Acreage Survey - Necessary or Not?

Some sellers or selling realtors will tell you that larger acreage owners (20 acres or more) are not particularly concerned about exact property lines.  Please do not buy into that theory if a seller refuses to pay for a survey...get your own.

About a year and a half after purchasing my property and building my approach driveway, I received a call from the selling realtor (he was also the previous owner and still owned 80 acres adjacent to my 40).  He informed me that my approach driveway may be located on his property.  I had made the colossal error of following his instructions on how to mark my property instead of getting a formal survey.  At some point I had mentioned to him that I may negotiate to share my approach driveway with a new owner if a survey proves that I am indeed over the line.  The adjacent property has since been sold and now there was a bit of an issue with the new owner.  Unfortunately the realtor had [probably] told the new owner that I would share the approach and practically gave him permission to lower my 'no trespassing' cable and start leveling trees and brush into his property without a survey or even as much as a phone call to me.  This started us off on the wrong foot, of course, and discussions escalated.  We've since calmed down and started negotiations with an agreement to keep it friendly and without involving the court system.  Possibilities look okay so far, but it won't be completely resolved for some time. (see updates below)

My advice, again, is to have a property survey no matter what the previous owner or realtor may say about any unofficial survey-type markings.  This mistake may still cost me thousands of dollars by the time the dust settles.  To my benefit, the state of Minnesota may hold owner/realtors to a higher standard than a regular realtor simply representing an owner.  I may be taking the selling realtor into arbitration over this issue or possibly suing in conciliation court.  Since this is a web journal of all my experiences - mistakes as well as successes - I'll be sure to follow up with new developments. (see updates below)

Note in the picture that the survey post (circled) is very hard to see and was not indicated when I purchased the property.  It is located just east of my driveway, which *should* have been well within my west property line.

UPDATE (Nov. 2004):  I finally negotiated with the new neighbor to grant an easement (as long as I did all the footwork and paid all the fees).  I got the paperwork to him back in mid-Sept. and have waited over 2 months without a call or returned voice message.  Mid-Dec. and he still hasn't gotten back to me.

UPDATE (Dec. 2004):  I've decided to forget about the easement.  After all, why buy 40 acres way off the beaten path just to share your driveway with a neighbor you don't particularly like?  Anyway, I'll have to forfeit the $500+ I have into legal paperwork and move my entire driveway and let him have the existing spot (but he cannot have the approach I built).  I figure it's going to cost me a few thousand dollars to move my driveway over 150'-200', considering knocking over all new trees and replacing the ones to fill in the old driveway, but it'll be worth it in peace of mind.

UPDATE (Jan. 2005):  I've submitted paperwork to take the previous owner/realtor to arbitration for the grossly inaccurate instructions he gave me to generally locate the property I bought.

UPDATE (Apr. 2005):  The smart thing to do would be for the new neighbor to build me a new approach 150'-200' down, so I made him a pretty sweet offer to do just that - basically "selling" him the one I built.  They seemed interested, but as usual have avoided returning my calls to this point.  I left a message saying I needed an answer by the end of the first week in June.  If I don't hear anything, I'm sending my backhoe guy in to remove all the materials I bought, then I'll get a new permit and use those materials to build my new approach.

UPDATE (May. 2005):  The arbitration went bust.  I had my ducks in a row, and paperwork from the county showing the severity of innaccuracy in his locating instructions.  I was pretty disappointed to see the arbitrator's report, because it basically could have been written by the seller himself.  The bias toward the seller was overwelming, and if I didn't know better, I'd say the arbitrator was paid off or something.  He wasn't, I'm sure, so I simply lost, and this is the last anyone will hear of it.

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