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Comment by SoftTalker | Hacker News Reader

There are also physical markers in the ground at the corners of most properties. So if you had to, you could send a surveyor out to recertify boundaries. That would get very expensive quickly, however.

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This is not true anywhere I've lived, and I'm curious where it is true.

It's usually a piece of steel rebar/round stock or pipe, maybe with a yellow plastic cap, or maybe not. Usually buried or not very visible, I'd guess the surveyors find them with a metal detector.

Most of the us has it like that. Some of the early states still do 'nw to the stump', a stump that rotted away before 1800... The newer states learned that lesson and land is to something more likely to last and hard to move. Metal stakes are most common. Though most people are not aware of the stake since there is no reason to look for it.

They are commonly found by lawn mowers after some erosion.

I'm not aware of corner markers being the standard, at least in the central and western US. For rural and undeveloped land, oftentimes you can pay the surveyor extra to put up corner markers though, which is a good investment if you plan on fencing the property

Generally, those markers are placed by the person who did the previous survey. They’re not really official designations of anything. However, if you look around, you will find things called survey monuments. Sometimes they’re embedded in the sidewalk, or the middle of the road. Out in the boonies sometimes there’s a little concrete pedestal that has the marker on it. Anytime you look at a recorded deed you will see a legal description of the land and generally that description will start from one of those monuments.

This is true most places in the us. Have you looked? You often have to dig up the stake. It helps to have an idea of where it should be before you start digging.

Here in Sweden it seems to be true. Both houses I owned had the markers. I had an issue where the online map disagreed with the markers and found out they made a nice film to explain how to resolve problems regarding lot borders: https://www.lantmateriet.se/sv/kartor/vara-karttjanster/Visa...

They even show how they did historically which is super interesting!

Unfortunately changing the borders is super expensive and time consuming though so I didn’t do anything.

We have some in northeastern US. However they don't necessarily sit on plot boundaries; I get the impression that surveyors put them wherever it is most convenient for them to better triangulate the land. We found one in our front lawn somewhere near the road, it was a small concrete square that turned out to be a pillar sunk deep into the ground.

Not on my property in New England certainly. In fact, just went through an (expensive) process with a neighbor who wanted to get property lines squared away after they were botched on the initial property subdivision. We were fine with a handshake but both of us knew they really needed to be legalized with easements and such or any sale could become a nightmare.

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