My personal advice is not to create a problem. You probably have the beginnings of an adverse possession claim if nothing is said by either party (Tennessee code § 28-2-101).

Having said this, you are afforded some protection by your survey and the surveyor's professional liability insurance (if carried). So you might consult your attorney or ask the surveyor to quietly double check his work. Often it ends up being a problem with the original deed where both surveys are correct via the deed and the deed were divided poorly. In this case, the adverse possession kicks in and you only need to meet the seven year requirement.

Personally, if I bought 200 acres I wouldn't care about 15 feet unless they were the 15 feet I was planning on building on. So I doubt it will come back to bite you but I guess you never know.

I'd call my surveyor and talk to a lawyer familiar with real estate law. If you have to do so, buy those 15 ft from the owner of the land next door so you know you have a clear title to your property.

Go to the County before saying anything. Get a copy of both past surveys. Most surveys are done by satellite these days with approximately 10' deviation. (A past coworkers family owned a surveying company). First take a look at the two surveys. Also- do you have your 'buttons/caps/markers- whatever your County calls them in 0lace. They should never be removed- they should be placed when first time surveyed by the surveyer. Don't panic. Even if you find out your own line was not correct the new people may give you a Right of Way or Easement of that 15 feet. Good luck.

Please talk to your attorney before talking to anyone else, including the county, certainly don't offer to buy it and DON'T GET AN EASEMENT without consulting your attorney.

I feel sure that your attorney will advise you to keep your head down and go about your business or maybe talk to your neighbor (not what I would advise). You have two surveys that prove you are right and your neighbor has one. He has the burden of proof for any action that he wants to take, so asking you to move the driveway will require his proving his survey was right and yours was wrong. At which time you will claim it against your surveyor's professional liability insurance.

If your neighbor were my client I would advise him to drop any action the moment I found out you had a survey. Even if he was correct the cost of proving it would make it too expensive to worry with. To prove his survey is right and both of yours are wrong is a huge obstacle to overcome. Even then you probably have a deed problem and the title company and title insurance kicks in and it just isn't worth the trouble unless the land is needed.

An easement or simply getting your neighbor's permission revokes your adverse possession claim. For adverse possession you must conspicuously occupy the property without permission. Easements are fairly easy to terminate even with consideration, and if your neighbor gives you an easement he can terminate the easement by providing notice.

I feel like your best bet is to carry on assuming your survey is right and his is wrong until such time that you have been presented information to the contrary. However, your attorney may feel differently. This is one of those things that I would answer in a phone call, so give your attorney a call and just see what he/she says.

^^^ 1000 times this.

Thanks so much for the responses, I had a bit of a moment there. Yes, I think we're going to just keep quiet. We have found a few markers/buttons while walking the back acreage of the property, so we'll look for the ones that are closest to this disputed area. Hopefully nothing will come of this, and I just panicked for no reason. We're positive they have no interest in building anywhere close to this 15 feet...like bry911 mentioned, I don't think they bought acreage so we could all see in each other's windows. :)

You may not have an issue at all. Do you KNOW what the markers indicate? You mentioned that the surveyors are not finished. The markers/monuments you're seeing may be preliminary markers to establish a point of beginning or to establish a section or quarter-section. The markers don't necessarily indicate a lot -line. When you see the surveyors on the property, amble over and ask them.

Please do not think I meant. getting a letter from them for ROW/ESMT! ANYTHING must be done through court system... anything!

Call your surveyor.

ditto......

Just ask the surveyors. They use 3 total markers to determine other points. If they have a row of stakes on your property, odds are those are the "property line" they are establishing. The county assessor is generally the one who signs off on initial surveys. If the paid surveyors tell you the stakes are property line markers, get in and talk with your county surveyor. You have not been there long enough for an adverse possession claim. I think a lawyer visit before even finding out what the current surveyors think those markers are for is premature. Best of Luck!

I can only speak from my own practical experience of having saw 2 surveys not match several times...Call Your Surveyor...around here lake frontage runs about $1,000.00 to $3,000.00 a lakefront foot

10 Years ago, I built a long / tall (9') Keystone wall. I had my property surveyed before they started. The boundary seemed reasonable, But the other side of my home - the survey claimed I had 10' more on the west side. These are larger, residential lots, that are orthogonal, how could this be? Called the surveyor back. Asked for a complete refund. Got another surveyor.

Bottom line is a lot of these guys are lazy, they use a metal detector to determine where the 'pin' is located. In this case - the first guy was using an old 'gate post'.

"Your driveway isn't going to move if your survey turns out to be wrong."

That is dependant upon who's property your driveway is on.

Calling the surveyor first would give them opportunity to work it out on their dime. They will look into if they are in the wrong, and chances are have the experience to work it out. Let them call their insurance company and their attorney. Don't call your attorney yet, but keep their number on speed dial.

I very much like bry's advice on talking to the neighbor in those word, I would just do it after talking to the surveyor.

