Time for Board to enforce California Law 8762?
I am a young surveyor, so I know this is a conversation that has gone on for a long time before me – but the California code section 8762, in regards to when a Record of Survey Map is required, is quite a frustrating code section for me on a lot of accounts.
Many surveyors I know, even respected ones, don’t file Record of Survey maps when they are required to. Some out of laziness, for sure. Some out of project oversight. Some because they want to save the client money. I’m not advocating for trying to get out of filing a record of survey, but it seems to me either the law needs to change, or the enforcement needs to change.
I don’t see the law changing, to be sure, but what about the enforcement? I’m not much into government oversight over private matters, but if we are going to have the law, it has to be enforced. To me, you either have the wild wild west of unrecorded maps with no filing law, or you keep the law and have it be a hefty fine for when you’re caught breaking it. Especially on the more obvious/clear ones like no record of survey filed for a Deeded lot. Why not have hefty fines so that everyone is playing by the same rules?
But as a young surveyor I find myself in a difficult spot to navigate through CA law. Deeded lot – ok, Record of Survey. Mapped lot – no record of survey unless I find a material discrepancy. I can’t know if their is a material discrepancy unless I survey it; and if I survey it and find it, they say I have to file a map. So now I’m telling my clients it could be a simple, affordable survey OR it could be a 5,000 survey recorded with the County. That is quite a potential cost. I honestly just don’t see how we are serving the public or our businesses unless something changes.
Why can’t there be something that makes more sense for all parties – something where there is some skin in the game for the surveyor. If the surveyor does the work and finds the discrepancy, then he notifies the client of the cost – if the client doesn’t want to pay for it, then the surveyor can’t provide his work and get paid. This way, at least the Client knows “this will be a Record of Survey” for sure, and alleviates the surveyor from filing a map if the client doesn’t want to do it. Not sure if this makes sense.
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