Where can you find out this stuff?

There is some research you can do on your own. This is going to vary from state to state and country to country. In my state every county has a County Surveyor’s Office where they have records of all recorded surveys. You can check with them to see if your property has ever been surveyed (a surprising number have not). If you find a survey of your property or adjacent property you can see what kind of monument (e.g. Iron rod, Iron pipe, stone with an “X” on it) was used to define the boundary. Simply finding an iron rod near where you think the corner is, is not proof that it is your corner. Surveyors refer to monuments of unknown origin as “goat stakes”.

Another place you can do research is the county Assessor’s Office. They have records about each property in the county. They will have the history of deeds which can give you the chain of title. This is sort of the genealogy of the property. Also, as I said, you can get a map of your property in the Assessor’s Office. This is probably the only place you will find a map of the property unless it has been surveyed.

Easements are tricky things to track down. Our office does not even keep track easements because easements are nontaxable. (Yes it is really just about taxes with us.) But the deed history can help to find easements. Deeds will often list easements that the property is subject to. If you cannot find an easement that you think should be there, then you may have to hire someone to find it for you. That could be a surveyor or a title company or even a lawyer although if you use a lawyer, you really want to find one who specializes in property issues because otherwise they are just useless.

How big is your property? As I said in our Assessor’s Office we map properties. From those maps we calculate the area of each property. We are not surveyors. We are not even measuring the actual property. We are just measuring the map and then scaling it up to come up with a figure. Yet everyone assumes the acreage we put on the map is gospel. It isn’t. If you want to know how much acreage you have, get it surveyed.  

You say: “but I got title insurance when I bought the property so I don’t need to do any of that stuff right?” Not necessarily. Title insurance policies have exclusions in them for various things. They particularly exclude problems that might be discovered by a true and correct survey. See, title companies don’t really know where your property lines are either. They are just insuring that the seller is conveying what they own (whatever that may be). The long and the short of it is, if you have any questions about your property, you should probably hire a surveyor. Yes it costs money, but what is the most valuable thing you own? Probably your property. You are willing to pay money for insurance right? You ought to be willing to pay money to survey it to make sure you own what you think you own.

(My novel Star Liner, (which has nothing to do with surveying or cartography) is now available as an ebook through Copypastapublishing.com, Amazon, or the other usual online sources. For those who like to turn physical pages, the paperback will be out soon).

Star Liner