A Land Surveyor is essential whenever you plan on building a house, buying or selling a property, or dividing your property amongst your children. Many land surveyor made it down to history.

In fact, three of the four faces carved in Rushmore are land surveyors (Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln were all three surveyors, Teddy Roosevelt was not.).

Others popular names were Daniel Boone, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark (Lewis & Clark), Sir George Everest, Charles Mason & Jeremiah Dixon (of the Mason-Dixon Line fame) and author Henry David Thoreau practiced for a time in Concord, Massachusetts.

What is a Land Surveyor?

Aland surveyoris a person with the academic qualifications and technical expertise to measure and plot the lengths and directions of boundary lines and the dimensions of any portion of the earth’s surface (including natural and other structures). That definition is quite a mouthful, but in actuality the field of surveying (geomatics) includes many other facets.

If you plan to purchase a lot, build your dream house, divide your property to your children, or simply want to know the details of a land property, a land surveyor is the best person to help you out. A land surveyor locates theboundaryof your property and the location of your home within that boundary to determine if there are any encroachments by your neighbors onto you or vice versa. Common encroachments are fences, driveways, etc.

These days a land surveyor in the United States is regulated and licensed by the various state governments. In Tennessee, theTennessee State Board of Licensure for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyorswas established in 1935 to protect the public.  A land surveyor’s duty is “to safeguard life, health, and property, and to promote the public welfare by providing for the licensing and regulation of persons in the practices of engineering and land surveying. This purpose is achieved through the establishment of minimum qualifications for entry into the professions of engineering and land surveying, through the adoption of rules defining and delineating unlawful or unethical conduct, and through swift and effective discipline for those individuals or entities who violate the applicable laws or rules.”

How to become a land surveyor?

As of 2007, a newly licensed land surveyor is required to finish a four year degree in surveying or a closely related field, a four to eight years of on-the-job training under a licensed practicing surveyor. In addition to that, licensed land surveyors are mandated to attend 15 hours of continuing education annually to ensure that they are kept updated with the new know-hows that would help them on their professional growth.

What does a land surveyor do?

As part of a standard lot or mortgage survey of a property, expect your land surveyor to review tax maps, aerial maps, deeds, subdivision plats, zoning ordinances, subdivision regulations and possibly even flood maps. For a typical lot survey, the subdivision plat is the most important of these because it tells the exact dimensions of your lot and the relative location of your property corners. The surveyor uses this to locate and/or re-establish your property corners.

In the field, a land surveyor will search for your property corners along with some of your neighbors’ corners. If yours can’t be found, they’ll measure the distances and angles between all of the points, locate the improvements on your property, including your house, pool, out-buildings, retaining walls, fences, driveways, sidewalks, and other home improvements. Other improvements like sanitary sewer mains, storm drainage ways, overhead power lines and the like are located because these might indicate an easement across the property. The plat should show these, but may not in all cases.>

Once all of the field information is gathered, the crew chief takes the field notes and prepares a preliminary sketch of the work. This is passed along to a draftsperson who prepares the final outline for your use. The draftsperson will check all of the maps mentioned earlier to make sure that all building setback lines and easements are shown on the draft. The surveyed distances and directions are compared to the plat distances and directions as well. Any discrepancies or encroachments are shown on the drawing. Your lawyer may use the draft to determine if any other legal work is needed during the closing. The mortgage company or the bank may also use the survey for their records.

So now, what do you have for your money. You have a drawing which shows your house on your lot. You should have stakes and/or flagging by all of your property corners. Make sure you know where they are located. The actual corner is marked by an iron pin or pipe of some sort. (The type of monument should be shown in your survey drawing.) You might also want to take a look at them at least once a year to make sure they’re still there. (Even animals mark their territory more often than that.)

Land Surveyors are professionals who make precise measurements to determine the size and boundaries of a piece of real estate.  While this is a simplistic definition, boundary surveying is one of the most common types of surveying related to home and land owners. If you fall into the following categories, please click on the appropriate link for more information on that subject:

Knoxville Land Surveying services:

1. 1. I need to know where my property corners or property lines are. (Boundary Survey)
   2. I have a loan closing or re-finance coming up on my home in a subdivision. (Lot Survey)
   3. I need a map of my property with contour lines to show elevation differences for my architect or engineer. (Topo Survey)
   4. I’ve just been told I’m in a flood zone or I’ve been told I need an elevation certificate in order to obtain flood insurance or prove I don’t need it. (Flood Survey)
   5. I’m purchasing a lot/house in a recorded subdivision. (Lot Survey – See Boundary Survey if you’re not in a subdivision.)
   6. I’m purchasing a larger tract of land, acreage, that hasn’t been subdivided in the past. (Boundary Survey)

Contact Knoxville Land Surveying services TODAY at (865) 249-0447.

