This is the craziest bill ever. In Tennessee we are already required to let an adjoiner know if there is a discrepancy. This bill deletes that. Now it would require a certified letter be mailed to all adjoiners within 5 days of completing a boundary survey. So you sign a confidentiality agreement. What can you tell the land owner.
Ring Ring You surveyed the property next to me? Yes sir. What did you find? Sir I can’t tell you? What’s it for? A boundary that is all I can say. Who hired you? I can’t say.
I was unable to find the actual text of the bill, but below is the caption from the link provided above. From the sounds of that alone, it appears that notification must occur regardless of what is discovered.
Surveyors – As introduced, expands notice requirement for land surveyors conducting boundary surveys by requiring them to notify all adjoining landowners of the survey rather than just when the surveyor discovers or reasonably should have discovered discrepancies between the deed descriptions of the adjoining owners. – Amends TCA Title 62, Chapter 18, Part 1.
Posted by: @gordon-svedberg
Every survey has discrepancies.
We fought this about 15 years ago. Back then some surveyor staked a line across where the adjoining farmer thought the line should be, and didn’t tell the farmer about it. The farmer got mad and got the Farm Bureau to push legislation identical to this new legislation. The surveyors neogiated with the Farm Bureau and the result was the “apparent major discrepancy” law, where the surveyor has to notify the adjoiner of an apparent major discrepancy between the line the surveyor comes up with, and the possession line, and/or deed line of the adjoiner.
This new legislation was ignited by a surveyor doing exactly what the other surveyor did years ago, only this time he violated an existing state law by doing so. In this situation, the farmer should have filed a complaint. The tools exist for the surveyor to be punished, but we can’t make the people use them.
This content was originally published here.
