Services

What happens if a sycamore tree that you want to cut down is bordering your property with your neighbors? How do you determine what the legal land boundaries are? When building a house, how do you know if there was once a garbage dump on the very site or if the house is sitting on a fault line? These are important factors to consider before erecting or fixing any structure. Land surveyors plan, direct and conduct legal surveys to establish and interpret real property boundaries. Using special air and land surveying equipment and computer programs, they analyze both natural and built features of a site in order to create official plans, records and documents pertaining to these surveys.

Land surveyors determine boundaries by searching for previous boundaries in existing survey records, land titles and deeds. However if none exist, they will conduct fieldwork, with a team of technicians and prepare new plans to determine the accurate boundaries of a specific project area. Their job involves technologically advanced methods of land study including land mapping, navigation and communications. They begin a survey by conducting extensive historical and legal research and performing mathematical calculations.

In surveying tests, land surveyors use instruments that automatically record land depth, slope, distance, contours and other important data that will determine boundaries and building regulations. Also, if a builder proposes to blast rocks or cut down trees, the land surveyor might protest to such actions for the sole purpose of erecting a structure. The information that land surveyors gather is used to determine rights-of-way for utilities, road and highway alignments, marking limits and boundaries, well-site locations, mining claims for resource development, subdivisions of land, and the location of houses and buildings for construction or sale.

Land surveyors are often consulted when there is a civil or commercial dispute over property lines and may be called upon to testify in a court hearing. When dealing with such property and boundary disputes, land surveyors have to remain calm and rational with often hysterical people. Since one disputing party will end up hearing results they do not want to hear, land surveyors must be prepared to deal with hostile people. The side that loses the property debate might blame the land surveyor and think he or she is favoring the opposite party.

When land surveyors have completed their research and land survey studies, they usually prepare a detailed written report, which may include contour maps and plot maps. They are required to keep up to date with rapid technological changes with computers and surveying tools.