Much like the construction industry that revolves around large general contractors there is a need in the real estate arena for a specialist in making it all come to fruition.?ÿ Not a land developer, per se, but a specialist that works with those wanting to change the status of a piece of real estate.
Starting off with those who want to sell what they have to the highest bidder.?ÿ In some cases, that is not necessarily someone who would use the land in the same way the seller has been using it.?ÿ A common real estate agent is simply looking for the quickest sale, many times to someone they already know would be interested, so they may not assist the seller in obtaining the highest price.?ÿ Just the one that will put commission money in their pocket the quickest.?ÿ The lender is going to devalue what they say the appraised value is, in their opinion, to provide the best leverage for their investment.?ÿ The title company really doesn't care about the price compared to their concern about the odds of a claim being made.?ÿ Who is really helping who?
We in the land surveying business tend to work with or alongside all sorts of people who may play a role in the change of status of a piece of property.?ÿ Lenders, title companies, real estate companies, appraisers, construction businesses of a wide variety, inspectors, utility providers, various bureaucratic agents from septic inspectors to planning commissions and zoning officers.?ÿ We land surveyors are the logical specialist to assist the client in this much broader approach.
Case in point.?ÿ The lady I met with yesterday lives 120 miles away from her 80 acres of rural land.?ÿ She grew up about a mile distant and this is part of what her parents owned for several decades.?ÿ She has a nephew who wants to purchase five acres off one corner for a getaway-type cabin and a little hunting.?ÿ The lady and her husband are installing a similar getaway cabin about a quarter mile away from the nephew.?ÿ My sole function is to create a description for the sale to the nephew.
They need an advisor and specialist to simplify all of the details of making their goals happen in the best manner.
1.?ÿ The piece the nephew is buying is shown as being in Zone A and most likely is, in fact, below the BFE.?ÿ He could install a pad of dirt to raise an area enough to install a small, rustic cabin above the BFE.?ÿ For this, he would need the assistance of a land surveyor.?ÿ Instead, he will go in and start doing what he wants to do and then find out he is in big trouble.?ÿ He mentioned yesterday that he is planning on having a basement.?ÿ NO NO NO
2.?ÿ The cabin for the lady and her husband is not within the flood plain, so that is not an issue.
3.?ÿ Both parties are planning to have full water and septic service.?ÿ The lady's site MAY be able to install a minimal septic lagoon without entering the flood plain area.?ÿ The nephew's site is totally unacceptable for any kind of sewage facility.?ÿ With his plan, he would need to have a collection tank, grinder and pump to send the sewage into some sort of?ÿ lagoon ON THE NEIGHBOR'S PROPERTY.
4.?ÿ The potable water supply is available from a line on the opposite side of the county road.?ÿ This will require two separate applications to the Rural Water District. and to the County to allow boring under the road.?ÿ The RWD already told them they must first have an official address before they will consider the application.?ÿ For the nephew's tract this requires that the survey be completed and the sale of that land to him to be complete before the County Appraiser's Office will assign an address.?ÿ The RWD board meets monthly, so this needs to occur prior to the next meeting or everything will be set back by one month.?ÿ Timeliness is important!
5.?ÿ One thing they clearly do not know.?ÿ The County has a Neighborhood Revitalization Program in place for which one must make application prior to doing any development or reconstruction of existing facilities.?ÿ How this works is that the County appraises the property as is, then comes in following construction completion and conducts a new appraisal.?ÿ The difference in the two numbers is then used to decrease property taxes due on that improvement over the next ten years.?ÿ In year one, only ten percent of the additional appraised value is counted.?ÿ In year two, only twenty percent of the additional appraised value is counted.?ÿ And, so forth until it hits one hundred percent.?ÿ The amount saved can be very substantial.?ÿ The lady's project won't be eligible because they have done significant work already and would not meet the Program requirements if they applied today.?ÿ You would think the nephew's project would be eligible but he can't apply.?ÿ He will only get to build his project if he tells no one he is doing it.?ÿ He can have a water connection and he can have an electrical connection.?ÿ The cabin construction is the NONO.?ÿ He could have an outhouse for restroom necessities, but, even that needs to be accepted by the County Sanitation Officer, who would note the existence of the cabin and report to the County Appraiser's Office.
