How to Find the Property Lines of Any Home (Version 3) 

For individuals/consumers. The key here is living in a county that has the surveys or Platts on record. The satellite images can be off and giving a false boundary line. Best option is an old fashioned survey made by a reputable company.

I am licensed land surveyor with 37 years experience. This guy is going to create a lot of work for surveyors. Lol

Nice to know to solve a homeowners curiosity but no good for any dispute or planned work near a property line.

Used Landglide in North Georgia. It was off by 75 feet in east-west direction based upon a survey. The survey found original pipe markers within inches of where they were supposed to be.

good fences make good neighbors. I have a friend who has a nosy neighbor who, also, doesn't know where the property line is. He is now getting a fence to deal with the neighbor "problem"

I am amazed at the inaccuracies of the apps. PERIOD !!!

Great video and love the enthusiasm. As the new owner of an older acreage with no residential neighbours but one large commercial one, this is great information.

Thank you greatly for your time and information! This helps for many the GENERAL ideas of where their proper line is located.

appreciate your efforts , Thanks Mark : )

Two things: On fairly small lots like this a small margin of error does not change the size of the lot by a whole lot but that same margin of error on a larger lot can make a huge difference when it comes to taxes or building new structures, fences, etc. Second: when I bought my home I had one lot line in the center of a brook--easy. Two others were streets front and back with road center line set backs-once again easy. The north side lot line however was not a straight line but involved two 90 degree turns abutting two other properties. I wanted a two section stockade fence and a perennial garden that abutted both neighbors' properties. Luckily the surveyor that had last done the survey came by at no cost to me and showed me where the pins should have been as he had been the son of the former homeowner. The neighbor at the back of my property had built their garage and six inches of one corner (corner only) were on my land but we got along great so no big deal but it could have been a contentious issue.

So glad to find this. I am on an acre with a bare two acres of woods next to me which is now for sale. I want to use an app to see if I can find already marked survey pins or stakes and if not, mark my corners myself. Not concerned with exact accuracy but I have a feeling (since this area is part of a development), that corners will be marked. Thanks 👍

Fun video to watch. Thanks for all the effort and having it surveyed also.

My conclusion: the accuracy of the app is dependent on random facotrs that affect the GPS accuracy of the phone, and that will vary with time. The surveyor equipment uses RTK to improve GNSS accuracy. Location correction data can also be applied via post-processing with data from various sources.

I don't know about other states, however I'd start at the local Probate Court. In my state every property plot plan aka lot map has to be recorded when it is created. If the lot changes hands it needs to recorded with the town or city. A word to the wise. There are three common markers used as corner markers or when a property line changes direction. The most common is either a steel rod or pipe driven in the ground. Normally they stick up six or more inches.Second is a Granit post about four inches square and has a hole drilled in the top. Third is a hole in a rock. Note that bounds markers can be lost or covered. I was working for a surveyor and we couldn't find a bound marker. Finally I used a metal detector and found it buried down 18" down. Drill holes in a rock in a stone wall can be fun.

our county has plats available on line. i took the gps coordinates and put them in my hand held gps and walked the approximate line and got a good idea where my corners were. i have 3 acres, mostly wooded in southern maryland. thanks for the video.

Thank you for posting this info. My neighbor started hinting that the fence was almost 4' onto his property, based on where the water shut off valves were. I asked the water dept. but they said that they placed them as such for their benefit/convinience and it had nothing to do with the property line. I asked my neighbor how long fence had been up. I only lived there for 20yrs. He answered that fence had been there for 30yrs. When I asked who put up fence he answered "We did". He hasn't said anything for the last few yrs, but it will be good to use these apps before we have to spend the big money to find out.

I get along with my neighbors just fine. But at the end of the day it all boils down to this. You stay on your side and I will stay on my side. Do this and we will continue to get along just fine.

It’s fine for approximately identifying where your property corners are but certainly wouldn’t rely on it to build fences or something like that. I have seen that same data you are using off over 200’ in some areas. The data the apps used are all sourced from the same place so the differences you are seeing is just the phones accuracy.

Just bought 21 acres, I’m gonna try these apps- thank you

Before we got our fence replaced, we called around for a survey. It was going to be close to 5k for the survey (San Francisco Bay Area + poor historical records and no corner pins) and all the companies advised against it unless we had a true property dispute or were building an ADU. It’s kind of interesting to see the differing perspectives from surveyors. Surveyors in our area can’t be bothered to do such a trivial task.

