• To avoid paying for the wrong lot.
• To avoid building on the wrong lot.
• To avoid putting the road or driveway in the most costly location.
• To make the most economical use of the construction site.
• To know who to contact for rights of way.
• To make the most intelligent presentation of your use project.
• To avoid infringing many land use laws, regulations and encumbrances.

• Engaged in any transaction concerning land.
• Locating a house, outbuilding, garage, fence.
• Developing or subdividing land.
• Preparing map for feasibility studies, etc.
• Planning farm water supply or irrigation.
• A dispute over land boundaries occurs.
• A topographical plan or contour is required.
• Registering rights of way and other easements.
• Registering lease of land.
• Layout of construction projects, roads and highways.
• Establishment of volumes in earthworks.
• Relocation of a boundary.
• Sewage and drainage layout.
• Expert Testimony concerning land measurement is required.

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A relocation survey is one of the many important services provided by a
Commissioned surveyor as your land consultant.

Location surveys involve the precise identification of established land
boundaries. Knowledge of the exact boundaries of your land will help you
avoid expensive encroachment disputes and ill-will between you and your
neighbours.

Where encroachment has already occurred your surveyor can help rectify
the problem.

Replace boundary pegs which have become dislodged or misplaced by workmen
for any reason whatsoever.

Place additional survey marks consistent with the corners being repegged.

Prepare a plan of the resurveyed boundaries if requested.

WHO?
Who can provide this service?
Only a Commissioned Land Surveyor can legally restore the boundaries of your
land. Your Commissioned Surveyor has the requisite training and experience
to undertake relocation surveys of your land for minimum expense. As a
professional, your Commissioned Land Surveyor is also well qualified to provide
advice where a dispute over land boundaries has already occurred and if
required, provide expert testimony in court.

WHEN?
When is relocation needed?
A relocation survey should be conducted before you engage in any activity
that could involve you in a dispute over legal boundaries.

Contact a Commissioned Land Surveyor to avoid unnecessary expense and delay when:

• Purchasing property.
• Developing or subdividing your property.
• Making minor improvements to your property.
• Erecting a fence or wall.
• Constructing a building.
• Excavating near a boundary.
• Undertaking Major Capital Works.

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If you are contemplating purchasing property, you should know as much as
possible about the price of land you are going to invest in. For your own peace
of mind, you need a Commissioned Land Surveyor to define the legal boundaries
and verify that the survey pegs are in place. Each sale agreement should require
that the survey marks be located prior to the sale. You have a right to see
the boundary peg before you purchase, and it is in your interest to do so.

DEVELOPING A SECTION
If you consider developing a section of your property, it is prudent to determine
the exact boundaries before you begin. Survey marks may be misplaced, displaced
or difficult to locate and boundaries are not necessarily consistent with fences
or hedges.

Excavation works on hill sides, on or too near the boundary, may affect the
stability of your neighbour's property and make you liable to damages.

Even minor home improvements and the building of a car port can be a source
of expensive litigation and ill will, and there are numerous cases of breach of
distance covenants requiring modification at great cost in the supreme courts.
Be sure, therefore, to avoid the pitfalls be early action. Contact a Commissioned
Land Surveyor for redefinition of your boundaries before you commence
development.

RE-FENCING A BOUNDARY
Many property owners, after a while, seek to erect more substantial
fencing. Workmen invariably remove the survey marks in the process of excavation
of wall footings and so cause substantial fences to be of uncertain location.
Before the new fence, hedge or wall is erected, have a redefinition of boundary
done.

CONSTRUCTING A BUILDING OR MAJOR CAPITAL WORKS
If you plan to construct a building, you should first contract your
Commissioned Surveyor. He should be the first professional on the site. He should
first redefine the boundaries, then verify that the level referred to in the title is
the same level you claim as your own.

You may now require of him, a topographic plan showing orientation, prevailing
winds, etc.

It should be noted that certificates of title do not always show exactly the
space available on earth, and to proceed with designs before the Surveyor is
brought in, could result in costly delays.

When large expenditure is being made for infrastructure and other engineering
works, it is imperative that the boundaries be redefined. Using a fence as a guide
to approximate boundaries, can have expensive consequences. The cost of
redefining these boundaries is always an insignificant fraction of the project cost
and ensures against expensive litigation and compensation for encroachments.
 

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