Back in the day, surveyors used physical elements as references points, i.e.: 20 ft east of oak tree. When digital surveying entered the picture, it wreaked havoc on the previous physical surveys. If neighbors get along, a written document outlining how parties will address discrepancy resolved the issue. It has to be registered at courthouse for benefit of future RE transactions. If relationship is less than perfect, lawyers have a field day with this one. It usually affects not just the property line between the two specific neighbors, but the entire row of residents. It can be the biggest nightmare you never dreamed of. The PRACTICAL solutions are:

1) go with digital survey and the parties buy/sell the land in question. Document it and register.

2) split difference between physical survey and digital survey and trade (buy/sell) the land in question. In many places the physical survey trumps all but if you want to show goodwill and willingness to share in loss/gain created by technology, it's a good gesture to go this route.

unfortunately, the boundary issue can be a sticky wicket in high $$ properties, like lakefront, oceanfront, etc. and neighbors not so quick to put issue to bed. Also if your house/deck/driveway is built over land in question, a little harder to negotiate but $$$ is bottom line so there is a solution. Just don't try to be kept whole at the expense of neighbor. Share in the inconvenience brought on by technology. Best of luck to you.

The first person I'd call is the surveyor. Tell him an alternate survey shows his survey is incorrect. Have him come back out and verify his survey.

My heart dropped when I read through this. We had a similar experience. We bought a lot 4 years ago in a developed neighborhood. We were one of two lots left in the development. When we bought the lot from the original owner he provided us with the deed, we went through a title company, and the pins were all clearly marked. Fast forward to last fall and we start building. The bank does a mortgage location survey and tells us we are only 3 feet from the property line. At this point the foundation is in.

I immediately tracked down the original surveyor who laid out the entire development and he confirmed the awful news that he had made a 20 ft mistake on our property line. The whole situation was an absolute nightmare. Not to mention I can't help but wonder if the whole development is off. Fortunately the other lot next to ours was the other empty lot and we ended up purchasing it. That's another story for another day!

My advice would be to call your original surveyor and explain what is happening and ask if he has any insight.

Thanks for all the replies! I am hanging out around the house this week and next, hoping the surveyors will show up again so I can mosey over to have a chat.

We still keep in touch with the previous owners of our property, as they loved it as much as we do but had to move into town due to work/life circumstances. We called them to chat about all this action happening in our sleepy zip code, and they came over to walk the property line with us, and their recollection from their own survey (15 years ago) is similar to ours - there's at least a 10-foot buffer between our driveway and property line. So that makes three surveys that differ from the markers staked out this week.

As fraker mentioned, the surveyors may just be establishing some preliminary
points, as we found some markers further down our driveway, close to the
main road, that are nowhere near the property line. So curious about
those as well.

Thanks again for all the advice. I'll keep you updated as it develops (for anyone who may have this problem in the future), as I sadly have a feeling that this isn't over. :( The soon-to-be new owners had their "investment advisor" contact my husband by email this week, inquiring if we'd like to sell any of our land, and if we knew of neighbors that may be interested in selling. He assured my husband that they're only interested in obtaining the land to put it in a conservation easement, but I have a weird feeling about it all.

Maybe you can sell them the property their surveyor thinks they already own?

(thought you would like a little humor at this point)

"The surveyors may just be establishing some preliminary
points"

I would guess that is a high probability.

I too, smell something fishy about the new owners and their "investment advisor", as well as conversation of the conservation easement. I smell large new expensive lake house development, with some green space thrown in for the new homeowners to feel "green"....

^^^ I'm smelling the same fishy smell.

I would be curious to know if these new markers represented lines that are (true) north-south or east-west. Unlike lots in a town where the streets go in a grid pattern parallel to longitude/latitude lines, a development around a lake is generally/largely surveyed by the Metes and Bounds method, especially in eastern states like Tennessee that do not normally use the PLSS system. The borders of the property would be, for instance, the road on one side, and the lake on the other. The property lines between the road and the lake would be oriented more perpendicular to the road or lake shore as opposed to a north-south direction. The "official monuments" at the corners ARE those metal rods in the ground that were put there when the subdividing was first recorded.

A plausible reason for the "different" survey is the conservation easement. (possible Govt. involvement) So, They may have opted to record it in the method of the Public Land Survey System (Rectangular Survey System/ latitude longitude) instead of Metes and Bounds that was already plotted. This would not change your property line location. They just need to plot out some section, ¼ section, etc, lines to reference the already established Metes and Bounds property lines to.

At least similar to this as standard govt protocol.

https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/PA_NRCSConsumption/download/?cid=nrcseprd379608&ext=pdf

The surveyor must show latitude and longitude based on the North American Datum of 1983 (NAD 83) along with State Plane Coordinates (NAD 83) for 1) the point of beginning for the easement area, 2) the point of beginning for the ingress and egress to the easement area, if applicable, and 3) at least four other corners of the easement area. All coordinate values shown will be georeferenced to the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS) in compliance with BLM “Incorporating Standards for the Positional Accuracy of Cadastral Surveys When Using Global Navigation Satellite Systems,” and documented in such a manner that future surveyors can confidently replicate the position.

The easement area must not encroach on areas possessed by or subject to claims by others and must exclude any encroachments from adjoining properties. If the title line of the area to be surveyed differs from the area currently possessed or is subject to a claim by others, the differences must be shown on the plat of survey, noted in the surveyors report, and the easement area adjusted as follows: