A MATTER OF LAND: Getting the boundary right

I want to encourage parents and grandparents with property to get the boundaries right before you pass away.

Too often, the persons who know the extent of family properties die, taking that knowledge with them.

By doing so, they leave the remaining relatives, friends, and beneficiaries in sometimes contentious and heated disputes regarding the extent of their properties.

I also strongly encourage that the means of access be clearly demarcated and that it be surveyed and a diagram prepared showing same.

This is very critical, especially in the event of the death of the previous owner/occupier of the property.

When this owner/occupier expires and there was no survey diagram showing an access and that access happens to be a "pass" through someone else's property, it is now possible that the person who gave the pass no longer wishes to continue with this arrangement for whatever reason and possible conflict.

If the survey was done while the owner/occupier was alive, this pass could have been established as a reserved road, or a right of way, and in his death, it would still stand without the conflict and contention.

Even though the 'pass' could still be established afterwards, it may require some amount of litigation, which could have been avoided.

So I encourage you as you are reading this that if you have family lands about which you have no knowledge of the boundaries and the access, have the present occupiers/ owners, who will be bequeathing it to you and your siblings/ relatives when they pass, take you out to view the property, and have them show you all the boundary corners.

The best thing, however, would be to have the property surveyed by your land surveyor and a diagram prepared to mitigate the possibility of conflict.

One year and counting

This week marks the first anniversary of what I hope to be a long and fruitful tenure of this column with The Gleaner. A Matter of Land graced the pages of this newspaper and has been here since April of 2013.

I want to thank the editors of The Gleaner for putting up with me over the past year. I want to also thank those who contributed to the column and also the guest columnists Dr Garfield Young, Timothy Thwaites, and Anthony B. Prendergast.

I want to also thank Cynthia Edwards and Janet Taylor, who allowed me to interview them and publish their stories.

Here is an excerpt from an email sent to me recently.

Hi Craig:

Commendations again for planting the mustard seed that is A Matter of Land.

The weekly column has been such a great resource for my students and me, and much to my satisfaction, to prospects who have been reached through this amazing marketing tool.

Yesterday, in a pre-registration session, I met with a number of prospective students (applicants who have been offered places in our courses).

During the session, numerous questions posed by those attending were directly answered in the last two publications of the column. I was pleased to retrieve from my archive copies of the articles and issued them to the prospects.

Two of those in attendance, who had not selected land surveying, visited my office and asked for a change of programme. It is clear that the word is out that surveying is a viable option as a career!

Keep up the good work my friend. The seed has sprouted and will bear much fruit.

Blessings,

Garfield O. Young, PhD

Programme Director, Land Surveying & Geographic Information Sciences Division School of Building & Land Management.

Keep sending your questions and comments and let's continue to explore A Matter of Land. Until next time, traverse well.

Craig FrancisCraig Francis is a Commissioned Land surveyor and managing director of Precision Surveying Services Ltd. He can be contacted for questions or queries at craig_r_francis@yahoo.com or his Facebook page Precision Surveying Services.