边界行协议（ boundary line agreements）.docVIP

Boundary Line Agreements Beware the Known Boundary by Knud E. Hermansen In the January 2009 issue of The American Surveyor (Vol. 6, No. 1), Farris Cadle had an excellent letter to the editor on boundary line agreements. Boundary line agreements are ideal documents to employ in order to fix the uncertain boundaries for the situation he described. It is my opinion that surveyors can and should prepare boundary line agreements for the situation he described. To quote a proverb from Rosalind Ferguson in The Facts of File, Dictionary of Proverbs, 1983: “A lean agreement is better than a fat judgment.” However, not all situations may be cured by a simple boundary line agreement. The surveyor must be wary of employing the boundary line agreement where there is a known record boundary (or one that can be located). This article will explain the constraints surveyors should consider before preparing a boundary line agreement for the client and neighbor (i.e., parties in interest). Can the Record Boundary be Located With Reasonable Certainty? No simple boundary line agreement should be employed without attempting to fix the location of the record boundary using the operative records. The attempt to locate the record boundary must adhere to reasonable boundary retracement standards using the information found in the operative records coupled with evidence available in the field. This step is absolutely necessary to determine the legal requirements for the agreement and if the preparation of the agreement is within the surveyor’s scope of practice. After the surveyor has attempted to fix the location of the record boundary using the operative records, the surveyor will face one of two situations where boundary line agreements are sought. The Record Boundary Location is Vague or Unknown In the first situation, the location of the record boundary is vague and cannot be reliably located with reasonable certainty by a competent surveyor based on the information in