Skip to content
Santa Barbara Land Surveyor logo
Santa Barbara Land Surveyor logo

Property Corner Staking & Monument Setting in Santa Barbara, CA | Property Corner Staking Specialists

Santa Barbara Land Surveyor has spent more than 30 years marking property corners across the South Coast, recovering the monuments that are still there and setting new ones where a corner has gone missing. California boundary law holds that a monument actually found on the ground generally controls over a distance or bearing called out in a deed, so recovering the real physical evidence matters more than re-measuring from the record alone. Every monument we set or reset is preserved under Business and Professions Code section 8771, the same statute that governs how a licensed surveyor handles monuments during any survey.

Sometimes a homeowner just needs the corners marked for a fence or a landscaping project, and this page covers that narrower scope. What follows covers how we tell a recovery from a reset, the actual monument types we set, when a Corner Record has to be filed, and when a simple corner-staking job is not enough.

Request Corner Staking

Get a Free Estimate

What Corner Staking Covers

  • Recovering Versus Resetting Monuments

    Recovering a monument means finding the physical evidence, a rebar, a pipe, a disk, or a stone, that already marks a corner and confirming it against the record. Under California boundary law, that physical evidence generally carries more weight than a bearing and distance on a deed if the two disagree, since the monument represents where the original surveyor actually stood. Resetting means the original monument is gone or disturbed, so we reestablish the corner from the surrounding record evidence and the position of nearby monuments that were not disturbed, then set a new one in its place.

  • Rebar, Cap, Brass Disk, and Witness Monuments

    A rebar and cap is the most common monument we set on a residential corner, stamped with our license number so the next person who finds it, another surveyor, a title company, a future owner, knows who set it and when. A brass disk gets used where a more permanent monument makes sense, often set in concrete or rock outcrop on a hillside parcel. A witness monument marks a corner's position nearby when the actual point cannot be physically occupied, offset a known distance and bearing from the true corner.

  • Corner Record Filing

    When we find, set, or reset a corner and a full Record of Survey is not otherwise required under Business and Professions Code section 8762, we file a Corner Record with the Santa Barbara County Surveyor under section 8773 instead. A Corner Record is a simpler filing than a full Record of Survey, documenting the monument's position without the complete boundary resolution a Record of Survey requires. That filing puts the corner's location into the public record, so the next surveyor who touches this parcel does not have to start from scratch.

  • When Staking Alone Is Enough

    A straightforward corner-staking job works when the existing record is solid and all you need is the corners marked on the ground, for a fence or a landscaping project. If the record is thin, conflicting, or a neighbor disputes where the line actually runs, that calls for a full boundary and property line survey instead, and we will tell you which one your situation actually needs before any work starts.

Our Corner Staking Process

  • Records research for the controlling monuments.

    We pull the deed and prior recorded maps to identify which monuments actually control the corners.

  • Field search for existing monuments.

    We search the ground for the physical evidence the record points to.

  • Setting or resetting corners.

    We set a new monument wherever the original is missing or disturbed.

  • Corner Record filing if required.

    We file a Corner Record with the County Surveyor when a Record of Survey is not otherwise required.

  • Delivery of the marked corners and a summary.

    You get the corners marked on the ground and a written summary of what we found and set.

Corner Staking Service Area

Most of our corner staking work covers Santa Barbara, Goleta, and Carpinteria. A California Professional Land Surveyor license covers this work statewide, so if your parcel sits outside this immediate area, ask and we will scope it.

Two surveyors recovering an old brass disk monument set in concrete in a side yard, one brushing dirt off the disk while the other holds a GNSS pole and a metal detector

Why Choose Us for Corner Staking

  • Monuments preserved and reset under Business and Professions Code section 8771
  • Corner Record filed with the County Surveyor when required
  • A fast, focused scope for a simple corner-marking request
  • Backed by the same records research a full boundary survey runs on
  • More than 30 years of South Coast monument work
Get Your Corners Marked
Call (805) 691-0076