Can old boundary stones be relied upon?

Hello everyone,

according to the cadastral excerpt, our property has a total of 10 boundary stones, of which we have found 7, the other 3 not. The existing boundary stones are probably about 40 years old, but some were presumably checked about 20 years ago as part of a construction measure in the neighborhood.

We plan to build a garage on the boundary and our house will have the minimally required distance from the boundary.

We plan to have the 3 missing boundary stones surveyed, but I am unsure whether it is necessary/useful to have the remaining old boundary stones checked. Can you still rely on such old boundary stones? What if we do so and later find out that our house does not comply with the boundary distance or even that the garage is built over it? If possible, we would of course like to save unnecessary costs for the surveying.

Thank you very much for your opinion.
unser_schloss

Definitely have it completely re-measured. The measuring methods are much more accurate nowadays, and the stones are almost certainly no longer in the correct place. My neighbor also told me, "the boundary is by the lantern," but that's not true. Similarly, after the re-measurement, we will own part of the street. The municipality did not measure and "stole" part of our property. My construction manager also told me some stories concerning property boundaries. They won’t build anything without a survey anymore. My architect is a friend, and I have known some of the employees for a long time as well. So this is not about making money but simply a necessity to be legally secure later on.

One more vote for re-surveying. I built in the old village center, the plot was divided and had to be completely re-surveyed because only old and therefore inaccurate data existed. It then turned out that neighbor 1's house stands a few centimeters on city land (sidewalk) and neighbor 2's garage is slightly on neighbor 1's property.

If possible, we would of course like to save unnecessary costs in the survey.

Then you have to think carefully about what you want. If the boundary markers are important to you, you have to commission an official survey. In Bavaria, this is only done by the surveying offices. If it is "only" about the correct position of the buildings, you can also commission a private surveying office with the building staking out. Sometimes the building authorities even require this. The boundaries will be shown to you, but not marked, which usually saves costs. However, this also depends on the quality of the cadastral evidence.

Isn't there a possibility to roughly measure the distances yourself beforehand? Would it be important whether they are positioned correctly? What happens if the stones were wrong?

One more vote for re-surveying. I built in the old village center, the property was divided and had to be completely re-surveyed because only old and thus inaccurate data existed. It then turned out that neighbor 1's house stands a few centimeters on municipal land (sidewalk) and neighbors 2's garage slightly on neighbor 1's property.

What is the consequence of something like this? Do any claims arise from it?