a fool and his money are soon parted
@norman-oklahoma I remember a case in Arizona a few years ago where the contract limited the liabilitiy to the cost of the engineering design, and it was upheld.
I remember a case in Arizona a few years ago where the contract limited the liabilitiy to the cost of the engineering design, and it was upheld.
The contract would be the place to attempt to limit liability, not a post hoc statement on the deliverable.
Many surveys are filed and the grantee is the
Wait for it
the
PUBLIC
ALTA's are a weird, strange, odd subset of surveying, it's not valid to thrust that process onto other types of surveying.
You can't "certify" only to the client when you file a Subdivision, ROS, CR COS, well plat, water right, ect.
Like it or not, those are PUBLIC documents.
The secret lil process that is an ALTA is a standalone thing.
You can't disclaim liability on your surveys. Your state laws regarding discovery and repose will not be changed by whatever you want to write on the map. It just makes you look unprofessional.
If you are sued, the plaintiff's attorney needs to show the client had a right to depend on your survey. If you certify it to that client the attorney can skip that step. Otherwise I don't think the certification changes anything.
So the issue here is whether the disclaimer prevents them from showing they had a right to depend on the survey.
The disclaimer would appear to make it harder for them, particularly in a case where the topo was wrong or became invalid due to later physical changes.
But statutes and board rules may still make the disclaimer invalid regarding boundaries.
The fact that we as a profession are expected to certify our work makes us appear unprofessional. Not to mention it is often required by boards made up of our peers.
I have a Professional license and am bound to comply with state laws and board rules and regulations and that should be enough.
Why shouldn't your survey be used by others? If you're the first surveyor to completely break down a section, shouldn't all current and future landowners be able to rely on that breakdown? Shouldn't surveyors that come after you be able to rely on that same breakdown?
I think the issue is more about topographic surveys, I would think.
The part about intended use will hold some water, the part about limiting your liability to your immediate client may not.
Regardless of who you certify to and try to limit it to, you will have liability to anyone who reasonably should be able to rely on it. That will typically include future grantees, tenants, and certain agents of your client, as long as other conditions have not changed and they are using it in accordance with the originally intended use.
Federal and many, if not most state courts have tossed the requirement for a contractual relationship in favor of reasonable reliance standard many years ago.
Btw one of the surveyors I spotted using that also uses this:
BOUNDARY LINES SHOWN AND CORNERS SET REPRESENT DEED LOCATIONS; OWNERSHIP LINES MAY VARY. NO GUARANTEE OF OWNERSHIP IS EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED.
I wonder if the client is aware when he hires this person that no guarantee of ownership is going to be implied by the stakes that will be set around his property.
That is a useless geometric exercise and certainly not a boundary survey. To tie in with another thread I was just reading, this is part of what keeps surveyor wages lower than they should be: lack of professional training and lack of understanding of what professional service is.
@chris-bouffard Our first and foremost obligation is the health, safety, and welfare of the public.
Btw one of the surveyors I spotted using that also uses this:
BOUNDARY LINES SHOWN AND CORNERS SET REPRESENT DEED LOCATIONS; OWNERSHIP LINES MAY VARY. NO GUARANTEE OF OWNERSHIP IS EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED.
I wonder if the client is aware when he hires this person that no guarantee of ownership is going to be implied by the stakes that will be set around his property.
That is a useless geometric exercise and certainly not a boundary survey. To tie in with another thread I was just reading, this is part of what keeps surveyor wages lower than they should be: lack of professional training and lack of understanding of what professional service is.
A survey NEVER guarantees ownership. We make a determination of a legal description, and we form expert opinions as to the intent therein, but no way does a competent surveyor guarantee ownership. A statutory warranty deed makes a guarantee of ownership (a guarantee from the seller). Title insurance (subject to exceptions) provides a guarantee of ownership, a guarantee backed by the underwriting insurance company and subject to exceptions.
What sort of guarantee is the surveyor making? To make a guarantee, you would need full title research all the way back to first out, review of all the original documents, do the field survey, and have underwriting (or deep enough pockets yourself) to cover if you missed any little item for the past one to four hundred years (depending on where you do the survey). In addition, you would need the training of a real estate lawyer, and a title officer, as well as your current expertise as a surveyor.
The closest thing to a guarantee is a statutory warranty deed from someone with pockets deep enough to make it right, a proper title insurance policy (with an ALTA/NSPS survey) from good title company underwritten by a financially solid entity, and the all of the above reviewed by a competent real estate lawyer. That is what a good commercial lender does when they write a mortgage for a significant asset. A survey is only part of that, and it is in no way a guarantee.
A proper boundary survey is an expert opinion as to the location of certain described real estate the bounds of which have been found and/or marked in the field combined with a maintained record of that survey (in surveyor's records, at the courthouse, whatever).
Nowhere in that statement, and nowhere in any law in my state, does a survey constitute a guarantee of OWNERSHIP.
@dmyhill Perhaps his wording was lacking, but I think he was complaining about surveying the deed vs the evidence of the boundary. Perhaps I'm wrong. The survey should reflect what is owned if anything is owned and not the deed description.
Better yet the survey should show what is able to be owned. It should show ownership lines, not deed lines. Who the owner is, is a matter of title.
Curious as to what the good people of this board think about this note:
THIS SURVEY WAS PREPARED FOR THE EXCLUSIVE USE OF THE CLIENT NAMED HEREON, ONLY FOR THE PURPOSE FOR WHICH IT WAS ORIGINALLY INTENDED. ITS USE DOES NOT EXTEND TO AND IS NOT AUTHORIZED FOR USE BY ANY UNNAMED PERSON OR PERSONS. THIS SURVEY IS NOT TRANSFERABLE TO ANY OTHER PARTY WITHOUT THE EXPRESS PERMISSION AND RECERTIFICARTION BY THIS SURVEYOR TO ANOTHER PARTY.
TIA
Dougie
I’m wondering if this was an attempt at protecting his product from being used by another for a use it was not intended for. Permitting etc.
It may be suitable for depicting the boundary of a piece of land but not for calculating lot coverage etc.
Have any of you came across a plan that was clearly your work but someone has manipulated it by stripping all identifying features of who created the original plan and made it to look their own. New title, date, prepared by etc.
Kinda feels like you got ripped off.
