Geomet Experts, are they all this bad?

Property & Home
1

My first experience of one of these people was back in 1993 when we were buying the first neighbouring parcelle of land to our newly acquired house.
He seemed friendly and competant and chatted pleasantly while doing his work. But he never sent a bill. 6 months later I called in to his office, brought it to his attention and offered to pay on the spot. He waved me away saying wait ‘till the bill comes before you pay.’
32 years later I am still waiting for that bill. :astonished:

Fast forward to now and his successor in that office was engaged by me to put in the 4 corner bornes of the next small forested extension. The date and time set for this was yesterday at 14H30. He turned up with an assistant and the Maire and another friend arrived as both own adjacent properties (well the Commune not the Maire himself).

Immediately this bloke started mumbling about missing documents so I was sent into the house to fetch all the relative deeds etc… He studied these for some time but was not satisfied and, though the official mission had come to an end the 2 of them still wandered about the place carrying a billhook to clear adjoining vegetation. The owner of that was not bothered because it was mine not hers, I had deliberately put my fences half a metre inside my property to avoid damaging an ancient wall.

This continued and explanation was difficult to collect. Finally after 2 hours they declared that they couldn’t do the job that day because it involved calculations made by the other bloke now long deceased I suppose. I couldn’t understand what a parcelle and its dimensions had anything to do with a quite separate one apart from the fact that I owned them all, and he couldn’t make a decent case to enlighten me. Not Cathie the neighbouring friend and owner, nor the Maire who of course is responsible to the 2 sides adjoining the Commune land.

Eventually they said they would have to go away and come back when all the relevant documents were available. Won’t be long they said but when pressed, ‘only 2 or 3 weeks.’ :roll_eyes:

I have been waiting so long for this and had the fencers ready to go within a couple of days. I was really angry though didn’t explode (remembering my return that very day from a heart attack) and, I thought that was that.

An hour later I was in the kitchen catching up on emails etc and I heard voices through the open window. It was the bloody Geomet moron measuring the height of my house. :astonished:. When questioned he said that the previous bloke had measured it so he had to too. It was a good job that I was speechless because otherwise he would have received a very good dose of Anglo-Saxon language.

I have agreed with the fencer, who I told everything to, and he is going to start work on Monday and I have agreed with him if someone wants to protest the accuracy later I will pay him to relocate the posts and fence by the few centimetres it might be out.

2 of the 4 sides of the parcelle are shared with the Commune and the Maire and I are agreed with their position. On both sides there are very old stone boundary markers and on one of them is a ancient wall between my land and a sunken ancient chemin rurale, so no doubts there especially as I intend to put both inside the boundary stone and the wall in order to protect against future dogs pushing/digging their way out. On the 3rd side a very small bit of it is Cathie’s and I will inform her of my intention but we already agreed the line between us, and the rest of that side adjoins a forest that I was nearly allowed to buy (but for fillial objections) a year or so ago from the owner, now deceased, who lived in Paris. So if any objections are raised it will only be by that son. The 4th side adjoins my land and I definitely agree and will not object. :joy:

Not sure of the legality of this but as almost all the new fences will be inside my land I think I have a good case.

Anybody agree/disagree? :thinking:

2

You’d better write to yourself in triplicate, LRAR, stating your agreement just to be certain :wink:

6 Likes
3

Good to see you’re back, David.
I’ve worked with many on building projects & all experts & legally responsible. Maybe in your neck of the woods they’re not all qualified and someone (an apprentice) being sent out to take a few measurements by the géo who just to signs off the plans & submit the docs to the relevant authority.

4

“Geomet Experts, are they all this bad?”

As an ex land surveyor from UK, which is probably the nearest thing to a French géomètre, I can explain a little about their position.

French property law is completely different to UK. In UK property boundaries are only defined by a verbal description e.g. a wall, middle of a hedge, centre of a stream. The nearest they come to being measured is reference to an Ordnance Survey map.

In France, boundaries are legally defined “precisely” by very complicated mathematics. This is not helped by the fact that most land is defined on old maths related to triangulation but is now being redefined, on change of ownership, by new maths based on satellite measurements.

Not only does the géomètre have to untangle this mathematical problem he also has legal duties to ensure other rights are maintained (for example rights of light if he was measuring the height of your building).

It does not matter if you own all the parcels involved in his survey, what he decides today will affect the ownership of these parcels of land long after you have passed on.

