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Fun and games with the title attorney

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paden-cash
(@paden-cash)
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This has been an ongoing tennis game of emails?ÿbetween a title company attorney and me.?ÿ I prepared this survey almost three years ago and haven't heard a thing about it until about two weeks ago.?ÿ I'll save you the drudgery and condense it to a few lines:

Title attorney:?ÿ Mr. Cash, the legal description on commitment number xyz fails to properly close.?ÿ Since the closing is scheduled for?ÿAug. 6 we need a revised description that closes properly.?ÿ Your prompt action is required.

OK.?ÿ I've screwed up a few descriptions in my career..so I check it.?ÿ It closes.

Me:?ÿ I have reviewed the description for Lot 3 as recorded in Book and Page and determined the description indeed mathematically closes within 1:250,000.?ÿ?ÿOklahoma Land Surveyors?ÿMinimum Standards only require 1:10,000 for this size of rural property.?ÿ I believe the description closes properly therefor there is no need for any action on my part.

Title attorney:?ÿ I has determined the description does not close by over 2.5'.?ÿ I would like to remind you the closing is scheduled in just a few days and we need a revised description. I don't understand your reluctance to provide a description that closes.

OK. I'm getting pissed.?ÿ Please understand this is an abbreviated account of about a dozen emails...

Me:?ÿ I have checked and rechecked?ÿthe description against everything I have in my records and the recorded documents. It does indeed close properly as I have stated several times.?ÿ When, or even if, this property sells is out of my control.?ÿ?ÿI have no earthly idea why you think I have some sort of responsibility in this sale.?ÿ I prepared the original plat for my client, it was approved by the City and recorded almost three years ago.?ÿ My client sold this property almost two years ago.?ÿ If I weren't a professional I?ÿmight be tempted to tell you I don't give a rat's ass whether the property closes or not. But I am a professional and will avoid such petty remarks.?ÿ

Title attorney:?ÿ Please find attached our computer generated readout indicating the mis-closure.?ÿ Your reluctance to correct your own work can hardly be considered professional.

(This is the first I've seen of what the attorney is working with.?ÿ I immediately notice call "4" on this print is a S and W.?ÿ The recorded document is definitely a S and E.?ÿ After screwing with for over a week I've decided to keep my mouth shut and let this idiot hang himself.)

Me:?ÿ Computer generated??ÿ Wow. I need to get me one of those.?ÿ At this point I suggest you spend more time checking your own work and please lose my email address.?ÿ Signed "Affectionately, Paden Cash, PLS"

Finally a day without an email.?ÿ I get a call from the escrow agent at the title company and she is relieved everything is OK.?ÿ I have not heard from the attorney.?ÿ I bet I don't. ??ÿ

Computer generated. Wow....

 
Posted : August 14, 2018 2:07 pm
daniel-ralph
(@daniel-ralph)
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In over 40 years of practice, I only once had an attorney or title company officer (Frank Kelley) thank me for finding one of their mistakes.?ÿ

?ÿ

 
Posted : August 14, 2018 2:14 pm
jitterboogie
(@jitterboogie)
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I'd be inclined to report his document to the State board and the Bar for attempting to survey without a license.....but that's just me.....?ÿ ?ÿ

 
Posted : August 14, 2018 2:29 pm
Tom Adams
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I would have emailed back saying that whenever I think I found an error by another surveyor, I first read through my work until I find my error.?ÿ If I can't find where I made a mistake, I ask one of my colleagues, to look it over and see if they find anything strange.?ÿ I do this before kindly calling the other surveyor and tell them what I'm having problems with on their work - and I show them what I did that made me question their stuff.?ÿ None of which was done by this so-called professional.?ÿ Damn attorneys are just too used to trying to bully everyone around.

?ÿ

N

 
Posted : August 14, 2018 2:47 pm
squirl
(@squirl)
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Net Deed Plotter....we use that program here to check closures

T. Nelson - SAM

 
Posted : August 14, 2018 3:20 pm

jitterboogie
(@jitterboogie)
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Posted by: Tom Adams

I would have emailed back saying that whenever I think I found an error by another surveyor, I first read through my work until I find my error.?ÿ If I can't find where I made a mistake, I ask one of my colleagues, to look it over and see if they find anything strange.?ÿ I do this before kindly calling the other surveyor and tell them what I'm having problems with on their work - and I show them what I did that made me question their stuff.?ÿ None of which was done by this so-called professional.?ÿ Damn attorneys are just too used to trying to bully everyone around.

