California Business and Professions Code Section 8762

See California Board Rule No. 464(e) regarding Corner Records. Basically, if you find sufficient monumentation to establish the precise location on the ground of a corner shown on a previous map, you can file a Corner Record in lieu of a Record of Survey.

I would not advise adopting CA 8762 unless you want to drive Oregon surveyors as crazy as it does CA surveyors.

Mark in CA.

Basically, one needs to file SOMETHING WHEN a reprenstation of a boundary is made to a client. Corner record or Record of survey is what will be required. My thought is that the RS section of the PLS act is actually pretty good. The problem comes from folks trying to figure out how not to comply or outright ignoring it altogether.

Because of funding for government the fees for filing, review, and recording a record of survey are just going out of sight and this is a dis-incentive to file and that is really to bad. There is one county where there is no fee except the nominal record fee and even there they do not have a stellar compliance record....

I think §8762 is fine. What I suggest is that you carefully watch the implementation of the Oregon equivalent of §8766.5, the ROS examination fee. If you can cap that fee statewide at a modest amount, then you'll be in good shape. If you allow full cost recovery on a county-by-county basis, you'll end up with the mess California has: the cost varies from $0 to over $1,000. Some charge on a time-and-materials basis, which makes it very difficult to estimate fees in advance. The high-cost counties see more resistance to filing, and more surveyors willing to turn a blind eye toward the fine points of the law.

Capping the fee at some nominal number (e.g. $100) would promote more filing and produce better land records. However, this would requore the counties to subsidize the examination, because a competent review takes real time which costs real money. I think it's worth it, but county budget folks are naturally opposed to the idea.

Good luck!

>
> A suggestion was made at our chapter meeting last night to modify our Record of Survey filing law, patterning it after California's.

What is the reason for wanting to modify the existing law?

DJJ

> do you have to file a Survey after resetting a corner of record if the record dimensions work?

You file on every survey where you set a monument. What is filed depends on the surveyors interpetation of material discrepancy. Some guys may think 0.01' is cause for an RS instead of a CR, other guys may consider a few inches ok for a CR..all depends.

If you do adopt the standards, get some stuff hammered down first. Do not leave it up to a boards interpetation to tell you what to do next, it always changes anyway.

I second Jim about the fees. Those started at $ 100 then got totally out of hand just to review a surveyors opinion in some counties. Orange County is no charge. La County $ 170..

County fees are paid by the client.

Mark,

I am just going from a very OLD memory here, so don't shoot me if I am suffering from some mental defect, BUT. . . .

It seems to me that CA uses the word "determine" where OR uses "establish". It seems to me that a few years ago the CA board came down quite heavily on a surveyor because he "determined" the location of a property without filing a Record of Survey or a Corner Record. Apparently all he did was to do dilligent research so that he could give a reasonable bid on actually surveying the property. I do not believe that he got the job. There was probably more to the story, since it seems unlikely that the board would spend their time on such, but even if it is only the "they could", would make me wary of adopting the deletion of the word "monument" without having substantial definitions of such things as "establish", "boundary", and a few other words in ORS.

Geezer

Geezer...

> It seems to me that CA uses the word "determine" where OR uses "establish". It seems to me that a few years ago the CA board came down quite heavily on a surveyor because he "determined" the location of a property without filing a Record of Survey or a Corner Record. Apparently all he did was to do dilligent research so that he could give a reasonable bid on actually surveying the property. I do not believe that he got the job....

Some years back I posted on the old RPLS board about just determining a line that an RS would be needed for but no monuments would be set. I think that I posted that done in 2002 or early 2003.

I was roasted and toasted. One feller in particular who posts on here, and I wont mention *** ******, felt that I should be tarred, feathered and stripped of my license. His *solitary* opinion was that in an LS even *thinks* about an RS line and with the research in hand, but no job on the table, the LS *must* file with the county. I never did get the job but I sure did get an ear full.

If the CA board actually did go after an LS for something similar then I would love to read about it.

Geezer...

I don't remember a case where a surveyor just bidding a job and not representing his findings to anybody about his boundary "determination" or "establishment" or whatever you want to call it resulted in disciplinary action, but I'd be curious to read about it too.

I guess I should quit looking at survey monuments as I walk down the sidewalk because if there's no record of them, I could get in trouble even I'm just going to the store.;-)

Steven

> I guess I should quit looking at survey monuments as I walk down the sidewalk because if there's no record of them, I could get in trouble even I'm just going to the store.;-)

Haha funny you should say that, it's almost verbatim of one of my responses back to the poster who wanted me skinned alive a few years ago.

Mark in CA.

> Because of funding for government the fees for filing, review, and recording a record of survey are just going out of sight and this is a dis-incentive to file and that is really to bad. There is one county where there is no fee except the nominal record fee and even there they do not have a stellar compliance record....

We have some high fees for recording here in the Portland, Oregon area. Not as high as some parts of California, I hear.

>
> Capping the fee at some nominal number (e.g. $100) would promote more filing and produce better land records. However, this would requore the counties to subsidize the examination, because a competent review takes real time which costs real money. I think it's worth it, but county budget folks are naturally opposed to the idea.
>
> Good luck!

The highest fee in Oregon, that I know of, is $400 in Clackamas County. It results in surveyors avoiding recording, with negative results. The perfect has become the enemy of the good.

> What is the reason for wanting to modify the existing law?
>
> DJJ

The recording law we have, and the interpretation of it that Greater Portland area County Surveyors have taken, has pushed the price of the simplest lot survey to well over $2000 - exclusive of the filing fee which runs up to (another) $400. For that reason more and more surveyors are taking the approach of setting "temporary" wood hubs for property corners and not filing a survey. The association is casting about for a way of dealing with that.

Oregon does use "establish" and reestablish". Yes, these words do get parsed. Such as what constitutes a "permanent" monument.

So . . . I checked with the California Board.
The situation was that the surveyor visited the property and found two monuments which appered to be the corners of the property. However, they were NOT of record. He told his client that they WERE the corners, but did not file a Corner Record since he did not re-establish any monument. The board DID take action against him. In talking with the Board rep., I did find out that this case has caused a lot of consternation (my word, not theirs) and that it has brought up much discussion about what the word "establish" means.

My whole point was that IF the law is to be changed, I would hope that enough thought is put into it so that the new wording makes it clear what the intent of the law is, and removes the "wiggle" out of it, while at the same time, not giving the "long arm of the law" a way to "reach" an inocent surveyor, trying to do a diligent job.

The case WAS in the mid 1990's and the wording of the law in California has been changed apparently on several occasions: Still a work in progress.

Geezer