Offering CE for Surveyors, Engineers, and Title Agents
Uncertainty and Error in Boundary Retracement - A Case Study
May 14, 2025
9:00 AM - 11:40 PM EST
Registration Fee: $99.00
3 Credit Hours.
SPEAKER: GARY KENT
In this program, the participants will be taken through an exceptionally complex boundary retracement that involved just about every type of uncertainty that a surveyor can imagine. Issues that arose included faulty legal descriptions, property occupied that was not in written title to the proper entity, numerous major encroachments, riparian rights, significant potential prescriptive easements, poorly documented subdivision plats, potential adverse possession claims and a dearth of reliable, documented monumentation. All of these conditions contributed to uncertainty and potential error in the boundary determination, and must be documented in the Surveyors Report. In order to do that confidently, thoroughly and in a way that will provide footsteps for future surveyors, a thorough analysis of the state of affairs must be undertaken. In this program, that analysis will be tackled, followed by an in-depth look at how and why each condition contributed to uncertainty and how it all should be explained in a Surveyors Report.
Survey Evidence and Procedures
June 13, 2025
9:00 AM - 12:30 PM EST
Registration Fee: $129.00
4 Credit Hours.
SPEAKER: JEFF LUCAS
The two fundamental principles of surveying are: (1) the surveyor is an ‘original surveyor’ laying out new boundary lines in new positions for the very first time, for a common grantor where there is unity of ownership on both sides of the new lines being created; or (2) the surveyor is a ‘retracing surveyor’ finding where the property lines have become established on the ground through the application of the appropriate boundary law principles, where there is diversity of ownership on each side of the line being retraced. In addition to these principles, the determination of any property boundary line is a two-part question: 1. What is the boundary? (the legal title question), and 2. Where is the property located? (the factual location question). The vast majority of boundary surveying work being performed today is retracement surveying as opposed laying out original subdivision lines, and that work can only be successfully accomplished by understanding the legal question while answering the factual question. This means that retracement surveying is an evidentiary exercise and not a math and measurement problem. This program will explore survey evidence and procedures in the retracement context. Power Point presentation.
OBJECTIVES: To enhance professional competency and improve practitioner’s knowledge of the law as it relates to the practice of land surveying.
Property Surveying in Downtown Areaas
July 10, 2025
9:00 AM - 11:40 AM (EST)
3 hour credit. Registration Fee: $99.00
SPEAKER: Gary Kent
Whether in the downtown of a large or medium-sized city or in the center of a small town, conducting a boundary survey in an urban core requires a different mindset and an entirely different set of considerations. In this program, we will discuss and provide examples of the sorts of things that surveyors should search for, account for, and assess when surveying in zero lot-line areas. Included in the program will be some court decisions that are on-point that will provide perspective in these situations.
Rights and Responsibilities in the Lands of Others: The Effects of Easements on Surveyors' Work
August 14, 2025
9:00 AM - 11:40 AM (EST)
3 hour credit. Registration Fee: $99.00
SPEAKER: Wendy Lathrop
Easements are rights given to one party to use the land of someone else. Both sides have certain rights to be protected as well as responsibilities to preserve the existence and usefulness of the easement. The Land Surveyor is often asked to determine the location of easement rights on the ground, based upon a written description, but sometimes an inspection of the property reveals uses not publicly recorded. What makes an easement an easement, when does an easement cease to exist, and how do easement rights affect land use? What is the Land Surveyor's responsibility in reporting recorded or unrecorded land use?
Discussion will include the definition of an easement, creation and termination of easements, dominant and servient estates, and a sampling of pertinent state statutes and case law.