A Licensed Land Surveyor

When hiring a land surveyor, you have to make sure that he is duly licensed by your state. A “licensed” land surveyor means he was able to complete his studies, passed all exams and is certified to perform specific types of land surveys.

Hiring a licensed land surveyor is especially important if there is a dispute over a certain area of a property as the court would be asking for the current boundary survey result as well as testimony from a licensed land surveyor. With this being said, you also have to make sure that the surveyor you’re going to hire can also stand as an expert witness in court.

Looking for a Licensed Land Surveyor

If your property has been surveyed before, it would be easier for you to contact that land surveyor again. This is the best option for several reasons; he already has all information about your property, making it easier for him to perform a new type of survey.

You can typically find your land surveyor’s information on the survey result given to you (if you’ve bought the property from somebody, for instance) or the result given to you by the surveyor himself.

If incase you don’t have the result on you, you can also check the markers put in place by the surveyor during the last survey done on your property. These markers, which looks like pegs, has he surveyor’s license number/ name on it. You can use these information to find the surveyor online.

If you can’t find the surveyor who worked on your property before, or if the property has never been surveyed, you should easily find a land surveyor in your area (for a land surveyor in the Knoxville area, Davison County and surrounding areas, click here).

Important Points to Remember when Hiring a Boundary Surveyor

• As mentioned, make sure that he or she is a licensed land surveyor.

• He or she should have experience in performing boundary survey. If you’re going to pay somebody, you’d rather have someone who had done it before, right?

• Look for someone easy to talk to. Communication is very important when hiring a land surveyor. You see, surveying is more of an art than a science – this is why land surveying results vary. It’s important that your surveyor understand why you’re having the survey, what you’re going to use the results for and how soon you’ll be needing the results.

For boundary surveying services in the Knoxville, TN and Knox County area of Tennessee, call us at (615) 645-1404 or fill out our contact form here.

What is Land Surveying?

Land Surveying dates back to ancient history. Surveying is used for multiple projects.  A survey is done to establish a specific location of a parcel of land along with its exact acreage.  It is used to ascertain boundaries for defining an area of ownership and tax liability.  It is also used to identify a piece of property by a written legal description or to provide a review of the accuracy of an existing description. Data from land surveying is of the utmost importance with regard to buying and selling land, and is also used to insure a clean and marketable title.

Other types of Land Surveying

There are many different kinds of surveys that can be performed. Boundary surveying is typically done for undeveloped land. This type of survey measures the actual physical extent of the property in question. Most surveys progress through the basic procedures regardless of the type being done. Any pertinent deeds, contracts, maps or other documents that contain a description of the property’s boundaries are located, studied and interpreted.

A determination is made of what the actual property description is deemed to be, along with the locations of any physical evidence of the boundaries. This can be in the form of both natural and man-made monuments or markers that exist in the field.

The property is then measured to establish the boundaries, not only using the appropriate existing monuments but with the creation and referencing of new markers where necessary. Measurements are accomplished using a total station and other land surveying tools. A total station measures both vertical and horizontal angles, as used in triangulation networks. After these steps are accomplished, the property description and plat are prepared.

Results of land surveying

Interpreting the results of a land survey is not as difficult as it may first seem. For instance, a property plat will usually contain a directional orientation which is typically indicated with an arrow pointing north. It will contain the bearing and distance of each boundary line, the property lines of other properties shown on the plat, and the names of adjacent property owners listed in the areas of their property.

Corner monuments, along with the names of any natural monuments (such as “Smith’s Creek”, for example) or a brief description of any unnamed natural monuments (such as the “30-inch pine tree”) are on the plat. There is also a title block containing the property’s location and name of owner, the surveyor’s name, the date the survey was performed, the scale of the plat and any other relevant data.

If you need the services of a surveyor for your land surveying needs, ALWAYS be sure that you’re hiring an experienced, certified, and highly competent professional surveyor. You can find out if the surveyor is licensed by visiting the Board of Licensure’s website.