I understand your frustration David but your géomètre has legal responsibilities which he must uphold. If he turns out to be an obnoxious jobsworth well I’m afraid that’s life

4 Likes
5

I was told there is no right to light rules in France but there could be a right to a view if someone had a view of the land subsequently blocked by a new fence etc?

6

You may well be right Corona, I just chucked that in as a possible example. That is why an expert is needed.

1 Like
7

Thank you both but for one thing nobody including the notaire told me that I needed a Geomet at all just to buy a little square of land, I just went with it to make sure that I couldn’t be hauled over the coals for fencing in the wrong place.
As regards the fences, they will be totally within tall trees so no question of view there.
As regards others’ view, my house which the bloke was inexplicably measuring, is backed onto forest on 2 sides and the only houses higher are blocked from their view by their own trees, so no problems there. In any case, a bungalow with 60 foot trees almost surrounding it is hardly a problem for anyone by the change of ownership within those trees 90 odd metres away from said bungalow.

But the thing which has wound me up is, if they are such experts and turn up knowing that there are documents they needed, which are already in their possession btw, why on earth bring non of them with you after 2 months or so notice of the arrangement? Totally unprofessional and on a par with my fencing man turning up on Monday and asking me for a hammer to drive the posts in.

Anyway, the Maire agrees ‘his’ 2 boundaries, Cathie agrees hers, I agree mine, and so it just remains for the Parisian’s son to agree or otherwise, his boundary. If he objects by a few cms then I will move the fence that much, all of a max 1 hours work.

2 Likes
8

“Ignorantia legis neminem excusat”

I am fairly certain that it is a legal requirement to use a géomètre when a new parcelle is created.

Remember that the parcel will be in existence for ever (or until it is legally modified).

When my previous property was resurveyed, we gained 350 sq metres of a neighbouring piece of land. The ownership could not be traced at that time so when the appointment was arranged for landowners to agree the boundary after the survey, no one turned up on that side to disagree so we gained some land.

On another boundary, because of the maths problems mentioned in my previous post, I also was given a strip 2 metres into a neighbouring farmers land. The old boundary was obvious. Instead of raising a legal objection (which would cost someone some money) we agreed what the géomètre said, then ignored it and carried on with the old boundaries. The new bornes were quickly, but quite illegally, ploughed up. In retrospect we have created potential problems for someone in the future.

9

Doubt it. When we bought our place 18 years ago the geometre sent his junior to the (we thought) boundary at the bottom of our land and he continued walking two plough widths through the wheat growing in the neighbouring farmer’s field. The farmer just grinned - no shame. It was a second home for the previous (Brit) owners who had bought the place from the farmer. They were rarely there and he obviously thought the land was really still his. OH asked if we could have the crop on our bit of land when the farmer came to harvest.
There will be recorded evidence of the boundary markers.
We too over the years have bought extra bits of land from our neighbouring farmers and each time it has required a geometre to come and measure it out and to put in the red plastic borne markers. The markers rarely last more than a few weeks as the farmers go over them - usually just swinging round their heavy equipment as they get to the end of a row.

10

The simple bornes may not last, but everything now is based on satellite GPS so easy to reinstate if required.

2 Likes
11

Ask that nice Mr Putin for a photo. :smiley:

1 Like
12

They are only “easy to reinstate” if they were originally surveyed by GPS. If they were originally surveyed using the “old” methods, then there will be discrepancies to resolve.

13

I did say everything “now” :upside_down_face:

2 Likes
14

Well I haven’t cancelled the geomets but am going ahead with the fencing which I am fairly sure will be entirely on my land. If when they finally get their act together they find in favour of someone else, I will simply move the offending fence accordingly.

BTW @Mik_Bennett a new parcelle hasn’t been created, an existing (possibly for hundreds of years) one has simply changed ownership. Just thought I should put the record straight on that. :wink:

I do find it strange though that the notaire, who set up the sale, when told of the accepted offer, has never made any mention at all of the necessity to involve geomets. As far as I remember one of the questions I had to answer was to do with the agreement on the boundaries, so it seemed that as long as Thomas and I agreed precisely what we were buying and selling, that was fine with the law.

15

My apologies David. I somehow got the impression you were subdividing an existing parcel to create a new one. If you are simply buying/selling an existing parcel (unchanged) then a géomètre might not necessary unless there is a dispute with neighbouring parcels which, in this case, there is not.

