New Property Boundary lines.

Hello THF, my brother and I finally found a little place we liked and can afford in Northern Uvalde county. The realtor we bought the place from had went out and painted a couple pins at tbe front by the road he says are the boundaries. However this past weekend i downloaded a gps app and found the exact coordinates stated on the deed are different than tbe pins. This app clearly shows the property lines and my location relative to said lines. It is 11 acres next to other similarly sized places so very important I stay within my own boundaries. My question is am I right to disregard the pins in favor of my actual gps coordinate points ? I have checked with county CAd website Nd the property matvhes up with what the app says. Thanks in advance for your time THF

Either the seller needs to provide a survey(in writing) or you need to get a new one.

I'd use land survey and county CAD assuming they match

The pins are evidence of survey. Whether the realtor tagged the right ones is the question...

Also, GPS isn't that accurate. At least what accuracy you can get from any civilian type handheld, or phone app. They can have 3 meters of accuracy/error.

County CAD websites, and some of the programs that show property lines/owner info in apps are probably based on the same GIS information, and are not a legal survey, but a representation of what they believe a reasonable facsimile of all properties in the county, once they twist and squeeze them all together from deed records. Lots of room for error.

Get a survey by a licensed surveyor. At least check to see what surveyor subdivided the land, and contact them. They may be able to use their existing data and come out and mark the corners accurately at a fraction of the cost of a complete new survey. The surveyor's name, address and phone number will be on the subdivision plat filed at the County Clerk's Office, and are free to examine by the public. They may charge you a buck or two if you want a copy.

Don't trust apps, or GPS when it comes down to it.

Enjoy the new land, and hope you get that boundary question answered to your satisfaction.

Call a Surveyor and get him out there.

I agree

Are you going to fence it? If not don't worry about it

the CAD map's are wrong all the time



Get a survey

Did you not get a survey? You should have required the seller to provide a current survey. Now it will be your expense if you want to know where your boundaries are. CAD maps are wrong quite often as stated above.

I would strongly suggest getting a survey done, then you know and your neighbors know.

My Grandfather bought 80 acres from a neighbor where the fences that marked the boundaries had rotted and are laying in the woods. 5 years later, they got a new neighbor who was "certain" that the property lines were 15 yards further into our land and another neighbors land leading to 30+ years of tension that only becomes important during deer season.

We just bought land a year ago where we only have 1 neighbor where we share a lot line. He told my wife that he wasn't satisfied with the amount of surveyors stakes along our shared lot line, so he took it upon himself to "put in a handful more, where I know the line to be". We just fenced the lot line and by golly, I picked up another 10', which took about 3/4 of a ATV trail he has passing parallel to the line.

Save yourself a bunch of grief and trouble and spring for a survey. Saying "My realtor told me that the lot line is here" isn't going to get you anywhere.

I have only bought one property without a survey and that was a property only bordering other properties owned by us. Seller should pay for survey to prove what you are buying is what he is telling you.

Thanks for the replies everybody. Seems like the best thing to do will be get it surveyed. Onx hunt has been a good app for me in previous years with public land however the surveyers will be forsure.

I'm a licensed professional land surveyor. I am glad that you decided to get the property surveyed. That being said, I would like to comment on a couple of things in your original post that are fairly common misconceptions among people. You said that you downloaded a GPS app and found the exact coordinates for your property. No you didn't. There is no app or GPS unit that is capable of giving you the coordinates of your property lines or corners; not even survey grade GPS units. Survey grade units give us measurements and we use those measurements, along with other evidence, to calculate the correct positions of property lines and corners, after which we can find those coordinates. Accurate property lines and corners are not stored in any GPS or app. Hunting apps, property line apps, and even local government maps overlayed on aerial photos are drawn as "best fit", and in small print have a disclaimer stating that they are not a survey and should not be considered as one. They can be off anywhere from 3 feet to 20 feet or more, and can be off different amounts in different places because they are drawn in to "best fit" the ground and deed descriptions, which don't always line up. In a nutshell, you can find your deerstand but not your property lines with them. They will get you in the ballpark.
Second, you asked, "My question is am I right to disregard the pins in favor of my actual gps coordinate points?" I guess I probably covered that above somewhat, but to reiterate, the GPS is not accurate enough (and neither is the county GIS map) to get you to your true property lines & corners, and the pins may well be correct, even thought they don't line up with the lines drawn on the aerial photograph. Remember those lines were drawn on a satellite view by someone in some office somewhere trying to make the deed description fit over what the ground looks like, and many times they just don't line up very well, which can throw lines off significantly. The only thing that can determine if those pins are correct or not is an actual on the ground survey, which you are wisely having done.

