Roanoke Land Surveying

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Welcome to Roanoke Land Surveying

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Welcome to our site. We want to provide you with information on Land Surveying in general and specifically in the Roanoke, Randolph County area of Alabama.If you have any land surveying questions, you’ve come to the right place.

Land Surveying is a very important industry, and it has been around for ages. To know more about the basics of land surveying, you can click here.

Land Surveyors are professionals who measure and make precise measurements to determine the size and boundaries of a piece of real estate.  While this is a simplistic definition, this is one of the most common types of surveying related to home and land owners. To know more about what a land surveyor does, click here.

What to expect from Roanoke Land Surveying

If you need assistance on any land surveying services, we are the best people to help you out. We give nothing but the best service, and we have the best deals in town.

Roanoke Land Surveying offers different land surveying services. We also offer Boundary surveying, Percolation surveying, Septic System Design, Subdivision Design, Topo Surveying and House Site Plans.

How to contact Roanoke Land Surveying?

CALL Roanoke Land Surveying TODAY at 256-854-9503 to discuss your land survey needs.

Using GPS to Track You – Is It Real?

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photo courtesy of http://www.freedigitalphotos.net

Many have heard of “Big Brother” being able to track our movements. One of my favorite TV shows is “Person of Interest” where a secret machine keeps track of all conversations and people’s “criminal intent” in order to help the heroes stop the crimes before they happen.

While I’m SURE that there are tracking capabilities in most cell phones and different government agencies CAN track our locations, we might be a ways away them being able to determine criminal intent.  But there IS a recent application in England that I found very interesting.

Nestle (yes, the chocolate company) is placing GPS Trackers in six KIT KAT bars in their aptly named “We’ll Find You” marketing campaign in the UK. When the person opens the package it notifies KIT KAT and the prize delivery team will find them within 24 hours and present them with a check for £10,000 (about $16,000.) See the article here.

Just about all new type cell phones, all smart phones, iPads and other tablets, lots of cars (more than you think), public transportation vehicles, golf carts, and watches have GPS devices in them now days. Another place they are, and rightly so, are in ankle monitors used by law enforcement.

But, what you might not realize is that the electronic devices mentioned above can work just like the ankle monitor. Now, while it is true that you can disable the GPS tracking device in your cell phone or tablet, that doesn’t give all of us complete comfort in walking around with these devices on us.

Now, I’m not trying to be a conspiracy wonk here, but it is POSSIBLE that this could be taken advantage of by well-meaning agencies. And, as we know, law enforcement can make mistakes in identifying the correct suspect.  Of course, we WANT emergency services to be able to find us if and when we need their service, so this is a double edged sword. Most of us probably have nothing to worry about in this regard, but if you worry about this sort of thing, it could keep you up at night.

Even as a licensed land surveyor, having used GPS technology in land surveying for almost 20 years, I still trust them more than I should. One example is when I was in an unfamiliar town my GPS navigation device told me to take a “road” to the right. I slowed down and attempted to turn but it was a power line.  Not wanting to believe that Gizell was wrong (yes I named her), I went to the next street and turned and tried to find the “road” further back.

I ended up driving down the sandy power line, which turned into a bike lane until I was finally stopped by a gate. As I backed down the bike lane looking for a turn-around spot I thought, “maybe this wasn’t a road and maybe my GPS device is fallible.” Of course, I soon justified Gizell by recalling that a human had to “digitize” the roads in and she just did what they programmed her to do.

If you need to turn off your GPS tracking device in order to sleep tonight, call your device’s customer service line and stay away from KIT KAT bars. If you would like to find out how GPS surveying technology can help you in surveying your property boundary, call a Licensed Land Surveyor at Roanoke Land Surveying at 256-854-9503.

I Didn’t Know I Was Encroaching Onto My Neighbor’s Property – Help!

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Let’s say you’ve been living in your house for quite some time now. You love the place, you love the neighborhood and you just love everything about it.

For some reason, your next door neighbor decided to have his property surveyed. Alas, his surveyor concluded that part of your property is actually your neighbor’s and that you’ve been encroaching all along.

What are your options?

There are several ways to handle this, and it really depends on what you and your neighbor agree upon.

photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net

First, your neighbor can sell you that portion of the property. If you can afford it, this is the best solution especially when there’s a structure in the area we’re talking about. You don’t have to lose it (not to mention you also spent money having it constructed), and your neighbor wouldn’t have to spend money demolishing it. It’s a win-win situation.