Now, this is a simple example out in the boondocks.?ÿ Try to think of all the ways you could be of assistance in a suburban or urban situation with far more complex circumstances.
The vast majority of owners of real estate know practically nothing to help themselves.?ÿ They tend to make expensive and foolish decisions because they know no better.?ÿ They deserve to have paid advocates as a resource to handle their responsibilities.
I agree. Recently I have a client from Florida that builds storage facilities in many states. They wanted a topo only in a NY parcel. I had to add the boundary to the contract. Turns out the description has a flipped bearing and this deed has passed thru several sales and never caught. Also the adjoiners garage is on this commercial property.?ÿ
Their title agent insisted it could not be wrong.?ÿ
This client has now brought me two other projects with issues, and a realitor client whom also has a problem survey.
Touchy subject.?ÿ I recently picked up (in the last week) two clients dabbling in single site new home construction.?ÿ One came to me out of the blue looking for a quote and start time of a survey of a property that he already had a sales agreement on, the site was in an area I own my former rental home in and was formally my 25 year residence and I do my best to help the locals.
In a phone conversation with him I started picking his brain to see what his intensions were with the property to make sure that I would understand any special extra effort that would be needed on my end.?ÿ He told me he intended to build a home on the property, with no understand, being a novice builder, that the PIQ was in the State and Federally regulated Pinelands National reserve.?ÿ He had no idea about that and told me that he had also saught quotes from three other Surveyors and none had mentioned that fact to him.?ÿ I took his email adress, snooped through the local & Pinelands regs and found out that the PIQ was not severly restricted.
The following morning I sent him a price for an outbound and added topo, explaining to him that the topo would be needed to generate a grading plan when he had the architecturals completed.?ÿ I them explained to him that he would need the grading plan and a Plot Plan, as well as a septic design, foundation layout, Foundation Location Plan and post construction Final Survey with the as-built grading shown to check compliance with the design and explained to him that we are a full service firm and can handle all of that in house, except for the architecturals, I then asked if he would like a proposal for the additional Engineering & Surveying needed to accomplish what I described, with him answering in the affirmative.
A quickly turned around set of proposals, accompanied by the customary "RING RING" the following morning had him thanking me up and down for my input and a contract and deposit for all inclusive services was dropped off at the office that same day, followed by a phone call from his real estate agent friend wanting to do the same thing and seeking guidance and proposals in an easier area to work in.
Our professional knowledge and experience is the best thing we can offer any potential client but the problems come in when somebody not knowlegable starts on improvements with the idea that they can do whatever they want to do on their property and then try to engage us to help save their posterior ends.?ÿ If they come to us first, we can answer questions and if we don't know the answers, most of us have a professional network that we can reach out to to get the answers.?ÿ Sometimes we can't help people who don't reach out to protect their own investments first.
The disconnect is commonly attributable to the person with the firm who is actually the first to speak with the potential client being someone who doesn't possess the knowledge that the land surveyor has acquired over decades.?ÿ They have been told precisely what to say and do.?ÿ A standard such and such survey is $xxxx.?ÿ A normal Elevation Certificate is $xxxx.?ÿ That sort of thing.
We need more senior surveyors taking those calls.
In past few months nearly heald the incoming calls start with "how much for a survey". I tell them it depends, are we dealing with half an acre or 500 acres. Then continue to ask questions, and I seldom give them a price over the phone.?ÿ
I worked for a PLS licensed in Maine and New Hampshire who acted in the manner you describe and he was not an outlier.?ÿ At the time, a PLS could take a particular class through the University of New Hampshire and, after passing a couple of tests, be certified to design residential septic systems.?ÿ David would also help his clients with all levels of development including navigating the zoning requirements, representing them if a variance was necessary etc..?ÿ Until I moved to the South, I assumed that most PLSs offered the service of guiding clients through the regulatory hurdles.?ÿ Here in NC, clients are at the mercy of the Health Department for septic design and waiting times can be in the order of months to get them to your site.?ÿ PEs seem to pick up the role of land specialist here.
