WIT - Offset Monument

Description

Regulations dictate that legal permanent markers must be set at property corners, angles, curves or bends to permanently mark boundary limits. In built up urban areas, permanent structures (fence posts, tree trunks, buildings) may obstruct actual property corners, and planting of survey iron bars is not possible. Survey regulations provide allowances for "witnessing" the true boundary corner with additional permanent legal markers that have a documented relationship to the true corner. A distance and direction to the true boundary corner, from the "witness" survey monument is clearly noted on the plan. The actual legal witness marker is also labelled as "WIT" on the plan.

Purpose

Permanent "witness" legal survey monuments are set some distance away from true corners when the actual property corner is physically obstructed by fence posts, trees or building corners.

Why is this important?

The witness monument provides evidence to re-establish the true boundary corner on the ground. Important to not confuse the location of a "witness" monument with a true boundary corner, when looking at the legal iron bar or concrete cut cross on the ground. This could lead to identifying and using the wrong boundary line. Note that survey regulations require that witness permanent monuments are set at least 1.0 metre away from the true boundary corner to avoid any confusion, however, surveyors have been known to use smaller distances, particularly in the past.

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