18-Geom-A6 Cadastral Studies · May 2017
Nivaar worked solution (AI-drafted; not reviewed by a licensed engineer)
National Exams — May 2017 — 04-Geom-A6 Cadastral Studies. Three hours; closed book, no calculator permitted. Format: five questions of equal value (25% each); the paper directs that FOUR (4) questions constitute a complete exam paper — five are printed but the candidate must pick four, and only the first four as they appear in the answer book are marked. Most answers are wanted in essay format, and clarity and organization are expressly marked. To make this a complete study reference, all five questions are solved in full below (a candidate would answer any four). 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 Surveyors Act / Surveys Act and coordinated-cadastre practice; and Canadian cadastral institutions and case law.
Reference texts: Survey Law in Canada (Canadian Council of Land Surveyors / Carswell, 1989); R. Brown, W. Robillard, D. Wilson et al., Brown's Boundary Control and Legal Principles (7th ed., Wiley, 2017); Association of Ontario Land Surveyors (AOLS), Standards and Guidelines; Ontario's Surveyors Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. S.29 and 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, R.S.O. 1990, c. R.20; 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.
Each statement is graded below with a one-line justification tied to cadastral principle and Canadian (Ontario) practice. The answers turn on two recurring themes: (1) cadastral surveying is a reserved, licensed professional act, and (2) the hierarchy of evidence places original monuments and senior rights above later measurements such as coordinates.
| # | Statement (abridged) | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| (a) | An engineer, not also an OLS, may not sign a cadastral plan of survey | TRUE |
| (b) | A coordinate value is the highest form of evidence of a corner | FALSE |
| (c) | A plot of a metes-and-bounds deed description is an acceptable survey plan | FALSE |
| (d) | A retracement is the same as the first running of a boundary line | FALSE |
| (e) | A surveyor must always obtain the original Crown patent | FALSE |
| (f) | No survey plan is valid unless registered with government | FALSE |
| (g) | A waterfront boundary can always be surveyed from a GoogleEarth® screenshot | FALSE |
| (h) | A boundary is defined by the original posts first set, if so established | TRUE |
| (i) | Proportioning is a mathematical solution for all boundary problems | FALSE |
| (j) | An original township survey plan is meaningless today | FALSE |
(a) TRUE. The practice of cadastral surveying is reserved by statute to licensed land surveyors. Under Ontario's Surveyors Act, only a licensed Ontario Land Surveyor may perform and certify a cadastral (legal) survey; a professional engineer's licence does not authorize the practice of cadastral surveying and does not entitle the engineer to sign a plan of survey of boundaries. The two professions have distinct reserved scopes.
(b) FALSE. A coordinate is bearing and distance from a datum — measurement evidence — and therefore sits low in the hierarchy of evidence, below senior rights, undisturbed original monuments, and the lines actually run. The highest forms of evidence are natural boundaries/senior rights and original monuments in place; a coordinate yields to a controlling original monument that occupies a different position.
(c) FALSE. Merely plotting the words of a metes-and-bounds description from a deed produces a diagram of the description, not a survey plan. A plan of survey must be founded on an actual field survey — the recovery and setting of monuments, measured and certified by a licensed surveyor — and reflects evidence on the ground, not just the text of a conveyance. The deed plot has no evidentiary weight as a survey.
(d) FALSE. A retracement recovers a boundary that already exists, following the footsteps of the original surveyor; the "first running" is the original survey that creates the boundary. They are opposite acts — one evidentiary, one constitutive (see Q3).
(e) FALSE. The word "always" makes the statement false. Researching the chain of title back to the Crown grant is good practice for original township and Crown-boundary work, but a routine retracement of a lot on a registered plan of subdivision in an urban area does not require obtaining the original Crown patent. The surveyor obtains the records the particular survey reasonably requires, not invariably the Crown patent.
(f) FALSE. Registration is required for certain plan types (for example a plan of subdivision) to have their intended legal effect, but a great many valid survey products — surveyor's real property reports, integration and control surveys, topographic and construction-layout surveys, and boundary sketches — are valid and used without registration. Validity of the survey does not depend on registration in general.
(g) FALSE. A water boundary is a legal boundary determined by field survey and legal rules — the natural-boundary line (e.g., the ordinary high-water mark or bank), together with the doctrines of accretion, erosion and reliction — and by locating that feature to survey accuracy. A georeferenced aerial screenshot is neither a survey nor a determination of the legal water boundary; the "always" makes the statement plainly false.
(h) TRUE. This is the doctrine that original monuments control. Where a boundary was originally established by posts (monuments) set in the ground, those original monuments in their true, undisturbed positions define and control the boundary — even in preference to later measurements or plan dimensions that disagree with them.
(i) FALSE. Proportionate measurement is a method of last resort, used only when original monuments are lost and no better evidence (natural boundaries, senior rights, occupation, calls) exists to re-establish a corner. It distributes measurement discrepancy mathematically but has no authority to override superior evidence, so it is certainly not a solution for all boundary problems.
(j) FALSE. An original township survey plan is foundational best evidence of the original survey and remains highly relevant today — its monuments, lines and calls are precisely what a retracing surveyor seeks to recover. It is anything but meaningless.
