-
Contractor Setting Pins
I had a project recently where a contractor hired the company I work for to do a record of survey on a platted lot in a 1940s subdivision. The crew arrived on site and called me saying they were finding fresh pins on the property– rebar, aluminum caps, lath, etc. I thought well this is weird, but maybe the client found someone who could do it sooner or something. I told the crew I’d give the client a call and then call them back.
I called the client and explained how my crew was finding fresh pins on site and he goes “Yeah, those are temporary”. After some brief back and forth I said what do you mean temporary? How do you know they’re temporary? And he said “Because I set them”. I said something like wait what?! My crew says they’re finding actual rebar, caps, lath, etc and he goes “Yeah, I got everything on amazon”. I was pretty stunned and then he jumped in and said he’d be on site in 5 minutes and explain what’s going on to the crew.
I hung up and called the crew and told them the client set them, and the crew explained there was also a city inspector on site and that the inspector might have something to do with it. The client showed up on site and I got off the phone with the crew so they could go about their business.
After talking with the crew when they got back to the office the pieces of the puzzle started to come together. The client was demolishing an old house and building a new one. The city inspector must have been holding his building permit hostage pending the lot corners being set, and rather than wait for us to do our work he thought he’d stick some pins in the ground to fool the inspector. It just so happened my crew showed up the same day as the inspector and busted the fraudulent pins.
I ended up calling the city and explaining the situation to a supervisor in the building department so they could be on the lookout for this sort of thing in the future. I was also curious if the inspectors look for pins on every project they inspect, and the supervisor said no– generally only on new builds like this contractor was doing.
As far as the lath… there’s 1 company in my area that uses fancy lath that has their company info pre-printed on it, and this is the lath my crew found at these pins. So this contractor must have stopped and grabbed these lath off of one of their projects or maybe done a project with them previously. I gave that company a call to let them know this guy was using their lath with fraudulent pins and they thanked me for the heads up, and that’s the last I heard of it.
My crew pulled the fraudulent pins and we ended up completing the survey within the next couple weeks.
I’ve told the story to a dozen or so surveyors so far to see what they think and some are shocked and others aren’t so surprised. Anyone else run into something like this before?
-
23 Replies
-
The inspector should be looking at the stamped and signed survey map in addition to the monuments.
Also, in each of the states I’m licensed in, the caps must have either the company name and/or the surveyors license number on them. Not having that would be a give away.
-
Here in new Zealand we dont use caps to identify marks or the surveyor concerned.
But that behaviour in an offence against two sections of our Cadastral Survey Act…
56 False cadastral survey marks
Every person commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $2,000 who places in position in relation to any land a peg or mark—
(a)
that is not a cadastral survey mark properly placed; and
(b)
with the intention of causing any person to believe that it is a cadastral survey mark placed in that position for the purposes of a cadastral survey.
57 Unlicensed persons not to act as licensed cadastral surveyors
(1)
Every person commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a fine not exceeding $1,000 who, not being a licensed cadastral surveyor or a person acting under the direction of a licensed cadastral surveyor, performs or executes, or undertakes to perform or execute, anything for the purposes of a cadastral survey.
I would ask if you really want a client like that?
-
This reply was modified 2 months, 2 weeks ago by jimcox.
-
This reply was modified 2 months, 2 weeks ago by
-
I’d really think about letting the contractor’s board know what is going on.
-
The first and only question that I have is was this contractor reported to the State Board for practicing without a license? If not, you dropped the ball, whether you pulled the pins and reset them. These are the things that we should be fighting against big time.
-
The inspector will say, yup, there is a monument here and not worrying as much about what the stamp is, they are not qualified to determine state boundary laws, they are there to look at final grading and code compliance. My state requires that the licensed surveyor will certify that the monuments have been set and the towns require an escrow until the licensed surveyor makes such signed and sealed certification so that the bond can be released.
-
The inspector should be looking at the stamped and signed survey map in addition to the monuments.
That’s what I told the building department guy. He gave me the inspector’s number so I could tell him too, but that guy didn’t pick up and didn’t call me back.
Also, in each of the states I’m licensed in, the caps must have either
the company name and/or the surveyors license number on them. Not having
that would be a give away.When I talked to the crew at the end of the day they said the caps were blank which is one of the things that made them suspicious.
I would ask if you really want a client like that?
I think this might have been the first project we’ve done for this guy actually.
I’d really think about letting the contractor’s board know what is going on.
The first and only question that I have is was this contractor reported
to the State Board for practicing without a license? If not, you dropped
the ball, whether you pulled the pins and reset them. These are the
things that we should be fighting against big time.So yeah I was wondering what the proper way to handle it would be. Coworkers thought it should either be reported as unlicensed practice or simply call the guy and chew his ass. I kind of thought it should be up to the company he was impersonating to file the complaint or not.
I actually presented the scenario at the local society meeting yesterday to get a variety of feedback and the overwhelming response was that nothing could be done at all other than maybe call a sheriff since it was a civil matter.
-
Before you do anything, I’d get paid up to current. At least that’s what I would do. I find builders are just like any other category of professionals. There are good ones and bad. I just don’t worj with the bad ones anymore.
