PS Boundary Law Study Guide
Survey Bible

Source Check
Aligned to the NCEES PS specifications for legal principles, boundary evidence, PLSS, legal descriptions, riparian/littoral rights, title issues, prescriptive rights, adverse possession, easements, and professional judgment.

Purpose
The PS exam emphasizes professional judgment. Boundary questions often ask which evidence controls, how to evaluate conflict, or what a prudent surveyor should do next.

Evidence Hierarchy
The exact hierarchy depends on jurisdiction and facts, but common principles include:
- Original monuments and footsteps of the original surveyor are highly important when reliable.
- Natural monuments often outrank artificial monuments.
- Adjoiner calls, senior rights, record documents, bearings, distances, and area are weighed in context.
- Measurements rarely override controlling evidence by themselves.

Sequential and Simultaneous Conveyances
- Senior rights usually control over junior rights.
- Simultaneous conveyances often require proportionate allocation when the original intent cannot be otherwise recovered.
- Lot and block, metes and bounds, and PLSS descriptions each have different interpretive patterns.

Unwritten Rights
Understand the surveyor's role when evidence suggests acquiescence, agreement, prescription, adverse possession, estoppel, or practical location. The surveyor documents and reports evidence; courts decide title.

Water Boundaries
Know the difference between accretion, reliction, erosion, and avulsion. Gradual changes may move boundaries; sudden avulsive changes often do not.

Professional Judgment
Good PS answers usually show a disciplined process:
1. Gather record evidence.
2. Recover and evaluate field evidence.
3. Reconcile conflicts using controlling principles.
4. Document the reasoning.
5. Communicate limitations without making unsupported legal conclusions.