This seminar is designed for two groups of surveyors: those who must write survey reports for their client and those professionals that provide forensic surveying services to clients and attorneys involved in a boundary or title dispute. We will explore why clients or attorneys request surveyors reports, how and when to prepare a report, the components of a report, and the practical talking points that should be addressed by each author. Specifically, the instructor will discuss the legal and technical requirements of a survey report while the class analyzes an outline for a sample surveyor’s report. Students will be required to critique a sample report and understand its components by the end of the lecture.

1. THE LAND
SURVEYOR’S
REPORT
Your Guide to Writing
Great Documents

2. THE PURPOSE OF A
SURVEY REPORT
A picture is worth a thousand words…except when it
contains so much information that no on can understand it

3. THE PURPOSE OF A
SURVEY REPORT
• A survey report allows the professional to fully
explain:
• What she found in the courthouse
• What she located in the field
• Where the boundary line / point is located
• A justification of her decision
• These reports are fantastic tools to EXPLAIN
and EDUCATE others about our client’s
boundary and title locations – especially when
there is a a red flag raised during the survey

4. WHY? COLLATERAL
ATTACK!
• "At times, the surveyor must determine whether he or she is
retracing an "original survey" or a "first survey". Initially the
surveyor must determine whether the creating surveyor actually
ran the creating line and then reduced the survey to notes or the
description was created on paper and then the surveyor
subsequently placed that description on the ground.
• When a parcel or parcels are created on paper, without a survey
being conducted, and the surveyor is later requested to place one
of these paper-described parcels on the ground, this survey should
be considered the "first" survey, in that it is the first survey to be
placed on the ground after the description.
• The difference is that whereas the original survey controls, the
first survey is nothing more than an opinion by the surveyor of
where the written description should be placed. As such, it is
always open to collateral attack."

5. STRUCTURE OF A
SURVEY REPORT
1. Introduction / Overview
2. Preamble / What Surveyor
Was Asked to Do
3. Record Documents
4. Field Work Performed
5. Conflicts Found and Remedies
Chosen
6. References
7. Appendix
8. FAQ

6. FIELD WORK PERFORMED
YOU
MUST
GO
THE
FIELD!

7. CONFLICTS AND REMEDIES
• The law does not expect you to be right
every time. No one is perfect!
• But the concept of negligence does expect
you to follow:
• Board Acts & Rules
• State Case Law
• Industry-Standard Practices
• If you follow those three sources, the rest is
easy

8. ROLES IN THE LEGAL WORLD
• Attorneys present the case
• Judges hear the arguments and make a fair
decision based on previous cases
• But the neither the attorneys or judges
know about everything…so they need
•EXPERTS! (Like You)

9. THE EXPERT’S REPORT
• Cases are won and lost before the trial even
begins
• There is often lots of opinions, documents,
and motives; facts are muddied by them
all.
• So attorneys need an INDEPENDENT opinion
– from a PROFESSIONAL – to make their case

10. EVALUATE OTHERS’ WORK
• The roots of a property disputes often
happen because of:
• Ambiguous or poorly-written deeds/easements
• Conflicting surveys
• John surveys in 2014. Tim surveys in the
same line in 2015. The neighbors choose the
survey that’s most advantageous to them.
• So, who gets to ULTIMATELY decide, and
how do they do it?

11. APPLY THE SOURCES TO THE
CURRENT ISSUE AND SOLVE THE
PROBLEM
• “The primary issue is the location of Jackson’s
east line that is contagious with Smith…
• The Jackson property was created in 1928 and
the Smith property was created in 1933…
• Brown’s references the ‘first in time, first in
right doctrine’ of sequential conveyances…
• Here, Jackson was created first so Tennessee
law awards him the hatched area on my
survey”