Greene County sits on karst. Roughly 2,500 sinkholes are mapped here. Questions? (417) 000-0000
Springfield Land Surveyor Greene County & the Ozarks

Fences

Do you need a survey before building a fence?

Sometimes genuinely no. But the times it is yes, it is emphatically yes, and the failure mode is expensive.

Two surveyors working an old wire fence line at dusk, one holding a GNSS pole at a corner post while the other takes notes on a clipboard
Fences drift. The line on the ground and the line in the deed are not always the same thing.

The arithmetic

A residential boundary survey in this market typically runs somewhere in the low four figures. Taking down and rebuilding a fence that went in on the wrong side of a line costs the full price of the fence again, plus removal, plus whatever the relationship with the neighbor is worth.

Put that way it is usually not a close call. The survey is the cheaper of the two outcomes whenever there is real doubt.

When you can probably skip it

  • Modern platted subdivision where the pins are still in place and you can find them.
  • A recent survey exists and the corners are still marked.
  • You are building well inside your line, several feet in, and not trying to maximize the yard.
  • The neighbor agrees and neither of you cares about a foot either way. Put the agreement in writing anyway.

When you genuinely need one

  • You cannot find the corner pins. Guessing from a plat and a tape measure is how fences end up in the wrong place.
  • Rural or acreage property, particularly with old metes and bounds descriptions.
  • An existing fence is already there and you assume it marks the line. Old fences frequently do not.
  • The neighbor has expressed any doubt.
  • You are building right up to the line to maximize usable space.
  • There is any history of disagreement about the boundary.

Build inside your line, not on it

Even with a survey, putting the fence a few inches inside your own boundary rather than exactly on it avoids a whole category of problem. It keeps every part of the structure on your property, it leaves room to maintain the far side without stepping onto the neighbor's land, and it means a small construction error does not become an encroachment.

Talk to the neighbor first

Not legally required, and it prevents most fence disputes anyway. A conversation before the posts go in costs nothing. A conversation after they are set is a negotiation.

If you are getting a survey, mentioning it beforehand is worth doing. Some neighbors will offer to split the cost, and even the ones who do not are far less likely to dispute a result they knew was coming.

Also call before you dig. Missouri One Call, 811, is free and required. Utility strikes on fence projects are common because people assume post holes are too shallow to matter. They are not.

Not sure where your line runs?

Get a boundary survey quote

Springfield Land Surveyor is a referral service. We are not a surveying firm, we hold no Missouri land surveying license or corporate certificate of authority, and we do not perform survey work. We connect property owners with Missouri-licensed Professional Land Surveyors.
Call (417) 000-0000 Request a quote