?ÿ

N

I had a plat thrown into my lap that took 6 months to get all the parties to sign(before i worked in the office, bad blood between parties) huge multi-lot consolidation, vacations, condemnations, ( and lions and tigers and bears oh boy!) and I couldn't get the damn thing to close properly for either the Legal, nor the Math.?ÿ So I ran the whole thing, took notes, and found his mistake:?ÿ He hadn't ( or his assistant) changed the values in the lot lines nor the description for the Distances and directions.?ÿ Nice!?ÿ I discovered and easy QC problem he could fix.?ÿ Except that it had been filed, and accepted by the county.?ÿ I re-calculated, and even had several people check my work before I gathered up the gumption to call him, and make him aware of the issue, to which he says, "wow, You're right.?ÿ Thank you for pointing this out. Well, what do I do?"

Me being only a lowly field chief and now a GIS geek, said, " I really don't know, because I'm not a surveyor yet, and my supervisor will probably know."

Turns out a corrected Plat needed to be resubmitted, and the yayhoos that initiated the process were all up in arms about having to sign it again, etc. etc.

I always called the surveyors when I found weird stuff, because they deserve the benefit of the doubt, and the respect of the position.?ÿ

Lawyers ( minus the minute percent that matter) are in general blowhards, know-it-alls, self aggrandizing seekers of approval and power.

Sorry I hijacked the post Paden, hopefully the message is intact:?ÿ Surveyors are valid, the work is professional, and no lawyer( unless they are surveyors) will ever really understand the profession.?ÿ ?ÿ

 
Posted : August 14, 2018 3:42 pm
Warren Smith
(@warren-smith)
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Yeppers, the big clue is the direction of misclosure - the bearing of the line going into the hinge point of the mislabeled line ...

 
Posted : August 14, 2018 3:43 pm
andy-j
(@andy-j)
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And I expected to see some monster of a boundary that caused such angst.?ÿ Such a tiny little thing.?ÿ ?ÿ

 
Posted : August 14, 2018 3:49 pm
Skeeter1996
(@skeeter1996)
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Funny this should come up. I'm attempting to figure the closure on a parcel that has 4 back to back curves on it's boundary. How do you calculate closure through those curves with just a radius and length??ÿ

 
Posted : August 14, 2018 6:04 pm
Skeeter1996
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Funny this should come up. I'm attempting to figure the closure on a parcel that has 4 back to back curves on it's boundary. How do you calculate closure through those curves with just a radius and length for each curve??ÿ

 
Posted : August 14, 2018 6:05 pm

david-baalman
(@david-baalman)
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Start by assuming them to be tangent to the back/ahead courses and each other. In a perfect world that will work, but we all know how perfect the world isn't. If that doesn't work try running the boundary up to the start of the curves, and then back from the end of the description to the end of the curves and see if some combination of the curves can be made to make it all close.?ÿ

 
Posted : August 14, 2018 6:35 pm
stephen-ward
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If they're reverse curves, I'd start with the assumption that they're all tangent.?ÿ With Calrson you can use the draw arc menu.?ÿ It has practically every possible way to draw a curve.?ÿ

 
Posted : August 14, 2018 6:36 pm
Skeeter1996
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He used Carlson. I've got LDD. Using CAD rotating seems to be the only way to figure them out. They are all broken back curves, none are reverse.

 
Posted : August 14, 2018 6:40 pm
david-baalman
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Can you post the description or survey? Many eyes will likely find a valid solution.?ÿ

 
Posted : August 14, 2018 7:04 pm
a-harris
(@a-harris)
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garbage in = garbage out

A local attorney and realtor have the same program, they do not understand the concept of witness calls at monuments and will add insert them between the calls of any description they are in.

Idiots, the whole lot of 'em.

 
Posted : August 14, 2018 7:23 pm

nate-the-surveyor
(@nate-the-surveyor)
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Broken back curves. My favorite.

 
Posted : August 14, 2018 7:45 pm
Skeeter1996
(@skeeter1996)
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Well, I figured it out. I have a 8088 processor and a 100 trigabyte hard drive so it takes it awhile to sort through all the data.

ANSWER: draw in the center point of the last curve with a tangent. Extend or trim that radius line to the radius of the next curve. Calculate that curve off of the new center point and so on.

?ÿ

 
Posted : August 14, 2018 7:53 pm
Skeeter1996
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Of course it would be easier if he supplied a bearing of the line as required by State Regs for nontangent curves.

 
Posted : August 14, 2018 7:57 pm