Unless you didn't discover a material discrepancy I'm guessing most related statutes would compel you to record the survey.
Not if you do not finish the survey project.?ÿ Everything is preliminary and preliminary work is not considered a final product.
Bankruptcy does wonderful things for people and companies with money to protect.
Go figure. ?????ÿ
Better yet, if you live in a non recording state, be aware that mandatory recording is not a panacea.?ÿ If your state tries to adopt mandatory recording laws, try to stop it or at least put some road blocks in to prevent increased fees and runaway recording requirements.
@dmyhill:?ÿ"I tell my clients that they pay me, but I work for the cadaster. I make decisions without regard to feelings and without regard to whom is paying me, and that is why they can trust me."
Why on Earth would you assume that someone who views their client as a human being and not a number must automatically be bending or breaking laws for them??ÿ When I'm assigning weight to the evidence gathered, I do it the same way you describe.?ÿ However, when it comes to parol evidence, feelings must be evaluated.?ÿ Knowing who hates who, having insights into family dynamic etc, can often make me view my emotionless facts through a different lens.?ÿ Also, I grew up poor and this allowed me to witness first hand how easily educated people can be misled by "ignorant hicks".?ÿ Through interviews, I can sometimes pick out the fellow who knows more than he's letting on which might explain why one iron is conveniently out of place.?ÿ Certain facts don't care about your feelings, but to entirely dismiss intuition is extreme folly.
I am learning that most PLSS PLSs share your view.?ÿ I have never worked in the PLSS and I have never had the view that I work for the cadastre and not my client.?ÿ I encourage my clients to record the surveys I perform and most do.?ÿ The cadastre gets maintained through honest work.?ÿ?ÿ
I work for my clients by focusing on their problem and solving it by the best legal means that suits their needs even if I would prefer to handle the situation differently.?ÿ That doesn't mean I do crap surveys because my client wants it cheap.?ÿ It means that I prioritize solving their problems and use my knowledge of local and state law to navigate them through the process.?ÿ?ÿ
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That's one way to look at it.?ÿ Here is another:
The right of privacy does not need to be explained or defended (yet) in the USA.?ÿ My clients are free to covet the knowledge they paid me to acquire for them.?ÿ Adjoiners are free to walk their boundary and view the conspicuously marked monuments that I've set or found.?ÿ Adjoiners are free to ask my client for a copy of the survey.?ÿ Adjoiners are free to get their lot surveyed.?ÿ Adjoiners can ask me what I'm doing and I will tell them that I am surveying their shared boundary with Jones.?ÿ?ÿ
The idea of private boundaries cheapens our work. We can't exercise our quasi-judicial functions under the cover of night.
So you define all surveys that don't produce a recorded plat as "secretive"??ÿ This is a poorly thought out idea.?ÿ Mandatory recording is a new concept.?ÿ Boundaries have been maintained in the Colonial tradition for millennia and were not consider secret until mandatory recording came about.?ÿ ?ÿ The foundation of Common Law, as it relates to real property, is that tangible monumentation of the boundary is superior to all else.?ÿ Recorded plats are nice, but they are not necessary.?ÿ I record more surveys than not, but I place a high value on the right of my client to use the knowledge they paid for as they see fit.
If I set an iron, hack a tree thrice, and hang blue and pink flagging around it am I being secretive??ÿ
Far from quasi-judicial, the PLS in the mandatory recording state becomes quasi-administrative.?ÿ?ÿ
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You are only quasi administrative if you refuse to make boundary decisions as some do.?ÿ
Your blue and pink flagging will be gone withen a few months, the "iron" will be 4' underground, surrounded by other miscellaneous?ÿ pieces of metal, or pulled out by heavy equipment XXX years from now. The tree will be down....
Before any of this happens the neighbours surveyor finds your monument in a position he didn't expect it to be. You have not communicated your reasoning to anyone but the curmudgeon who was your client. Faced with a choice between what the neighbour's surveyor thinks is a water tight boundary analysis and an "iron" unknown source that has never been seen by anyone except you and your client the neighbour's surveyor sets a new monument and tells only the neighbour.
A few years later one of the parcels needs to be surveyed again, because neither of the previous surveys are available to the new owner, and she is confused by all the pieces of metal sticking outbifbthe ground, the new surveyor faces the same dilimea as the second...
Yes, pincusions occur in recording states too, but trecording?ÿ provides the information to be able to evaluate the conditions on the ground based on something other than the third, or fourth, or....surveyor's opinion; to be able to know what evidence that is no longer visible or apparently unimportant?ÿ to look for;?ÿ to minimize the need for wasteful repeat surveys: to inform interested parties of the facts that effect their rights....
Having worked in both recording and non recording states my experience is that a survey in a recording state is a much more valuable thing.
Personally I felt much more satisfied with my job producing documents that will likely be used for a hundred years or more than producing a survey that will only last as long as one person's memory.
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@aliquot That is easily solved by sending letters to the adjoiners asking them for any mapping they might have.?ÿ Or knocking on their door and having a discussion with them.
In my part of the world that might mean contacting every land owner in four sections, for just a start.
Bad laws (like those that allow extortion by the supposed petty municipality) are not a reason to forego good laws.
In WA, the same state statute that requires a recording to occur also carefully defines what must be on a survey if it is on the paper, it must be recorded. The same law that gives me a duty to record also gives me a right to record.?ÿ
It is those states without a recording act that would have an issue where you might WANT to record something, but there is no framework to compel a municipality to do so. I am guessing that your experiences in a non-recording state would reflect that, but those experiences should not be projected to other situations.
What exactly does it mean that, "Nobody else can use that survey"?
Does it just poof explode if someone else reads it? You signed it to be true and accurate. I understand limiting who you are liable to, but it still shows what it shows.
And, even in a recording state, that survey is a snapshot in time. It is valid in that moment to show the existing conditions.
I will point out that, even in a recording state, there are a lot of surveys that are done, with maps prepared, that aren't filed. It is just the ones where property corners are monumented that get filed.
Yes, the usual consumer of recorded surveys is the next surveyor in.?ÿ Which benefits the public by improving the quality of that surveyors work.?ÿ?ÿ
Fees aren't always high in recording states.?ÿ I'm in one of the most populated counties in Iowa and the recording fee for a plat is $7 + $5 per additional page.
Including how to hide the evidence, bodies, etc etc etc.....
Field work is a great mind expanding adventure.?ÿ?ÿ
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I've not worked in a non-recording state. But I do work in states where some would consider them non-recording. Seems to be a matter of degree.
I'm glad I don't have a $3000 fee to add to each existing lot survey that is already recorded.?ÿ
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What makes you think they will have the survey done for three owners and 50 years ago? Neighbours often have no interest in helping their neighbor reveal their encroachments...
Of course this is what you have to do , but it doesn't?ÿ solve the problem, much less easily.?ÿ