18-Geom-A6 Cadastral Studies · May 2016
Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
National Exams — May 2016 — 04-Geom-A6 Cadastral Studies. Three hours; open book (any non-communicating calculator permitted). Format: five questions of equal value (25% each); the paper directs that five questions constitute a complete paper and the first five as they appear in the answer book are marked — with only five questions printed, all five are required. Most answers are wanted in essay format, and clarity and organization are expressly marked. All five questions are solved in full below. Legal and land-registration content is framed in the Canadian context (the common-law standard of care; provincial land-title / Torrens and registry systems; Ontario's Surveys Act and coordinated-cadastre practice; Canadian cadastral institutions and case law).
Reference texts: Survey Law in Canada (Canadian Council of Land Surveyors / Carswell, 1989); Brown, Robillard, Wilson & others, Brown's Boundary Control and Legal Principles (7th ed., Wiley, 2017); Association of Ontario Land Surveyors (AOLS), Standards and Guidelines and Ontario's Surveys Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. S.30 with O. Reg. 216/10; the Ontario Land Titles Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. L.5, and Registry Act; P. F. Dale, Cadastral Surveys within the Commonwealth (HMSO, 1976); G. Larsson, Land Registration and Cadastral Systems (Longman Scientific & Technical, 1991); FIG, Statement on the Cadastre (1995) and ISO 19152 Land Administration Domain Model (LADM); NRCan NAD83(CSRS) / coordinated-cadastre materials.
Question text not reproduced: the examination questions are © Engineers and Geoscientists BC. Open the official past paper (linked at the top of this page) to read the question, then follow the worked solution below.
The word "make" is doing all the work here. A surveyor sometimes creates a new boundary that did not previously exist, and sometimes only recovers and evidences a boundary that already exists in law. Both are part of ordinary practice, so the correct answer is "both — it depends on the type of survey."
YES — surveyors make boundaries (original / creative surveys). In an original survey the surveyor brings a new boundary into legal existence. When a parent parcel is subdivided, the surveyor lays out new lines that no one has ever run before, monuments them, and records them on a plan; upon deposit/registration and the granting of new titles, those lines become the legal boundaries. Here the surveyor's act is constitutive: the position the surveyor sets, and the monuments the surveyor places, define the boundary for all time — the doctrine that "original monuments control" means the surveyor's original placement, even if later found to differ from the plan dimensions, governs. Example (YES): a developer subdivides a farm into twenty lots. The surveyor designs the lot pattern, runs and monuments the new interior boundaries, and files a plan of subdivision; the newly monumented lines are boundaries the surveyor genuinely made.
NO — surveyors do not make boundaries (retracement surveys). In a retracement the boundary already exists; the surveyor's task is to find it, not to create it. The surveyor gathers evidence, weighs it in the order of priority, and expresses an opinion on where the pre-existing boundary lies. The surveyor cannot lawfully move it, improve it, or reallocate land between the neighbours; doing so would be to "make" a boundary the surveyor has no authority to make. Even where the surveyor sets a new marker, that marker merely reports the position of the existing boundary — it does not create it. Example (NO): a homeowner asks for the rear boundary of a 100-year-old lot to be marked before building a fence. The surveyor searches the records, recovers two original monuments, and re-establishes the line between them. The surveyor has evidenced a boundary that has existed since the original subdivision, not made a new one.
Synthesis. Surveyors make boundaries when they act as original surveyors — subdividing, laying out, and monumenting land into new parcels — and they do not make boundaries when they act as retracing surveyors, whose duty is faithfully to recover and evidence what already exists. The professional danger lies in confusing the two roles: a retracing surveyor who "makes" a convenient new line, however well-intentioned, has exceeded the mandate and may create title chaos, whereas an original surveyor who fails to appreciate the permanence of the boundaries being created may impose lasting errors.