Much appreciated Mark! Looking forward to the next episode on property lines! ⭐

Hey Mark, Thank You!!! This was fantastic!!!!!

I bought a house and wanted to put a fence between me and my neighbor. They had a vicious dog that was only restrained by an “electronic” fence. (A buried wire that activated the dog’s collar.) A friend was a surveyor and he found the corner pins for free. He used his transit equipment but a metal detector is very helpful. I put the fence in and also l learned that the buried wire was three feet inside my property.

I would start by finding the GIS data for the specific county and call the GIS dept to tell you what accuracy they worked on. In the county where I lived they focused on within 2 feet in the platted areas and much less accuracy in rural areas. In some locations legal descriptions are drawn, don't fit together due to various reasons, therefore forced to fit on the GIS map. GIS doesn't replace a survey. Each surveyor has their own opinion depending the equipment they are using, data provided, official documented information and etc. GIS is great to give you and idea of the overall layout.

If it becomes a legal issue, best to have an official survey. If really critical, maybe two different survey companies. Or have them repeat. Always ask for latest calibration date.

Amazed at the apps accuracy, all what you need from her is a good metal detector. thank you

When I bought my home I received a surveyed plat map, which not only showed the corner locations, it located my home and detached garage relative to the property lines, making possible to take a steel tape and locate the boundaries between my home and my neighbors. Our community requires that fences be located no closer than 12" from the property line.

yes this is good for a rough idea. Please do NOT down play the work and research that goes into a property survey. The deed and county maps have to be investigated. This is no DIY project...

Hi Mark, thank you very much for sharing the information. I found it quite interesting as Even with professional surveyors quite often, you come up with different corners.

Thanks for the information😊

Advise for new owners: usually in new neighborhoods the lots will be plain clear to let anyone plant whatever trees and bushes they want. First mistake: NEVER mark or divide properties with hedges only. No matter if "my neighbor was ok with it", that may not be your same neighbor some years later. Properties should always be marked either by a GOOD fence or at least make permanent concrete markers that you can place down like tiles or bricks and can be easily identified. That's in case that you and your neighbor are the kind of people who like to see properties open as a big shared yard with no markings. They look nice that way, but can cause a ton of legal problems later. Then place YOUR hedge in YOUR property if you want one, so that you can prune it, take care of it, without any neighbor complaints.

I think the results would have been a lot better if you would have taken a minute at each corner for the dot to stop wandering before placing your flags. Every one of them were still drifting around, so letting it settle and even making adjustments would have drastically improved the results. Also with as big as the dot is, you had the outside edge of the dot (if at all) come near the crossing and placed a flag... should be center dot.

Great job. I will follow you for sure.

Thank you for the info mark

This may not apply in all cases, but, if you have access to a metal detector, you can easily locate existing metal stakes at perceived property corners. Of course this applies to older established properties where visual boundaries are apparent.

I didn't have this property surveyed and later did have it surveyed. I found out that part of my driveway/parking lot was one foot over onto my neighbor's property. This was probably because the neighbor's house was built after mine and these were wooded lots. The contractor probably didn't pay much attention. I later had my driveway replaced and located the edge at my property line. I miss that extra foot, but ill gotten gain does not profit. A neighbor moved in behind me and had a fence built, but he didn't check the property line correctly and built on the neighbor's land. He had to have the fence moved.

Great report!

Thank You Sir.... Very informative Video 😊

How to find property lines? Hire a surveyor. Simple solution.This is the legal way to resolve disputes. Try using your app in court..dah😮😊

Perhaps theses apps are good for “General” location of your property lines, in case you have no idea where your boundaries are. However, I wouldn’t recommend them for building, fence location or anything else.

thanks, that was very helpful

Very informative, thank you

To recommend to anyone on ways to “find your property corners” other than calling a Land Surveyor is reckless.

Cell phones normally have a GPS accuracy in the 1 meter range. you should do a Triple Blind repeatability test. Use the same app and After each walking and Marking of the property corners. do the recalibration ( which normally is to wave the phone around in a figure 8 pattern ) then Walk the property line again, and remark the corners. do this a third time to see how well the app / phone repeats to the same location.

My property (in KCMO) is marked with round concrete markers, locations B & C mentioned in your video. A few years ago survey team came out to our neighborhood courtesy of the County, only to our side of the street.

great video, very helpful.

I use Hunt Stand when hunting (as opposed to OnX) and it also offers lot lines (along with property owner names). It's also very accurate. Very interesting to see this in a real world application. One thing I noticed is that the averages are all roughly within 1 meter of accuracy, which is essentially what the GPS receiver in your phone is capable of. I'd be curious if you re-ran each test 2 or 3 times if you'd get the same results as the first time for each product or if they would also vary +/- 1 meter.

