Why Colorado Property Lines Can Be Tricky
Colorado property owners run into property line questions constantly. A fence goes up along a back lot line and the neighbor says it is two feet over. A homeowner in a Denver suburb wants to add a detached garage and the contractor is not sure how close they can build. A buyer is purchasing five acres in the foothills and there are no visible corners anywhere on the site. All of these situations call for the same professional: a licensed Colorado Professional Land Surveyor.
Online maps, recorded plats, and county GIS data can give you useful background information. What they cannot do is produce a legally certified boundary determination. That requires physical measurement in the field by someone with the training and license to certify the result.
Situations Where You Need a Licensed Colorado PLS
- Installing a fence, wall, or any structure along a property line
- Planning an addition or outbuilding where proximity to the lot line is uncertain
- A neighbor dispute about whether a fence, structure, or landscaping crosses the line
- Purchasing rural land, mountain acreage, or a property where corners are not physically marked
- A lender or title company requiring a current survey for closing
- Subdividing a parcel or requesting a lot line adjustment from the municipality
Colorado Professional Land Surveyors are licensed through the Colorado State Board of Licensure for Architects, Professional Engineers, and Professional Land Surveyors, part of DORA. Only a licensed PLS can legally establish and certify property corners and produce a recordable plat.
Why GIS Maps Are Not Enough
Most Colorado counties have online GIS portals showing parcel boundaries over aerial imagery. They are a reasonable first stop for understanding your lot's general shape and size, finding your parcel ID number, or seeing how your property relates to adjacent parcels. Denver, Jefferson, El Paso, Larimer, Arapahoe, and Boulder counties all have publicly accessible GIS viewers.
The limitation is precision. County GIS data is compiled from deed descriptions and historical plats, not from field measurements. A parcel line on a GIS map can be off by five feet in a suburban neighborhood or considerably more in a rural or mountain area with complicated deed histories. That level of uncertainty is fine for general curiosity. It is not acceptable when you are about to pour a foundation or install a fence.
What Your Surveyor Does to Find Your Property Lines
Colorado is organized under the federal Public Land Survey System, surveyed into a grid of townships and ranges starting in the 1860s and 1870s. Most of Colorado ties to the Sixth Principal Meridian on the eastern plains, with portions of the western slope using the New Mexico, Ute, and Boise Meridians. Original survey notes and plats from those early GLO surveys are available through the Bureau of Land Management and form the foundation of Colorado's boundary system.
Your surveyor starts with records research: your deed, any recorded subdivision plat, adjacent deeds, and the original GLO survey data for the area. For urban and suburban lots in recorded subdivisions, this research focuses on the plat and prior survey documents. For rural parcels and mountain properties, the surveyor may need to trace the deed chain through multiple conveyances and reconcile the description with the original government survey.
Field work comes next. Your surveyor locates existing corner monuments, which in Colorado are typically iron rebar with a plastic cap stamped with the surveyor's license number, or older iron pipes set in prior decades. Colorado law under C.R.S. 18-4-508 makes disturbing or removing survey monuments a criminal offense, so any monuments found are documented and respected. Where monuments are missing, the surveyor calculates the correct position from deed dimensions and field measurements, then sets new monuments.
The finished product is a sealed plat showing the boundary lines, dimensions, bearings, and monument locations. That document is your legal record.
Find a Licensed Colorado Land Surveyor
Use the directory as a starting point, then confirm the responsible surveyor's current license before hiring. Browse by county to find licensed professionals near your property, whether you are on the Front Range, the Western Slope, or anywhere in between.