-
Our Board does not have jurisdiction over unlicensed practice. They do have to sign an agreement to pay investigation and prosecution costs before the AG even looks at it. It’s a misdemeanor so the statute of limitations usually runs out before anything happens.
The agency that governs our Board is less than useless. They roadblock every case so the Board doesn’t see it. My most recent complaint was several months ago. The (unlicensed) scumbag I turned in still advertises boundary surveys on Facebook marketplace. Our profession is being destroyed but it’s certainly no fault of Bstrand.
-
Oof, I thought the board had enough teeth to at least send a cease and desist letter. That’s my mistake, I should have known that.
-
Which state board is “Our Board?”?
-All thoughts my own, except my typos and when I am wrong. -
I recently communicated with the board about an engineer licensed as a chemical engineer and practicing civil engineering as an appointed township engineer. This same engineer did a structural engineering analysis on a historic building and came to the conclusion that the building was going to collapse on a county road that runs about 15′ off of the side of the building.
This engineer had a structural engineer on staff and never assigned him to do the evaluation that led to a road closure and two independent qualified structural engineers saying the opposite.
I contacted the state board about this and laid out the details in an email with attachments. They replied to me quickly but were clueless as to what could be done when one is a licensed PE in a specific discipline. Despite numerous back and forths, they still had no answer.
In the same situation, an IM from a construction company used company equipment to shoot the top and bottom corners of the building and went on the public record as saying that he was a surveyor, several times, and that the tilt of the building was less than 2″ and that, in his opinion, the degree of leaning means nothing. When I questioned him on his methods and what made him qualified to make that call, I found out that he was an unlicensed IM doing layout work for a living and the board wasn’t interested in that either.
-
Most board have a bark, but not a lot of bite. The state AG is the enforcement arm for the state and if there is not a major financial loss, they are not interested in enforcing the laws, rules or regs.
-
thebionicman and I are in the Boise area.
-
I came along when getting a PE in a specialty, such as Chemical Engineering was in its infancy. I went with the option of the traditional general PE. Passed the test on the first try by answering questions that were traditionally Mechanical, Civil and Chemical Engineering. None of which matched my degree. Experience may be quite varied over a lifetime. One of the brightest minds I ever met had a job title as Chemical Engineer (DuPont employee) but whose diploma proudly said Electrical Engineer
Back on topic. I have never found a contractor stupid enough to do as related above. Home owners are another story.
-
I concur with @thebionicman from much further North in Idaho.
-
I typed my opinion of the Idaho AG and deleted it. It’s not worth getting banned…
-
I contacted the state board about this and laid out the details in an email with attachments. They replied to me quickly but were clueless as to what could be done when one is a licensed PE in a specific discipline. Despite numerous back and forths, they still had no answer.
It seems like the board in Washington takes these things seriously. You can look up the Winter 2023 journal and see that they fined an engineer $5,000 for working outside his area of expertise, as well as a written agreement limiting his practice. Another had to agree to have all his systems reviewed for two years. And there are investigations of surveyors as well.
Regarding different types of engineering, in WA, there are PE’s and SE’s. The stamp is the same for all engineers except for structural. That said, it is certainly against RCW 18.43.105(10) to perform services outside your area of expertise.
RCW 18.43.105(10) Committing any other act, or failing to act, which act or failure are customarily regarded as being contrary to the accepted professional conduct or standard generally expected of those practicing professional engineering or land surveying.
And this law is clearly defined in the WAC196-27A-020: Fundamental canons and guidelines for professional conduct and practice.
WAC196-27A-020(2)(e) Registrants must be qualified by education or experience in the technical field of engineering or land surveying applicable to services performed.
-All thoughts my own, except my typos and when I am wrong. -
Checked out the most recent list of violations announced by the Kansas State Board of Technical Professions (Engineering, Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Land Surveying and Geology).
The first three listed were of the PS variety, then one PE and one non-licensed business doing engineering. All were assessed fines plus costs of investigation. In every case the fine was inadequate to dissuade future misbehavior, in my opinion.
-
Our board wouldn’t proceed with this complaint. They are focused on clamping down on registrants. They also will look into un-registrants that offer surveying services for pay. In this case the contractor wasn’t advertising surveying services, his focus was building.
What he did was weird, possibly fraud because he was trying to fool the inspectors, but since he called the OP to “make it legal” then I really doubt our board would jump into this one. I would certainly have a talk with him to not do this again. But it’s more on the agency that is doing the inspection than the surveying board. The complaint should go to them, if anyone.
It’s often up to us to police the profession. Just a couple of weeks ago I had a similar situation. A un-licensed person was doing some work for one of my clients. I came down pretty hard on my client and to get it cleaned up I went to the field and fixed it all. With all the technology out there available, this will continue to happen, you could file complaints against every GIS department, planner, utility, developer, Google, ect. if you want to get really picky.
I would pick my battles when going to the board.
-
Costs of investigation and prosecution can start in the tens of thousands. Defending yourself can run to six figures in a contested case…
Log in to reply.