Oklahoma City Land Surveying

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Welcome to Oklahoma City Land Surveying

Land SurveyorWelcome to our site. We want to provide you with information on Land Surveying in general and specifically in the City of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma​, and the Brazos County, Oklahoma area. If you have any land surveying questions, you’ve come to the right place.

Land Surveying is a very important industry, and it has been around for ages. To know more about the basics of land surveying, you can click here.

Land Surveyors are professionals who measure and make precise measurements to determine the size and boundaries of a piece of real estate.  While this is a simplistic definition, this is one of the most common types of surveying related to home and land owners. To know more about what a land surveyor does, click here.

What you can expect from Oklahoma City Land Surveying

If you need assistance on any land surveying services, our surveyors have the proper experience and credentials. We strive to give good customer service as well.

Oklahoma City Land Surveying offers different land surveying services. We also offer Boundary surveying, percolation & soil testing, subdivision design and layout, topographic surveying, construction surveying and layout, and pipeline surveying services.

How to contact Oklahoma City Land Surveying?

CALL Oklahoma City Land Surveying TODAY at (405) 546-2121 to discuss your land survey needs. You can also send us a message by filling out the form on the right or going to our Contact Page.

What is Property Encroachment and How to Deal with It

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What exactly is property encroachment? Encroachment happens when a certain improvement extends onto and over the boundary line of a neighboring property.

One of the most common types of encroachment is structural encroachment – this is when a part of a building extends over the property line. However, gardening beds as well as fences also are constructed over the line and are considered an encroachment as well.

Why do encroachments happen? More often than not, an encroachment is an honest mistake. It might be that the previous owner or contractor miscalculated and thought they were building on their property, or the wrong pin may have been used. Without a survey, this happens more than you would think.

There are several ways to deal with encroachments. The easiest way is to politely ask your neighbor to remove the encroachment. This is not usually a big problem if it’s only a flower bed or something else that can easily be removed.

If it’s a fence or a part of a structure, you can strike up an agreement and have the other party pay rent for the part of your property that was encroached. Another option is to sell the “encroached” property to the other party so they’re free to use it.

If you would rather use your property, you can go to court and plead your case. This is the most expensive option usually. An early agreement is much better for both sides.

Property Encroachment

This is exactly why a land survey is very important if you’re going to buy property. When it comes to an encroachment, the earlier you address the problem, the better. This is because of the Adverse Possession laws.

This law states that if someone openly uses a piece of property for a certain period of time and pays taxes for it, among other requirements, they could claim possession of the property and be awarded ownership.

Please note though that each state has different property encroachment laws so it’s best that you talk to a lawyer and a local land surveyor.

For any property encroachment problems or questions about it, call Oklahoma City Land Surveying at (405) 546-2121 or send us a message through our contact form.

Tips on Hiring a Land Surveyor

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construction surveyor - land surveyorHiring a land surveyor means paying them good money, which is why we need to make sure that we get the best service in return. We need to make sure that we only get the best service, as I’m sure you don’t want to pay good money and not get the service that you’re expecting.

If you’re looking to hire the service of a land surveyor, here are some guidelines that you may want to keep in mind.

Hiring a Land Surveyor:

Start by looking for land surveying companies in your area. Knowing your options allow you to choose the best. Checking the internet, the yellow pages and the newspaper is a very good way to start. Make sure to make a list of the companies’ contact information since you’d need to make contact with them later.

Licensed Land Surveyor

Only deal with licensed land surveyors, so ask to see their license before hiring them. If possible, ask for a copy and authenticate it. Furthermore, check with the Better Business Bureau for any complaints the company might have against them.

Another important thing to remember is to hire a land surveyor whom you’re at ease working with. To find out, meet with the person. Study how he answers your questions and how he talks to you and you’d be able to determine if you’re comfortable with him. Aside from this, you’d also be able to gauge how knowledgeable he is by the way he answers your questions.

Contract Signing with a Land Surveyor

Read and understand every bit of the contract before signing it. Some people overlook the fine print, but make sure that you don’t. Make sure that there are no hidden charges, and that will be getting all the services that you’ll be paying for. Signing a contract makes a person legally bounded to it, so you have to fully understand what you’re signing up for to prevent any problems in the future.

As long as you get the best value for your money by hiring someone who will give you what you paid for, hiring a land surveyor shouldn’t be any problem.

For a land surveyor at Oklahoma City,AL and surrounding areas, call us at (405) 546-2121 or send us a message by going to our contact page.

What Is A Land Surveyor?

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land surveyor

Land Surveyor: Definition

A land surveyor is a professional 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.

For the home-owner the land surveyor is the person who locates the boundary of 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.

Oklahoma Land Surveyor

Land surveyors in the United States are regulated and licensed by the various state governments. In Oklahoma, the Oklahoma State Board of Licensure for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors (www.bels.state.al.us) was established in 1935 to protect the public by helping “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.”

As of 2007, a newly licensed land surveyor is required to have a four year degree in surveying or a closely related field and an additional four to eight years of on-the-job training under a licensed land surveyor.

Licensed Land Surveyors are also required to maintain and update their professional knowledge and skills by attending 15 hours of continuing education each year.

In preparation for a typical lot or mortgage survey of your house, a land surveyor may review tax maps, aerial maps, deeds, subdivision plats, zoning ordinances, subdivision regulations and possibly flood maps.

For a typical lot survey the subdivision plat is the most important of these because it gives 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 the survey crew will find the property corners along with some of your neighbors corners if yours can’t be found, measure the distances and angles between all of the points, locate all improvements on your property, including your house, pool, out-buildings, retaining walls, fences, driveways and sidewalks, etc.

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 they don’t in all cases. We’ll talk about easements in a later article.

Once all of the field information is gathered, the chief land surveyor takes the field notes and prepares a preliminary sketch of the work. This is passed along to a draftsperson who prepares the final drawing 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 drawing.

The surveyed distances and directions are compared to the plat distances and directions also. Any discrepancies or encroachments are shown on the drawing. Your attorney uses the drawing to determine if any other legal work is needed during the closing.

The mortgage company or bank uses the survey to insure they are loaning you money on the correct property (in case they end up owning it. Yikes)

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 on your survey drawing.) You might also want to take a look for them at least once a year to make sure they’re still there.

For a land surveyor at Oklahoma City,AL and surrounding areas, call us at (405) 546-2121 or send us a message by going here.