I'm not going off on you, lol. I'm writing all this out in hopes that everyone who reads it will get educated a little bit in regard to GPS, aerial mapping, the accuracy of mapping apps, etc., since I have encountered these same issues a lot. I appreciate learning about things I don't know all that much about also!

As a Surveyor myself, I agree. Very well written, Shawn.

Never trust an “app” or any GIS based map (County Appraisal District maps included) . For lack of a better term, these are “eye balled” in and should be used for for reference purposes only.

Hiring a Surveyor is your only route. Have him stake your property lines at a suitable increment. IE every 100ft, 200 ft, 500 ft etc.

I hope the “pins” that your realtor flagged up actually fit with your, and your adjoining deed-platted lots!! They should leave that to the Surveyors.... That’s what we get paid to do!!

Feel free to PM with any questions.

Hey shawno, welcome and hang around awhile.

When I was 19 I worked for the BLM (Bureau of land management) Dept. of the interior. Our job was to find survey markers left by a surveyor from the 1800's that separated California and Nevada around Lake Tahoe by Allexey W. Von Schmidt. We actually found most of his brass markers buried under piles of stones, (most were no longer piles) or scribed into huge pines. These locations where then connected to 5 satellites before confirmation. He measured everything in Chains 66ft. He was So accurate that if there was a stump where a tree should have been, we would use the previous and next points to confirm the location. There would be typically a scar on the tree and we would debark it until a chunk fell out and there would be his coordinates carved into the wood. It was amazing, and we actually changed the official borders between the 2 states a few feet in each direction.

Typically buyer pays for survey and seller pays for title policy. I'm a RPLS #1938 been at this a while.

Truth from the surveyors. These pins you found, if there is a plastic cap with surveyors info embossed, could be the corner marker.

Those plastic caps are not too long lived in some cases. Rats eat the plastic off, old surveys weren't required to be capped, etc.

Surveyors do tag an iron rod or other monument they deem acceptable now though. Usually with a brass washer with their RPLS number on it.

I smile when remembering some corners found had 5-6 iron rods within a foot, with different tags on them... Rather than just accepting the corner as set, and showing the difference in the deed or record and what evidence was found on the ground.

One particular surveyor was famous for that. Problem was over the years he'd survey from a different direction, and contradict himself.

Back years ago, some state boards would give a licensed engineer a survey license for the application cost. It showed...

I believe you, just not the way we have done it. I have also purchased properties without appraisals, but never without a survey (except as referenced above).

I’ve been in real estate going on 13 years now and in 98% of cases in farm and ranch deals Seller pays for/provides survey

As they say in Missouri, "Show me".

Get a survey.

Had our place surveyed when we bought it, two of the fence corners are off, one by almost 5 foot the other by just shy of 3 foot. One is off on our side and the other is off on the neighbors side so it evens out. Since the fences are good we have a survey know where the pins are and are just leaving as is for now.

