17-73-101. Definitions.

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A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.

Effective 11/6/2025

As used in this chapter:

(a)"Accessory to a corner" means any exclusively identifiable physical object whose spatial relationship to the corner is recorded.

(b)"Accessory to a corner" may include a bearing tree, bearing object, monument, reference monument, line tree, pit, mound, charcoal-filled bottle, steel or wooden stake, or another object.

(2)"Approving authority" means the person required under applicable statute to submit to the lieutenant governor a notice of an impending boundary action, as defined in Section 67-1a-6.5 .

(a)"Boundary action" means any action that establishes, modifies, or eliminates the boundary of a local entity, including incorporation or creation, annexation, withdrawal or disconnection, consolidation, division, boundary adjustment, and dissolution.

(b)"Boundary action" does not include the determination of the true location of a county boundary under Section 17-61-102 .

(a)"Construction" means:

(i)the preparation of an area for a building or structure, including demolition, site clearance, exploration, drilling, boring, and excavation; and

(ii)the carrying out of any building, civil engineering, or engineering work for the assembly or maintenance of any building or structure.

(b)"Construction" does not mean normal maintenance of a roadway and related infrastructure that does not require construction drawings.

(5)"Corner," unless otherwise qualified, means a property corner, a property controlling corner, a public land survey corner, or any combination of these.

(6)"County surveyor" means:

(a)the individual elected to the county office of county surveyor; or

(b)in a county where there is no elected county surveyor:

(i)for purposes of the retention and management of county survey records, the county recorder; or

(ii)a licensed land surveyor under contract with the county to perform county surveyor duties.

(7)"Federal survey" means a survey conducted under the authority of the United States.

(8)"Final local entity plat" means a plat that meets the requirements to be approved in Section 17-73-507 .

(a)"Geographic coordinates" means mathematical values that designate a position on the earth relative to a given reference system.

(b)"Geographic coordinates" shall be established in accordance with Title 57, Chapter 10 , Utah Coordinate System.

(10)"Government survey monument" means a monument that:

(a)a government entity maintains; or

(b)the county surveyor sets in accordance with Section 17-73-501 .

(11)"Local entity" means the same as that term is defined in Section 67-1a-6.5 .

(12)"Monument" means an accessory that is presumed to occupy the exact position of a corner.

(13)"Professional land surveyor" means an individual who is licensed to practice land surveying in Utah in accordance with Title 58, Chapter 22 , Professional Engineers and Professional Land Surveyors Licensing Act.

(14)"Property controlling corner" means a public land survey corner or any property corner which does not lie on a property line of the property in question, but which controls the location of one or more of the property corners of the property in question.

(15)"Property corner" means a geographic point of known geographic coordinates on the surface of the earth, and is on, a part of, and controls a property line.

(16)"Public land survey corner" means any corner actually established and monumented in an original survey or resurvey used as a basis of legal descriptions for issuing a patent for the land to a private person from the United States government.

(17)"Public land survey government corner" means:

(a)a corner that the county surveyor establishes or reestablishes under Section 17-73-201 ;

(b)a section corner, quarter section corner, or other corner that a government survey establishes; or

(c)a public land survey corner as that term is defined in Section 17-73-505 .

(18)"Reference monument" means a special monument that does not occupy the same geographical position as the corner itself, but whose spatial relationship to the corner is recorded and which serves to witness the corner.

(19)"Structure" means any organization of parts, production, or pieces artificially built up or joined together to preserve or alter any natural feature, including roads, railways, tunnels, bridges, underground or overground pipelines or cables, river works, drainage works, earthworks, retaining walls, walls, dams, tanks, towers, and fences.

(20)"Township" means a term used in the context of identifying a geographic area in common surveyor practice.

Enacted by Chapter 13 , 2025 Special Session 1