first american?

Seems a little bizarre to me. Call em up and ask how much for a lot/block, then balk and tell em your title co. said it shouldn't be any more than $300!

well, insofar as the title company is often the actual (as opposed to proxy) client on anything involving a commitment, i can see where bringing the work in-house would make sense, but i still get some vague conflict-of-interest feelings about it.

much of this may be in light of what i'm experiencing much more lately- title companies either missing exceptions entirely or else willing to turn them loose in order to get deals done. i've been apoplectic on more than one occasion in the past few months where the title company wanted me to either state an exception didn't affect a tract when it was clearly impossible to do so or, in one particular instance, wanted me to change an exception on a survey to state "access easement" instead of "dedicated public right-of-way" despite iron-clad language in the dedication- all for the sake of getting a closing.

I will have to see if this is going on here.
The sample maps are convincing to the non-surveyor but heaven help them if they actually need to know where the easements are when they are not dimensioned to anything on the map or ground. I also wouldn't state the area of a parcel with a bounds description (to the nearest hundredth of a foot) without actually visiting the site. But wait! The Parcels listed above are contiguous and contain no apparent gaps, gores or overlaps that one can see from 1,500' agl.
OMG, I need a vacation.

My only knowledge of that service is from three years ago. They accepted an ALTA request for a site in Tucson which they subbed out to a survey firm in Nevada, which was run by a non-registrant. He faked the survey*, and paid an Arizona registrant the grand fee of $70 to use his license to seal and sign the ALTA survey. It started to unravel when the building department repeatedly refused to accept the survey drawing as part of the building plans, knowing something had to be wrong. It really unraveled twenty minutes after I arrived on the site because the errors were so glaring.

*He scaled the drawing from the county GIS aerial, which was off about seven feet, and picked information from here and there to make it look good. The benchmark was off about 150 feet, etc.

well, if you go to their job listings they are hiring a bunch of crews, techs, and registrants.

flyinsolo, post: 379703, member: 11880 wrote: well, if you go to their job listings they are hiring a bunch of crews, techs, and registrants.

I don't have my own license, but I think if I did then it seems like that would be the last place I would want to work. Upper management would probably be trying to play Licensed Professional, all the while telling you how to do your surveying.

It seems the word "Professional" means little any more. From reading this board I am under the impression that some surveyors in the East still abstract their client‰Ûªs titles. In the West, we surveyors have got away from abstracting to the point that very few surveyors can research and abstract title in the County Clerk‰Ûªs office. We have been taught to rely on preliminary title reports even though title companies seem to be getting less and less professional in the product(s) they produce and adding more and more catch all disclaimers in the recent years. Ya all have a wonderful Independence Day weekend! My 2 cents, Jp

flyinsolo, post: 379695, member: 11880 wrote: anyone see that they are (apparently) ramping up in-house surveying? or has this been going on forever and i never noticed?

is there anything patently weird about this to anyone?

http://www.firstam.com/title/products/due-diligence/commercial-due-diligence.html

This is the home of "Express Map" an alternative to ALTA/ACSM surveys. Search "Express Map" (including the quotes) on this site and you will get a number of posts going back to 2011. These posts are a history lesson on why that firm accepted the non-survey Bruce Small mentioned. Those involved were using the firms own methods to create the cartoon he describes.

Jp7191, post: 379710, member: 1617 wrote: From reading this board I am under the impression that some surveyors in the East still abstract their client‰Ûªs titles.

Working on one now where a retired DOT moonlighter out of NJ did a quickie dicky subdivision in 1992 showing one lot having frontage on a state highway. My abstracting reveals a deed out in 1847 for most of the road frontage to an adjoiner.

I think they hire kind of regularly. I see the ads from time to time.

I am curious to how First American might be able to use surveys you prepare with a certification to them and to continue to use that survey to issue title policies. The more surveys they have in their database, the more competitive they can be.

example: they have a survey certified by you for a previous owner naming FA as insured. the property changes hands and FA negotiates a fee for an updated survey. FA observes and notates changes and uses your survey as a base. Several years later, a problem arises. Who do you think FA is going to ask to make the owner whole?

That said, the commercial group at FA that I have worked with are very professional.

hpalmer, post: 382027, member: 336 wrote: That said, the commercial group at FA that I have worked with are very professional.

I also consider First American to be in the top tier of land title insurers. My experience is mostly on the claims side of things and there they have been really quite exemplary for their handling of the Texas claims I'm familiar with.

The individual title company would probably be who would be using previous surveys over and over.

"ExpressMap is an innovative and cost-effective alternative to an ALTA land title survey"

Also known as a "copy of a previous survey" which is "close enough". 😎