Minimal Standards in Land Surveying

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Minimal Standards in Land Surveying

Land surveyors are used to make accurate measurements of your land. You may have a land survey done before you purchase the house or as you decide to build on it. Clearly, it is important to have a professional land surveyor focusing on the survey.  check here  requires that minimum standards should be met, in order to ensure that the survey is correct. The minimal standards for land surveying vary across states and countries. In the U.S., land surveyors are licensed on a state-by-state basis, and therefore the minimal standards may actually vary greatly.

Most states' minimal standards for surveying require that the surveyor offers a complete and unequivocal definition of land boundaries with enough information to allow the description to be plotted. Generally, this legal description must follow one of the surveying standards, including the Public Land Survey System, or the metes and bounds system, which describes how such measurements should be taken and described. Between states, there is very little variation with regards to how this information is to be presented.

Prior to beginning a survey, it is standard for a land surveyor to analyze background data, such as for example property deeds or old surveys, to determine what is already known concerning the property. The surveyor must use this information when determining the logical process of conducting a survey of the land.

Although they are general rules for conducting a survey, the rules set forth by many states get into much more detail. Most state requirements outline the minimal standards for conducting the specific land survey, aswell. These may include searching thoroughly for past surveying monuments, cooperating with appropriate public officials, and making sufficient measurements to verify that the task is accurate. Throughout the survey, a surveyor must often set monuments to record the boundaries on the physical property. Other requirements may outline just what material should be used for the monuments.

Some states go so far as to stipulate exactly how the maps are to be drawn, in order to standardize the process. These specific rules help to ensure that land surveys done by two separate surveyors should be as identical as you possibly can.


Most states require land surveyors to record their notes because they work, in a fashion that would be intelligible to some other surveyor. When the current surveyor disagrees with a previous survey, today's surveyor should contact the prior surveyor and attempt to resolve the issue.

Land surveyors should be licensed in the state in which they work. The licensing requirements generally include a test, that will require understanding of minimal standards of land surveying as they are set out in the laws for that one state. These guidelines often include ethical statements, such as for example stipulations that the minimal requirements should not be accepted because the only standard for the practice of land surveying. Other professional conduct standards written for land surveyors may address issues such as conflict of interest or knowingly signing off on a survey that does follow minimum standards.