I looked back into some of my records and you guys are right, guess I've been retired too long.LOL

I will not buy a piece of property without an up to the minute survey

Thanks for all the info guys. Its pretty rough canyon country so I definetly could see how the lines got mixed up. I should add that the realtor I bought it from did not put in the pins just paint the existing ones. When i look up the deeded coordinates they match the corners on the gps map. It is probably off 50 ft

No title company will give title insurance without a survey. You should have gotten one when you bought it. A surveyor can mark the corners or flag the property lines if you’re not sure. If you’re sure of the corners and can get sight lines, then that’s all you need. If it’s hilly or canyons, you may have to pay the surveyor.

Another FYI......legally, marking a property line with purple paint is a legal boundary marker, equal to a fence.

Thanks for the good info!

I purchased our 1/4 section 10 years ago approx. 160 acres without survey however no fencing on 2 sides and roads on 2. Had it surveyed for me to fence. north boundary owner had 4 inch steel corner post in place. They were off by 3 ft into my property line per surveyor. Called owner and he said he did the best the could with dead reckoning. 3 feet was too much off to use his corners so I advised him to have a surveyor recheck. He declined so I put in new corners on my boundary in about 6 inches to avoid conflict and installed my fencing.

When I bought my place over 40 years ago, it was said to be 160 acres, more or less. I insisted on a survey. It turned out to be 133.752 acres.

Rudy, where in Northern Uvalde County??
Back in the mid to late '80s I hunted a bunch in NW Uvalde County in the Silver Creek area (a couple miles WNW of Camp Wood) and it was a lot like you described, rocky, hilly rough, lots of 5-25 acre lots and no real fences.
I found the Surveyor and bought a copy of the big survey he had done. Using my map reading and orienteering skills from Scouts and ROTC I was able to find lots of pins in the ground. A lot of the pins had metal tags attached to them that had been stamped with info like SE corner of Lot X, NE corner of Lot Y and so forth.
Using that info and the survey I was able to come up with a pretty safe idea of the boundaries. It was easier to find the pins up on the ridge roads than down in the valleys (a 5-10 acre lot could have an elevation difference of a couple hundred feet)

Hunt Dog it is south of campwood about 18 miles i believe. Off of cr 408, luckily its on the outside of the subdivision and is only 50 acres across from the Briscoe Ranch western border. The pins have tags attached with old L.O name on them.

Our property in N.E. Tx originally had a "meets and bounds" survey @174 acres. New survey that seller paid for showed 160 acres and our longest fence line off a couple of feet. Another survey was done by neighbors but they surveyed the existing fence line? On hunting apps this fence line shows a large jog in our favor, several acres worth. The area in question is full of deep gullies and would be a PITA to fence, the fence is just to our side of the rough area. Also one survey goes to the middle of the county road, the other goes to the fence which is set back from the road 10 to 15 yards due to drainage ditch and erosion. The part between our fence and the county road shows to be owned by the neighbor across the road? It's a major mess and after many years we have pretty much given up on it. Everyone blames it on the original survey and says use the existing fence line as the boundary

If you are not going to fence the property, and you just want to know where you can hunt, I'd look for all the corner pins first.

You do not have to have a survey to buy property if your Title Company and Lender are fine with the legal description.

In most cases, the corners will have a piece of rebar hammered into the ground and surveyor tape tied to it. If the place has been sold a few times, there can be a variety of different colors of surveyor tape. Most of it will be gone, but I've found it on pins that where last done decades ago.

Since your realtor has already marked some of your pins, it's not very difficult to read your legal description and find the other pins. Get a compass, and if possible, and measuring wheel, and start hiking. Once you get to the general area that the pin should be, start looking around for it. They are usually always there, but can be hidden by leaves or some sort of plant. Look for surveyors tape in a tree, or just anywhere. It lasts for a long time if nobody messes with it and you might be surprised at what you find when you start looking.

I've carried a metal detector with me when looking for pins, but so far, I've never actually found a pin using it. Once I get in the area, I've either found them buy just looking real close, or I never found it no matter where I looked. In my experience, I'm probably about 80% at finding them with a compass and measuring how far it is from the pin that I can find. and working from there.