There is no substitute for a survey, especially before closing on a property. I would never buy ANY property without property points decisively defined and defendable by law.

You have no idea how helpful this is for us, thanks a bunch.

Thank you Mark!

I don't think it's accurate to say that an app which marks a corner '3 feet off' on a 300 foot property is *99% accurate.* Three feet is HUGE when it comes to real estate. It might be more appropriate to say that an app *has a variance of plus/minus 3 feet* ( or "an accuracy of +/- 3 feet"). The *total* property width/length has nothing to do with accuracy, so *percentage* would not apply. Otherwise that would be like saying _"the app marked the rear west corner of the building only 3 feet off - whereas it could've marked that same corner as the front west corner which is 300 feet away."_ Another reasoning as to why percentage would not apply: The pinpointing accuracy of the app is based on the accuracy of the technology - i.e., the GPS system. As such, if the app was trying to locate a corner of a 50 foot long property, it might be off by 3 feet - which is *6%.* Likewise, if the app was trying to locate a corner of a 300 foot long property, it might be off by the same 3 feet (since it's the same technology), but that same 3 feet would be *1%* off on that 300 foot property. Obviously, that's not a good way to tabulate the results. Yep, I'd use "plus or minus 3 feet", or whatever distance your tests demonstrated.

Thank you so much for taking your time to explain and give very useful information.

Helpful video, but only for limited situations. I'd hesitate to use them for placing a fence. It would be interesting to see the results if you were to repeat the walk around with each app, maybe from different directions, at different times, and collect data on the "repeatability" of the results for each app. In my case, I live on a corner lot. The back of my property line, is the side of my neighbor's property (absentee owner's who rent the house out). That side of their house is only approximately 4' from the property line, and the back of my house is approximately 20' from the property line. We'd love to DIY install a 6' high vinyl privacy fence. Have asked for the property owner's permission and sharing the cost. Their reply was that they would not share the cost, and they were okay with the fence as long as a survey was performed. With the tight space we are dealing with, we need to place the fence exactly on the property line, or we will be sacrificing precious real estate. Local Surveyors want about $2,600 to stake the line, which is almost equal to the cost of the fencing materials! I have crawled using a metal detector and poking the ground with a spade trying to find a marker pin. At best I've found a heap of bottle caps.

Wow . I saw Kennelly road ‘ St Louis , Missouri’ ❤ thank you’

Thanks Mark

Please start your video with the warnings that these methods you suggest are VERY approximate. Using GIS maps to locate property corners is not reliable. Let alone relying on the GPS on your phone. If someone needs their boundaries marked, use a licensed land surveyor to find and/or set the corner monuments. People can be very passionate about boundarry lines. Don't rely on faulty information.

Bravo! Well-made and good intentioned. And useful too!

Who else busted out laughing when he said "on a mobile device, with 3 apps" 😂😂 not to mention that the parcel data is typically used for tax purposes only and does not include property gaps, gores, ect. Parcel data, does not replace deed research. Mark, if you ever worked under a surveyor, you would realize why this is bad advice. To any readers, if your looking to sell a house, talk to a realator. If you want to know where your property lines are, talk to a surveyor.

Love your vest.

great info thanks

Use a surveyor. A licensed guy like me. Each state and county have different laws and practices. So get a local guy who knows the area. You may pay a bit more than an app. But you will have 1000 times more certainty of the correct position between you and your neighbor's adjoining line. This guy is not informed. He may know real estate; not legal land status. It's just the truth.

You are giving bad advice to propery owners. I'm glad you hired a professional surveyor as part of your report. A Surveyor is the only person who can legally locate property corners. You stated that the apps got you to 90 percent+/_. That's great. Expect some of the corners were over 3 feet. That is what causes disputes and problems with neighbors. If a person uses one of these apps and builds a fence 3 feet off their property on to the neighbor's not only does it cause issues between the neighbor's it causes lawsuits, snd tension. If the fence is in the wrong location, the property owner will have to remove the fence at their own expense. The reason a survey costs what it does is because the surveyor must research the property records and history to make sure the corners are placed in the correct location. It will cost a property owner a lot more money to remove a fence, house, or garage after it is built in the wrong location. Am app is great for approximation, but don't use to build anything. Thank you.

The music is perfect!

Great job thanks god bless

my neighbors shed is built on the other neighbors property!!! ReGRID is awesome!