Another option is to have you rent it. Some people actually agree to do this, but it can be expensive. Imagine paying monthly for a part of your neighbor’s property for years. And, then, if they move, you have a new landlord for that area.

If there’s no structure on the area, or if it’s only minor such as a fence or a flower bed, the simplest thing might be to move anything in that area. You can move your fence back so that it’s not encroaching or have your flower bed completely removed.

Now, what if the area in question is your driveway? Does your neighbor have the right to block it after finding out that it’s actually still a part of their property? Maybe.

In order for you to still be able to use the driveway, you should consult an attorney for the next steps. You should take a copy of a survey with the driveway shown on it with you. This will save the attorney time, and you money. (Attorneys charge much more than surveyors.)

This may mean you need to get your own surveyor to re-survey the area. Your neighbor’s surveyor may give you a copy of the survey, but, sometimes it pays to have this checked by your own surveyor.

Property boundaries are not like a math problem where 2+2 always equals 4. There is a certain amount of “professional opinion” and sometimes there’s a disagreement about the boundary location. If this is the case, ask your surveyor to speak to the neighbor’s surveyor to try to work things out first. If that fails, then go to the attorney.

In case your surveyor finds out that the driveway is indeed a part of your property and not your neighbor’s, you might need to take your case to court. You must also make sure that the surveyor you hire is willing and qualified to be an expert witness since he will be called into court to talk about the survey results. The surveyor should also be able to explain clearly why they placed the line where it was.

Got a problem with property encroachment in the Roanoke, Randolph County of Alabama, call Roanoke Land Surveying at (256) 854-9503 or click here to fill out our contact form.

How Important is Land Surveying in Today’s World?

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Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos

Most of you have probably never thought about land surveying until you needed it at some point. Many of us hear about land surveying all the time but never really give it much thought.

Since an investment in land and/or a home will likely be the largest investment you will ever make in your lifetime, knowing where your property lines are becomes very important indeed.

The art of land surveying was developed centuries ago. In fact, it’s one of the oldest professions in the world. The fact that it was used by man at such an early time and is still being used now shows how important surveying is to our survival.

Surveying land has many uses. Boundary surveying, for instance, allows you to know where your property corners or property lines are. This is especially helpful when disputes with a neighbour or with other people arise in terms of where your property ends.

If your family wants to divide a tract of land and transfer ownership to other family members, a boundary survey is the first step to do so. If you’re having a building constructed, it is very important that you have the land surveyed to make sure that you are not encroaching onto other peoples’ property.

A mistaken building location is very expensive to fix so you might as well invest in a boundary survey to prevent this.

A topographic survey, or topo survey for short, is another important type of land surveying. A topo survey is done to locate natural and man-made features on a particular parcel of land.

A topographic survey is different in that the elevation of the land is surveyed which means it can show man-made underground features, retaining walls, utility lines and etc.

Before you start any kind of construction activity, it’s important to have a topo survey done in the area so they’ll have an accurate record of the land’s existing conditions. Yes, that spot with the new mall in the neighbourhood had to have a topo survey done first.

Now, a flood survey or flood determination – this is very important too. It isn’t evident just looking at a property whether you are at risk of flooding or not. And, in some cases, even looking at the flood maps doesn’t give you an accurate answer.

The flood survey determines the elevation of the home and compares that to the base flood elevation. This is the only way to be sure you’re not in a flood hazard zone. If you’ve just been told that you live in a flood-prone area, having that confirmed by a professional land surveyor would let you know how to best proceed.

When getting flood insurance, insurance companies would require an elevation certificate from you. A land surveyor would be able to assist you with this.

If a company wants to invest in another state, or if there is a national lender on a commercial project, they will likely need an ALTA Land Title Survey done before anything is constructed.

An ALTA Land Title Survey is a lot like a regular boundary survey except that nationally accepted ALTA Standards are used to guide the surveying effort.

Land surveying standards vary widely from state to state and an ALTA Land Title Survey is used to cut down on this variation. Also, an ALTA Land Title Survey typically is more involved than the state standards variety.

Because of this, an ALTA survey can be more anywhere from 50% to 200% more expensive than using the state standards only. If you need this type of survey, I suggest seeking an experienced land surveying company who is familiar with these additional requirements.

In summary, there are many uses for a land survey and for seeking the services of a land surveyor. If you’re unsure of your situation, consult Roanoke Land Surveying at 256-854-9503 today or go to the Contact page and send us an email.