What Is An Offset And Why Didn’t You Mark The Corner Of The Property?

The whole purpose of having a boundary survey performed is to have your property corners located marked verified and set if they are missing. From time to time there are instances where a surveyor is not able to set a monument at the actual corner and are forced to set what is called an offset monument.

There are lots of reasons why we are not able to set monuments at the corner. Here are a few examples: space a utility box is located over the area where the corner would be located; a fence post is located where the property corner is located; tree or Bush is located at the corner and a monument is not able to be set; there is a creek or waterway that prohibits the monument from being set.

In the instance where a survey monument cannot be placed at the corner we are required to put a survey monument along the property line to help show and convey where the property line and corner would be located. The offset numbers that are typically written on the wood next to the monument or shown on the drawing is the distance from that monument to where the property corner would be located.

In the example shown there is a creek located along the rear property line. As the creek area itself an immediate area around the creek is heavy with vegetation, this land is considered to be unusable for building purposes. Our goal in providing information to the homeowner for them to be able to use that information. In this example the homeowner was wanting to build a fence and needed to know the location of the side property lines to ensure the fence was built on their own property. We chose to set survey monuments at the top of the bank of the creek knowing that they would not fence in the area beyond the top of the bank.

Along the left property line, the survey monument is located 40.1 feet away from the rear property corner. In theory if you took a piece of string and tied it onto the survey monument located at the front left property corner and walked towards the rear property corner, making sure that the string stays in line over the offset monument, if you measure an additional 40.1 feet past the offset point to find the location of your property corner. Along the right side of the property, the survey monument is located 25.1 feet away from the rear property corner.

It is always our goal to set the survey monument at the exact location of your property corner. If an offset is used or placed, it would be shown and clearly labeled on the survey drawing.

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Cardinal Surveying would like the opportunity to earn your business. They service the greater St Louis Metro area, have been rated A+ with the Better Business Bureau since 2003, have surveyed over 35,000 properties and are a family-owned company who prides themselves on producing accurate results with exceptional customer service. They can be contacted via email at [email protected] or phone at 636.922.1001. They look forward to working with you for all your land surveying needs.