Land Surveyor is the only way to determine the property lines with confidence!

We had two surveyors - looked at the old boundaries agreed by the locals and previous owners and neighbours - and the land register company. We ended up with at least three different shapes and lengths and area M2.

Great video. The only thing I would suggest is getting 3 measurements from each point from each app and record the averages. GPS is an awesome tool, but it's not perfect.

I just "liked" for the HP-41C over the shoulder... still have my CV from '85!

Some governments give pretty decent property maps. The King County Parcel viewer for King County WA does a pretty decent job of giving that top level view. It doesn't locate corners but you will have a good aerial view of your property laid out with property lines.

I like looking for corners in the woods. Three hash marks on a tree. Sometimes on the rocky hill side it says a pile of rocks or going way back to the warranty Deeds or the original land grants they say this tree or that creek. One in Luisiana it was a grant from the king to the family. They never subdivided it or ever got a loan for the property.

Perfect solution to map out ATV trails on my 30 acre forested ranch without encroaching on my neighbors land. Even though they wouldn't care if I did clear a few feet of their underbrush for them.

TYVM, Mark. We just purchased a home, and the neighbors are cutting down our trees. I'm definitely going to try this.

My dad is a surveyor and I've helped survey more lots than I can count. Lots are seldom perfect rectangles and don't always have just four property corners, but I think these apps could be useful. If you need to find your property corners for a legal issue or because you want to build something immovable, hire a registered surveyor. If you just want to know where your property corners are and the property has been surveyed before; maybe you could use the apps and a copy of your plat to get close to where the corner should be. If the apps get you to within a few feet, you should be able to find at least one property corner. Corners often get covered with leaves or dirt, so you may have to poke around with something thin and sharp to find them or use a metal detector. Concrete monuments and steel rods are resilient, but I wouldn't recommend randomly digging with a shovel. You might move your corner if you do. After you find one corner, you should be able to use a fiberglass measuring tape (the big 100' to 300' ones) to find the other corners, if they are still there. Sometimes they get pulled up, run over, excavated, or were never placed in the first place.

I'm all for hiring a licensed surveyor. In fact I did. It turned out one my neighbors had as well about a year before I had bought my property. The odd thing is the corners between us (that we should share) are apparently not in the same place. There is now a whole mess about which one is correct, even though both are certified (on one corner they overlap and the other end there is a gap) .

My new neighbor says my home is on his land. He is crazy and will be a problem someday. Thanks, Sir.

Mark Scheller- you talk about how "wildly expensive" surveyors are but maybe you should check out the education required and compare that to what is required to be a realist ate agent and compare the fees involved for each.

If you are putting up a fence then the best remedy is to mark the corners and still put the fence less than the boundaries, like 1 foot inside if you use the original pins and notations from plot map. Then the only issue to come up is who mows that little you didn't the fence on. Very good video and helps show how each app can have subtle differences. Now how can we well the surveyors measurements are as accurate as they say. Could have same interference on their equipment as a phone app.

Very, very good video. I hope that my Onx off-road app has the same capability. Last year I called a company to survey one property line in dispute. They said they only do the entire lot, and the cost to a residential property would be $1200. The accuracy that you obtained would be sufficient for me. Thanks.

Neighbor didn't like where I was building a fence they got a survey and their septic tank was over the property line it didn't work out to good for them.

Almost every parcel has been surveyed at some point, with metal rods driven into the ground at corner points. Usually they do not stick up out of the ground. Rent or borrow a metal detector, then use one of these apps to decide where to look for the buried rods. This is usually very easy, since they are normally not any more than 6 inches underground. When you have a flat suburban lot, and can see each corner from the adjacent corners, all you need for determining the boundary line is some stakes and masonry twine. If it's hilly, then it gets a lot more complicated. You may need a surveyor to use other reference points and precise angles to set your line stakes. Beware, though. I used a big survey company to do my parcel, and they sent somebody new who missed a corner by about 10 feet, on his first try. I had to get him back and point out the actual buried pin, so he could correct all the line stakes. If you can find your corner rods, that gives them known reference points.

Looks like you can get within about 8 or 10 feet of the line or the corner point. Great help sure.

For all the naysayers, this is a great starting point. You can flag approximate corners and go to a hardware store or check online for a metal detector and find a basic one for low cost. Now you have starting points to sweep and find your metal rods or badges (I work in a community that uses oversized metal coins/badges) in concrete at the marked corners. Owning a fencing company, it's been a very important process. And we never install fencing on the line unless there's a shared affidavit between neighbors. 4 inches inside the line if we do it or recommended 6 inches inside if you are a DIYer.