I don't see any reason a PLS couldn't offer this service if states would provide an option to allow private septic design.?ÿ Obviously you couldn't have payment of services based on any form of regulatory acceptance or an issuance of permits.?ÿ As was practiced in Maine, it seemed to work well as a PLS had to maintain his ability to work with town planners.?ÿ If a PLS were to do something unethical, such as misrepresenting facts to procure a variance for a high paying client, he'd risk being blackballed or having every plat overly scrutinized.?ÿ?ÿ
I think there should be better information available at the local level, counties and municipalities. We all get the same calls from laypersons, ranging from "I want to cut off 3 acres from my granny's place and put a trailer on it" to "my mother has passed away and we need to divide her 100 acre homestead up between the 4 kids".
I find that many people don't think of a Land Surveyor first. In these situations, one of my standard questions when taking a call is "Who had has told you to call a surveyor?" That's how you learn they were trying to get a septic or other permit, or assign a new address.
I wished my county had some sort of simple flow chart that was easy to find. Titles like, "So you want to divide and sell your land" and "So you want to build a home on a piece of raw land". Something that could advise people of all the steps and costs associated.
The first survey shop I worked in employed a "platting specialist" whose job it was to know the city subdivision requirements and planning & zoning ordinances backward and forward. It made things far easier when submitting our packages.
I find it interesting to do that sort of work when I get the opportunity, and it's rewarding to help folks through the process, but we have so many different jurisdictions that we are working in, and the requirements have become so convoluted, that it's definitely better to have a specialist for that role, just to guide things through the county/city/state/muni.
Plus, it's better for my blood pressure to not have to interact with the box-checkers reviewers who often try to place their own interpretation on codes & ordinances.
Recently helped a client who bought 5 acres with the concept that only 1/2 acre is buildable because of wetlands, and that to rent an excavator and start clearing would only result in a red tag from the city, the county, & the state in triplicate and fines probably greater than the property is worth. Plus if he were to sink the rented excavator in a peat bog such as are known to be abandoned around here ... He actually listened and hired me for his next aquisition adventure.?ÿ Hey, y'all watch me do this!
There are a lot of these specialists where I live, they're called land surveyors.
Like Rover83, I once worked for a firm which had a specialist called an expeditor.?ÿ His normal function was a draftsman, but when projects were submitted to the City of Los Angeles, he would hand walk them through the various departments and chat up the reviewers to facilitate the process.?ÿ When proposals were being developed, he was part of that team to cover the scope of services.
True, but we only get contacted when there is a need for a survey.?ÿ That is all the caller assumes they will be getting from us.?ÿ How do we get people to call us, even when there is no need for a survey?
In my tiny hometown, where most of my career was spent, there were no engineering companies or PEs to assist in getting projects developed so the surveyors filled the role. There was so little red tape that it was actually enjoyable. Now I work in a medium sized city mostly and the LAs and PEs cut through the red tape. I do not envy them.?ÿ
@holy-cow Put "Land Planner" on your business card, truck, office door, webpage, etc.?ÿ
I'm genuinely confused.?ÿ Is there not a Land Use Planner designation in the US??ÿ Or something similar??ÿ We have an entire department devoted to this.?ÿ They work hand-in-hand with municipalities, a PLS (ie. us), the engineers (ie. us), and the architects (ie. sometimes us, depending on the scope).?ÿ Their involvement in a project largely depends on how much you pay them.?ÿ It is not uncommon for survey firms up here to have an OLS who specializes in it or have an officially designated Planner.?ÿ @James Fleming , yes, many OLS/engineer firms up here do have "Planner" underneath their logo.
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Ie. the logo from one of the local firms
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You basically, well, pay them to plan out your vision.?ÿ You can pay a small consultation fee for "Hey, I wanna do ....X.......is that possible?"?ÿ We hired someone from the local municipality who headed up their site plan application division.?ÿ We figured it was the best way to get someone who would know *exactly* what the local municipality wanted on a site plan app.?ÿ It was not cheap, but it "got us in the game" very quickly.
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Side note--the answer is, usually, with enough time and money, yes, it's possible.?ÿ It's whether those fit your schedule and/or budget.
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Side note--when we are not the planner, we often work with these guys (note: I am not personally recommending them--I include them only as an example.?ÿ Though, they are a good bunch of people.):
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Is this what you are describing HC or have I "missed the boat" on this one??ÿ Personally, this seems like a golden opportunity for American PLS's if you do not have someone doing this.
