why does an ChildAnimatorState position property not accept a new value

hi guys

hope someone can help, after programatically creating animator states in my current project, i wanted the animator states created to be sorted into multiple columns, the odd thing is that the entry,any state & exit allow repositioning but the actual animatorstates/animatorstatemachines ignore the setting of the position property.

consder the following code

 const float SEPERATION = 100f;
 Vector3 col1 = new Vector3(0, 0, 0);
 Vector3 col2 = new Vector3(SEPERATION * 2, 0, 0);
 Vector3 col3 = new Vector3(SEPERATION * 4, 0, 0);  var Parent = GetComponent<Animator>().runtimeAnimatorController.layers[0].stateMachine;
 
 // align the entry states in column 1  (working)
 Parent.entryPosition = col1; col1.y += SEPERATION;
 Parent.anyStatePosition = col1; col1.y += SEPERATION;
 
 // align the created states in column 2 (not working)
 for (int i = 0; i < Parent.stateMachines.Length; i++)
 {
       Parent.stateMachines[i].position = col2;
       col2.y += SEPERATION;
 }
 
 // align the exit states in column 3 (working)
 Parent.exitPosition = col3; col3.y += SEPERATION;

any thoughts on why the position property inspite of having set just plain ignores the value, is there a way to align the animator states, this is an editor tool not runtime.