I wrote a description for an easement and drafted an exhibit for a public trail through my client's (not the town) property.
The town paid another firm to review my work. There were a few comments that I thought were simply personal preference but I made the changes and the easement was recorded.
The other firm sent me an email today; saying that the town has hired them to do some work in the area and he is asking me for my cadd files.
Do I send him the files?
TIA
Dougie
> I wrote a description for an easement and drafted an exhibit for a public trail through my client's (not the town) property.
>
> The town paid another firm to review my work. There were a few comments that I thought were simply personal preference but I made the changes and the easement was recorded.
>
> The other firm sent me an email today; saying that the town has hired them to do some work in the area and he is asking me for my cadd files.
>
> Do I send him the files?
After I called the town and client and explained as clearly as you did here, I see no problem. May even save the town some money and you'd be a hero instead of hard to get along with guy that may cost them more. Technically you own the files, but it never hurts be on both the municipalities and competing firms "good side".
And you can always play role reversal. Would you request said data? Likely so.
I'd be somewhat worried that the town officials got the impression "Radar made a bunch of mistakes and the other firm kept us out of trouble," and that's why the other firm got the follow-up work. Of course, the other firm had to find something "wrong" to justify their fee.
Anything you can do to make a good impression (let the town know you helped out, and they liked your data enough to use it) could be good for business.
Forward the town officials when you send the email so everyone know where the information came from.
Would you charge for something like this?
This involved a lot of field work in very rough terrain. I did a boundary survey in the same section a few years ago; that made this a lot easier than it would have been from scratch.
:-S
> Would you charge for something like this?
>
> This involved a lot of field work in very rough terrain. I did a boundary survey in the same section a few years ago; that made this a lot easier than it would have been from scratch.
Good luck with that. Never hurts to ask. Us surveyor folks look at records for profit and make the job go easier, and maintain harmony in the neighborhood. Clients tend to look at it as how long it took for you to complete their job.
At the end of the day the job is worth X. They think it's worth X-1. If it takes you X-10 to finish it based on prior work, good for you. If they know you're at X-10 and still charge them X, then they tend to get a bit sphenchtered up. Doesn't matter if they agreed on it prior. And as Bill pointed out, was the town mad about something? That's a big deal IMVHO.
I hate stuff like this.
> I wrote a description for an easement and drafted an exhibit for a public trail through my client's (not the town) property.
>
> The town paid another firm to review my work. There were a few comments that I thought were simply personal preference but I made the changes and the easement was recorded.
>
> The other firm sent me an email today; saying that the town has hired them to do some work in the area and he is asking me for my cadd files.
>
> Do I send him the files?
>
> TIA
> Dougie
These are your files that your client paid good money for. Are you under a contract to provide them data? Why would you 'give' away your valuable data?
Just because they are a municipality doesn't give them free reign over your data.
We're in business to make money not give away data. Sure, we want to be on the city's good side and it's not necessarily a bad thing to be on your competitions good side but at what cost?
This situation does not happen very often but when it does I ask myself what would my E&O Insurance Company say about this issue? Followed by what would the other surveyors E&O Insurance Company say? Followed by what would a Judge say? Followed by what would the BOR say? Followed by what would my Mom do?
Usually after all that, I have my answer. But honestly, unless you have current data on such a large scope that it is not otherwise recorded somewhere, a CAD file is more trouble then one expects it to be.
Doug,
My first response would be: “Let me check with my clients.”
When we think this through, did they plan to get your info to use to complete their work? Probably.
Will they go over budget if they don’t have access to your work? Probably.
Will they use the info from your survey that they already have? Probably.
Will they do all the work that you have done over again to do this City Job? I don’t think so.
Were you able to bill out all your hours that have provided you with the information to this point? Probably not.
Well, you see where we are going with this concept.
They already have some of your info and that is fine. They can match that.
The rest of it should be very valuable to you and not for just giving away.
I could see you suggesting to them that you were not able to bill out all the time spent on the work you did in this section, and for xx many hours at xxx.xx $$ per hour you would be willing to provide the CADD files to them. (Of course that is with the approval of your clients.)
Any businessman or businesswoman could relate to this concept.
If it is too much for them to pay, let them do the work themselves.
I may give the file to the City, but this is a competitor who knows you have the data and is asking for it. Hmmmm, not the same animal.