Would you like to take a survey?

Little, neon flags fluttering in the breeze -- the only thing that visually marks our property line. One of the things that my Charles and I decided to do for our Spring Cleaning and organizing this year was to get our land surveyed. We didn't know exactly where our property began and ended, and since we want to build a larger fenced-in area for the pup this year, we thought it was a good thing to do.

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It ended up being a bit of an eye-opening experience. We knew we owned a half an acre of land. What we didn't realize was that our property line doesn't follow the line of sight from our house. It actually angles to the left, so our property (look for the tiny stakes in this pic) actually veers into the line of sight of our neighbor's house.

Learning this was helpful for a couple of reasons.  The first was that the fence won't be built even a hair on any neighboring property. The second was that we now can keep our neighbors, as nice as they may be, from encroaching on our property and hopefully keeping any misunderstandings from occurring. (We'll keep the land below their deck and yard open, as shared green space.) 

There was one other good thing that came from the survey. It is now officially marked in all legal documents that the easement that used to exist on our property exists no longer. Once upon a time, a road (our driveway) was listed as an easement for access to a few properties. As the years progressed, all homeowners signed off on their access (so that they could build on it) until only we had access to the end of our driveway. Now, our property is secured, and our driveway will never be a through-way for bordering properties.

We found that getting a property line survey gave us more knowledge of what we own as well as peace of mind, and that was well worth the price.

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