If you were asked if you wanted to pay for a service, that you knew little or nothing about and you were told that it usually wasn't needed, but sometimes was critical to the most important purchase of your life and you had the option to opt out of paying for it, if you'd like, would you want to pay for it?
Hell no, why should I pay a $1,000 for something that means nothing?... Wait a minute, what happens if it is critical to the most important purchace of my life? $1,000 doesn't seem like too much......what? It's going to be $5,000? Still, it will show me the potential for a lawsuit that will cost many times more, I'll take it.
How do you accomplish this you ask? Certified title. create a means by which all real estate transactions must be certified through a Land title and Survey Authority System. And let them do it electronically, on line.
It's working in British Columbia, the reason it's working is because they only have 3 offices controling the entire province.
BC=364,800 sq mi
TX=268,820 sq mi.
Just to give you a little perspective.
Yeah, but Canada recognizes Land Surveyors as true professionals and actually expects them to meet and maintain professional level standards of practice while here in the US, it has ben a long time since surveyors were considereed by any other than surveyors to be true professionals, and many states have been busy dumbing down the profession by simplifying exams, lowering cut scores, relaxing requirements to take the exam, and in a couple of cases, considering doing away with professional stature entirely.
To change public perceptions, we have to change the culture of our profession, raise standards of practice and standards of entry, or attainment of licensed status. I don't think the key to our survival as a profession is increased numbers if it is achieved by lowering standards. Rather it is in raising standards so that the level of knowledge and conduct is clearly on par with other recognized professions.
If, and it's a really big if, we can achieve that, then a system recognizing or granting a greater level of authority to the professional surveyor may be possible. Although progress might be made, no such authority is likely to happen within any of our lifetimes.
Part of me wonders if this deregulation move is the complete disaster we need to wake everyone up and get a fresh start.
Different legal systems; here, land owners can establish their own boundaries without notifying authorities until one of the parcels is put up for sale.
Cooley pointed out the difference in the 1880's
All history teaches us that different peoples, or even the same people in different stages of advancement, are not to be governed by the like modes and forms; and while we all concede this as a general rule, we are too apt, perhaps, when we compare with our own the system which prevails in the country from which we have mainly derived our ideas of government and law, to forget that we erected our structure on foundation ideas of democracy which never pervaded in the governing classes in Great Britian, and that the aristocratic sentiment, which is there controlling, is here, in a political point of view, insignificant.
Remember, In the U.S., the citizen is the source of sovereign authority, not the government.
Richard Schaut
> Different legal systems; here, land owners can establish their own boundaries without notifying authorities until one of the parcels is put up for sale.
So how does the government collect property taxes from a parcel that doesn't officially exist?
Steve
don't confuse Richard with the facts, please!
"Still, it will show me the potential for a lawsuit that will cost many times more, I'll take it."
No you wouldn't, and that's why the general public doesn't.
What your talking about is not unlike trying to sell homeowner liability insurance.
Insurance agent: Don't you want to protect your two hundred thousand dollar asset against a potentially expensive lawsuit?
Homeowner: What do you mean?
Insurance agent: Let's say a tree in your yard blows over during a storm and falls on your neighbor's home. Let's say a senior citizen is taking a stroll and slips on the sidewalk in front of your house. We live in a litigious culture. Do you want to risk everything you own by not being protected?
Homeowner: How much?
Insurance agent: $300/yr.
Homeowner: I'll pass. I take my chances.
For a $5,000 boundary survey (or even $2,000), most homeowners would take their chances, if they had a choice, since the probability of an expensive boundary lawsuit is slim, and almost none, in a developed subdivision.
Do you have a liability policy (not professional, but homeowner's)?
we have certified title. We call it title insurance. It's paid for by the seller (read that as free to the buyer) and it covers everything except what a competent survey would disclose. That survey is hundreds of dollars and the buyer has no idea what a competent survey looks like. I don't see that as a selling point. Building contractors are the only ones who know absolutely how valuable we are.
We as surveyors have failed in educating the public.
Come on guys and gals, get out and let the public know what we do. Go to the bankers, lawyers, civic groups, schools and start to educate on the importance of having a good survey.
Take a ...look at the trigstar program and get involved.
We have an image problem in Florida, and many places around the country I suspect.
The fact is, back in the day, everyone needed us, from the neighbor next door, to the Engineer at the largest firm in the country.
Government needed us too. They have whole Survey Departments, from the Federal Government all the way down to the local Town Council building.
Why did they need us? Primarily, it was about boundary law. Precision being second. When insurance became available to us, we added liability to the equation.
Modern technology has merged in such a way that Engineers, Contractors & Government on larger scales has seen a substantial reduction in our responsibilities. Precision & liability are an afterthought.
Corporate & Government have large & multi-scale interests. If anything, The private Surveyor is more important now than EVER! We are now at the other end of the Spectrum. We prevent Govt & mega-corp from deciding the land boundaries of the INDIVIDUAL.
It's now an issue of PRIVACY