The Stakes

“Here’s one for you,” said my old friend TW, the surveyor. “A few years back I got a call from a lady who was going to build a fence. She wanted a survey to make sure she put the fence in the right place.”

When TW says “Here’s one for you” you better listen up. More than likely, you’re about to learn something. TW has done more surveying than anyone you know. He’s climbed like a billy goat, slithered on his belly like a reptile, and crawled through brambles where a rabbit wouldn’t go. He’s driven corner pins and property line stakes that have never been seen by another human being. He’s mapped more real estate than Christopher Columbus.

“So I spent some time on this lady’s property, checking and re-checking the corners and lines; I scratched my head a little bit, and drove stakes along the property line.”

TW knocked on the lady’s door and motioned her out to take a look. She twisted her head and stared questioningly at TW’s row of stakes. The stakes began at the front corner of the property and marched at an angle across the lady’s front yard and stopped in the flower-bed under the window of her master bedroom. Her house, as it turned out, straddled the property line.

The lady turned her head toward TW, her mouth hanging open.

“There’s your property line,” said TW.

The lady shook her head as if to say “This can’t be right!”

TW nodded his head as if to say “Oh, but it is.”

TW told me the contractor who built the lady’s house had purchased a block of four lots and built on them all, one of which was the lady’s.

“The only problem,” said TW, “is the guy assumed the lot lines were perpendicular to the road, when in fact they went off on an angle.”

Therefore, all four of the houses straddled their property lines.

“I believe they’re still trying to sort it out,” said TW. “The contractor skipped town, and the homeowners aren’t happy campers.”

I asked TW if there was a solution.

“Yeah,” he said, “all you Realtors need to tell your buyers to get a survey! How else will they know what they’re buying?”

I agreed, and TW said, “Here’s another one for you….”

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