Plot Boundarie Identification

[iSelfBuild]

Over the years of owning our forest building plots in Scotland the boundaries marked by pieces of rebar and string have become questionable... someone has an offer on the adjacent plot now so I want to stake out the site using GPS this weekend and put in some proper posts. I have the following information:

 

All of the Plot boundaries have been professionally surveyed by a Chartered Surveyor. All locations tied to the National Grid by RTK, GPS & OS Active OPS network and OPS Superplus

 

Does anyone know the GPS or other sort of equipment I need to hire to be able to do this? I also assume I can get a copy of the boundaries from my solicitor? I really have no clue to be honest.

[Tennentslager]

Do you have a good mobile signal?

Plenty of apps available but how accurate, who knows.

https://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/business-and-government/help-and-support/navigation-technology/os-net/overview.html

 

[TerryE]

In England, the Land Registration is what it is at point of registration and the boundaries are what they are unless varied by a court order or by agreement with both parties.  

 

In the case of our previous property, there was a path along one side.  The first deeds of sale in 1913 specifically discussed it as part of our property, but when our neighbour's nephew sold her property in 1994 (by that time registration was compulsory) the registering solicitors submitted a site plan to the LRO which incorrectly claimed our path.  We didn't know anything of this, because we weren't consulted, and none of the neighbours noticed this mistake because we maintained the path and fence and you could only get to it from the public highway or our property so it was obviously ours.  When we discovered it in 2015, the LR refused to accept that the original registration was in error, and in the end we and our neighbour had to jointly submit a TP4 to transfer the path back to us.

 

There are two methods of registering a boundary:

• Use of OS National Grid co-ords, but in this case you need a properly qualified person (e.g. a chartered surveyor) using OS approved survey equipment.
• Use of measurements from permanent features, and IMO this is the simplest and best way: nice straight lines between permanent boundary markers, such as short concrete spur posts concreted into the ground and photographed in location.

In your case, I see nothing wrong with walking the new boundary with the seller and staking, marking and taking a 3-way selfie (you, the seller and the rebar in ground context) at the way points, and proceeding on that basis, maybe with the pre-agreement that you will replace them with by permanent markers with 6 months of the sale.  You don't need tape between them so long as the boundary between markers is straight, as line of site will do fine.

 

If you do a "roll-your-own" survey, then how will you ever prove that is was accurate if you need to? No, OS grid coords = paying for a CS, but you still need permanent markers, IMO

[Ferdinand]

Wishing you well with this, and particularly wishing you cooperative neighbours.

 

Ferdinand

 

[Jeremy Harris]

Normal GPS will be far too inaccurate - you're talking about no better than +/-2 to 3m on a very good day with the sort of GPS used in phones, and much of the time the errors will be bigger than that, more like +/-5m unless the signal happens to be very good and the GPS is fixed in position for several minutes to allow the built-in Kalman filter to smooth out the worst of the positioning errors.

 

Surveying GPS device, like a Total Station, uses phase measurement techniques to correct these errors and get to around +/- 20mm or so accuracy in 2D.

 

So GPS is pretty much useless for this unless you have access to either a Total Station or a survey-grade GPS (the thing that looks like a mushroom on a pole).

 

Best bet is to pay for a boundary survey.  I think ours cost around £400 +VAT and included lots of useful additional information, including the marking of the position of prominent trees, phone poles, posts etc.

[jamieled]

RTK GPS could work (mushroom on a pole).  Most of the kit uses a mobile network to carry out the necessary corrections so you'd need a mobile signal.  You can hire them from places like speedy hire and they're not that difficult to figure out (particularly compared to total stations).  It would  be easier to just get a surveyor to set it out.