Who is responsible for confirming the boundary?

You are. A clearing contractor works to what they are shown, and no reputable one will claim to know where your line runs. Establishing it is the owner’s task, and it is the one preparation step whose omission cannot be corrected afterwards.

Published by the Land Clearing Authority editorial team · Last revised 2026-07-29 · Editorial policy · Corrections

Who this is for

Owners clearing anywhere near a property line
Anyone relying on a fence, hedge, or tree line as the boundary
People whose neighbour has an interest in what is being removed

The short answer

The owner establishes the boundary and shows it to the contractor. A contractor’s responsibility is to work within what they have been shown, and they have no way to verify a line themselves.

Fences, hedges, tree lines, and long-standing assumptions are frequently not on the boundary. On older parcels the discrepancy can be substantial, and nobody discovers it until something is removed.

Where the work approaches a line, the reliable answer is a survey. Where it does not — clearing the interior of a parcel with a wide margin — the county parcel map plus visible monuments is generally proportionate.

What makes this urgent rather than merely advisable is irreversibility. A stem removed on the wrong side of a line cannot be put back, and the dispute that follows is with a neighbour you keep.

What changes the answer

How close the work comes to the line
Whether visible monuments or survey markers exist
How old the parcel is and how often it has been divided
Whether a neighbour has an interest in the growth being removed
Whether anything permanent will be positioned relative to the line

What each source of information actually establishes

Owners frequently treat all of these as equivalent. They are not, and the difference matters when the work is close to a line.

Sources of boundary information
Source	What it establishes	Reliability near a line
A recorded survey for your parcel	The surveyed boundary	High
A new survey by a licensed surveyor	The boundary, marked on the ground	Highest
County parcel viewer or assessor map	Approximate shape and position	Low for precise work
Existing fence or wall	Where somebody once built a fence	Unreliable
Hedge or tree line	Where something grew	Unreliable
Neighbour’s recollection	What the neighbour believes	Unreliable
Monuments and pins found on site	Useful evidence, if genuine	Moderate — a surveyor interprets them

When a survey is worth the cost

Not always, and the test is proximity plus consequence.

Get one where growth to be removed sits within a margin of the line you cannot confidently establish, where a neighbour has expressed any interest in the trees, where anything permanent will be positioned relative to the boundary, or where the parcel has been subdivided and the current fences post-date the division.

Skip it where you are clearing the interior of a parcel with a wide untouched margin at every edge, and where nothing near a line is being removed. That is the common case and it does not need a surveyor.

The middle case — clearing towards a line but stopping short — is handled by leaving a deliberate uncleared margin. It costs you a strip of ground and it removes the risk entirely.

How to show a boundary to a contractor

Whatever you have established, it has to be visible from a machine.

Mark the line physically at intervals close enough that the operator can always see two markers. Stakes, tape, or paint on retained stems all work. Where a survey has been done, the surveyor’s marks are the reference and should be preserved rather than relied on alone, because they are small and easily lost.

Then walk it. A contractor who has walked the marked line knows where it is; one who has been sent a map has an idea of where it is.

What the contractor is responsible for

The division is worth stating plainly, because both parties benefit from it being clear.

The contractor is responsible for working within what has been marked and shown to them, for stopping and asking where the marking is unclear or absent, and for not exceeding the area they were instructed to clear.

The owner is responsible for establishing the boundary, marking it, showing it, and maintaining the marking through the job. A contractor who removes growth beyond a clearly marked line has made an error; one who removes growth beyond an unmarked assumption has done what they were asked.

Keeping the marking alive through the job

Boundary marking degrades, and on a job lasting more than a day or two that matters.

Tape blows off and is pulled down by the work itself. Stakes get knocked. Growth coming down obscures markers that were visible on the first morning. And the marking that mattered most — at the line — is frequently the marking closest to the machine.

Walk the line at the end of each working day and replace anything missing. It takes ten minutes, and it is the difference between a boundary that was marked and a boundary that is marked.

Where this becomes a legal question

Boundary disputes, encroachment, rights over boundary trees, and remedies for removal are all matters of state law and specific circumstance, and none of them is addressed on this platform.

What is portable is the practical hierarchy: establish before you clear, mark before the machine arrives, leave a margin where you are unsure, and involve a surveyor where the line matters. Anyone facing an actual dispute needs local legal advice rather than a national guide.

What drives the cost

Cost drivers on this kind of project
Driver	Effect
Survey requirement	A licensed survey is a real cost and a small one against the alternative
Boundary marking effort	Marking a long or wooded boundary takes time before the job
Uncleared margin left	Ground deliberately not cleared, possibly cleared later
Careful work near the line	Slower method where precision matters
Second visit to clear the margin	A later mobilisation once the boundary is established

Common mistakes

Treating a fence as the boundary
Sending a contractor a parcel map instead of marking the ground
Clearing to an assumed line rather than leaving a margin
Letting boundary marking degrade during a long job
Assuming a contractor will know or check where the line is

Questions to ask a contractor

Is the line I have marked clear enough for you to work to?
Where would you want additional markers?
What will you do if you reach a stretch where the marking is unclear?
How wide a margin would you suggest leaving where I am uncertain?
Will the operator on the day walk the marked line with me?

What to do next

Locate any recorded survey for your parcel
Commission a survey where the work approaches an uncertain line
Mark the boundary at intervals visible from a machine
Leave a deliberate uncleared margin anywhere you remain unsure

Questions people actually ask

Will the contractor check the boundary for me?

No, and a contractor claiming to know your boundary should be treated with caution. They work to what is marked and shown, which is why marking it is the owner’s task.

Is a county parcel map good enough?

For clearing the interior of a parcel with a wide margin at the edges, generally yes. For work approaching a line, no — those maps are approximate and are not survey documents.

What if my neighbour disagrees about where the line is?

Then stop before clearing anything near it. A disagreement before the work is a conversation; the same disagreement after growth has been removed is a dispute with no way back.

How much does a survey cost?

It varies by region, parcel size, terrain, and how much research the surveyor has to do, so no figure is published here. It is worth getting a quote, because owners frequently assume it is more than it is.