I use OnX off road that I believe should have the same accuracy as OnX Hunt maps. My property does not have any cell phone coverage so I saved a square mile grid that included the property. I found that all 4 metal stakes on the 11 acre property were off approximately 15 feet the same direction. The property boundary stakes were installed in the late 1960's. Either OnX is off by 15 feet or the original stakes are off. My question is: When using OnX does saving a property ahead of time because no cell coverage affect accuracy?

In rural Australia you can wait for 6 months to get a survey done and it’s depending on size of the land take my place it’s 55acres and just to get 2 surveys points done it’s $6000

I enjoyed the video. I feel sorry for the pathetic people who have to find fault and think they know so much better but won't spend the time or money to make content trying to help. Don't listen to the haters and content police or those who clearly didn't pay attention to what you actually said. It is a useful DIY tool, not a legal, binding, professional method !!

I had high hopes when this video began, but quickly realized how much deviation from actual survey points this use of apps would include. If the best I can hope for is about a meter of error, I may as well be guessing where the property line lies.

Neighbor requested to install deer fence in their backyard…(which is adjacent to our front & side yard-we’re a community with 3 acre lots). As they need line of site approval by neighbors on either side, we stipulated that they need to verify property lines by a competent authority to receive our approval. Now, at the rear of their property/ / our side property , there is a property line marker placed by the builder. The company the neighbors hired to mark their boundaries & corners marked the property line about 10-12 feet toward my property from the builder’s corner marker. When the people were there to mark the property lines, I even told them that there was already a corner marker at the rear of the their lot…the guy that replied was a bit smug and said we’ll see. I think they mismarked the property line intentionally to give some of my property to my neighbor. I’m don’t want to spend the money to hire someone myself to verify the property lines, though…got a couple of quote soon after the neighbor’s had their’s done…the quotes ranged from $2500-4000. What a ripoff. I’ve used a couple of different apps that show the line was marked incorrectly by the company the neighbors hired.

Thank you

Never expected to sub to a channel like this but your logic is outstanding! Plus Im a homeowner!

Yay the most accurate one, Regrid, is from Detroit!

Google maps does have parcel info just not for all locations, go to the default view and zoom in. You can still drop pins if needed and when you go back to the sat view the pins will remain on screen.

Using those apps are great for fun, but we professional surveyors are working for accuracy of 1 foot in 10,000 feet of line. Usually on large tracts ( 10 acres and up ) we get better. 1 in 10,000 becomes 0.1 in 1,000 and 0.001 in 100.

This is fine to roughly see where your property sits but I wouldn't be building/renovating/putting a fence up using this - just asking to get in trouble. I can't tell if you're advocating for people to survey without licenses but there's a fine line here. I have however seen your disclaimer about when selling and such, it's good you've added that.

I remember a surveyor once showing me a little cross marked in the cement of curb, right next to the driveway.. He told me that they sight down that cross to determine the property line between our house and the neighbor's. I walked up and down the street and saw thoses crosses on the curb edge of the driveways of every house on the street. Interestingly enough, sighting down that cross, the property lines are not exactly what you would think. Tricky.

really good video!!! I wonder if regrid "corner A" was actually 72". it was much closer on the other 3 corners

Hi Mark thank you for the valuable info I have one question I have a 5 acre parcel in st john arizona it is of grid I think my phone loses signal when I get real close to my property will I still be able to locate the corner boundaries wit regrid or any of the other apps and if not what do you think is available out there for people in my situation thank you and sorry that is 2 questions instead of 1

Love everybody especially your friendly neighbors or unfriendly neighbors.

Great video! thank you. My question is does land guide find the corners by locating the metal stakes in the ground? what if the metal markers have been moved illegally? or have been dug up? thanks john

It also depends on how these apps weigh the value of data. It doesn’t tend to vary as much in urban or suburban areas, but in rural areas it’s not uncommon to find discrepancies in overlay data. In many recent cases there have been disputes over resources and it turned out that On X was favoring Tax maps as they were more “easily available”. However in some cases the tax records lacked updates from official county records. In other cases they had just “corrected” some lines that were not relevant to the purpose of taxation being within acceptable margins of error. So one of the key issues with these applications is that their data is just an accumulation of many different sources with many different types of Providence. And there is much to much data for the companies to do analysis of which data sets are most accurate or relevant. Where as an official survey contractors job is to actually weed through those types of inconsistencies.