"KAB" wrote in message
om...
Infrequent poster here, and would appreciate any and all suggestions!

I purchased a home 1.5 years ago. At that time, the previous owner
assured me that there were stakes in the ground that would show me my
property lines. Unfortunately, I have been unable to locate them.

As others have said, there are probably iron pipes driven into the ground at
the corners. However, an ordinary metal detector might not locate them. A
friend and I spent hours trying to locate mine (and I was pretty sure where
they were) without any luck. I finally hired a surveyor to do a survey and
he was able to find all four stakes, plus several buried fence posts in no
time at all. His locator, he says, is designed only to find iron and cost
him approx. $800. My cost was $400 and I was very pleased with the survey
map he provided me with. He was hired by two of my neighbors, so the survey
map shows all three properties plus part of the ones on the other side who
didn't participate in the survey. Of course he didn't just locate the iron
pipes. He went downtown (small town) and found the town stake from which
all of the properties were measured and worked from there to make sure my
stakes were in the right place. My survey map shows all of my elevations,
too, which is going to be of help when I apply to the Army Corp of Engineers
for a permit to install a seawall or rip/rap to protect my river frontage.

Tom G.