WAKE FOREST - When Randy and Stacey Brown's 8-year-old son jumps on his backyard trampoline, he sometimes lands in Wake County, sometimes in Franklin County.

The Browns hope the state legislature will make sure their son always touches down in Wake.

The Browns and at least two other families thought they were moving to Wake County when they bought houses on Cherry Pond Court in Wake Forest two years ago. The taxes are lower in Wake, and they were attracted by the schools.

But the families learned something was wrong in late summer 2004, when Cherry Pond Court resident Ramona Casteen got a tax bill from Franklin County.

"Maybe that's for you," Brown recalled telling her neighbor. "But it didn't apply to me. My deed says Wake County. A Franklin County adjuster came out to appraise the place, and I wouldn't let him in."

Randy Nemeth said he, his wife and three children lived in the neighborhood about six months when Wake County schools informed him that his home was not in Wake.

"We moved from Franklin County to get our kids into Wake County schools," Nemeth said. "All of the paperwork and the deeds were registered with Wake County."

State and county officials trace the discrepancy to a private surveyor who mislaid the Wake-Franklin boundary through the Richland Hills subdivision where Brown, Casteen and Nemeth live.

On May 15, the Franklin County Board of Commissioners voted to ask the North Carolina Geodetic Survey to remap the county line and cede the four lots to Wake. Franklin County Manager Chris Coudriet said county officials had to consider the feelings of the homeowners.

"It's no different than if someone bought a car they thought was a Toyota but it turns out to be a Ford because it was mislabeled," Coudriet said.

If Wake agrees, Franklin's request to relinquish the lots will be decided by the General Assembly, which must approve changes in county lines.

Roger Barnes, the state's county boundary surveyor with the NCGS, said the state would resurvey the entire Franklin-Wake line -- more than 12 miles -- raising the possibility that other homeowners might find themselves in a different county.

Barnes said the error at Cherry Pond Court was almost inevitable because the county line was last surveyed in 1915.

"Since it has not been surveyed in almost 100 years, the line itself is ill-defined," he said. "You have to survey the entire line to know [where the boundaries are]. It's not the responsibility of a private surveyor to survey the entire line."

The engineering firm of Bass Kennedy and Nixon surveyed the platte that became Cherry Pond Court, relying on information from the Wake and Franklin county courthouses, including tax records, said Scott Wilson, a surveyor with the firm.

Wilson said the 1915 boundary line has become nearly non-existent.

"There's no evidence of the original county lines," Wilson said. "The old surveyors placed rocks in the woods that have been long gone because of development, or they were plowed under for farmland."

The state's survey of the county boundaries will be submitted to the General Assembly early next year. The Browns are counting on the legislature's approval. Their son loves his Wake County school.

"I sub there; he's got friends there," Stacey Brown said. "If this thing is not approved, I am going to have to move."

(News researcher Paulette Stiles contributed to this report.)