16

Correct, although only 3 sides and a bit are commonly agreed, the rest of the 4th side might be disputed, but easily rectified.

Happy to say that 2 minutes ago the fencer rang to say can he come tomorrow morning at 8? Yes, yes, yes, especially as he is a big hammer man so no machinery on a Sunday noise will be involved. :joy:

1 Like
17

Had this out with the notary we used to buy a small wood adjoining our property - as all of the boundary owners were in agreement, no géomètre was necessary, although the notaire did try to push it on me. I insisted that I saw no point given that everyone else was in agreement. In the end, I got my way. When a new farmer took over the land adjacent to my patch, we had a discussion between us where we thought the boundary lay - I told him I’d gone around with the GPS coordinates from the cadastre and my phone, he said he’d paced it out. We both came to pretty much the same point give or take a hawthorn bush, so we left it at that!

18

Will that be a first offence? :smiley:

3 Likes
19

That is exactly how I view it, although I have just had a rather joyful and jokey conversation with my favourite neighbour, Marie-Paule, who is fearful I might be on my way to the guillotine but has promised to bring me a file if I end up in the pokey. She, although not a property owner, thinks the geomet is obligatory but I do not and found this:

Where two owners want to proceed with demarcation then nothing prevents them agreeing between themselves the limits of the boundary, preparing a plan, and marking it out or fencing it.

If this is done then, if you wish to bind future owners of the neighbouring property, it is imperative that the agreement is registered with a notaire otherwise it will not be binding on future owners.

This process is called de depot avec reconnaissance d’écritures et de signatures.

We have registered the agreement with the notaire and 3 of the 4 owners on the boundary of this parcelle are in agreement, and I have said that if there is a dispute with the 4th at a later date, I have undertaken to alter the fence line. Even if there is no dispute, after the geomets finally get their act together I will similarly alter the fence line if it is necessary. Can’t say fairer than that. :grinning:

1 Like
20

The house we bought had a ramshackle ‘shed’ attached to a small permanent room. This room was attached to the lower part of our house, which belonged to the elderly neighbours. Our seller said we maybe able to buy it, once the old wife had passed away. It wasn’t a selling point for us so did not stop us buying the house. About 10/12 years ago the son repaired the ‘shed’ part with a wall attached to our house terrace looking across open fields. This happened while we were away for 3.5 months. I cannot remember what our reaction was, but a walnut orchard had already obstructed our views, which we had found out from SF is not a thing :woman_shrugging:
The only problem was when it rained it would bounce of the ‘shed ‘roof tiles and onto our terrace and we now need to mop up after every rainfall!! We pointed this out and the son said cést normale’’ We did not want to upset the lovely father so left it :frowning:
After the elderly lady died we asked the husband if he would like to sell the ‘shed’ his son said NO he used it for a work shop :joy: We took advice from a notaire because the structure was now more permanent and attached to the lower half of our house! Fast forward to three years ago, the father died and the son put the parents small house on the market, with garage. The small house is attached to a bigger house, which was also on the market, and they were both purchased together by one buyer.
Their immobilier asked if had anything to do with the attached structure, which set my husband off :laughing: A small strip of land is supposed to run between our house and the structure, he is the second immobillier that has mentioned this and we had also conveyed this to the notaire. Sorry this post is disjointed, I am a little hazy about times and fed up with rewriting :blush:
It appears that over a number of decades some undeclared constructions have been added to both the houses! How this was not highlighted to the owners when the bought the house six years ago? Instead of paying the mairie they changed it back to how it was originally.
The little house was more complicated, but the owner allowed the new owners of the big house to move in ,so they could start the renovation work to the big house.
On our return from a two month break , the problems still had not been resolved, but the son had decided to get the Geometre involved. It appears the new owners have a little bit more land that they were unaware of, including a small strip of our garden! Less for me to mow, said my husband, even though he continues to mow it, including the part that he knows is the neighbours :rofl:
We are thinking of down sizing because a part of the garden is getting neglected, it’s too much for us nowadays! We think the ‘garage’ will open a can of worms to any new owner? I forgot to mention a window that had been blocked, before our time, which opened out to the ramshackle part of the ‘shed’ especially if any new owner wanted to reopen it!
The moral of this is don’t believe everything you are told
Sorry this post is disjointed, I am a little hazy about and tired rewriting :blush:
Gosh, sorry for the long post, maybe need to get it off my chest :thinking:

1 Like