Situation: A local surveyor that has been in business for 20 years wants to retire. He proposes that you are welcome to purchase his company. If he can not sell it, he will stay in business. He has given no numerical value, instead he wants you to make an offer. You have no idea what he believes it to be worth. The value of his equipment can be easily determined. He rents office space, so real estate is not in the equation. Income of said company is self explanatory. In the state you are in recording of plats is NOT mandatory. Most of his plats are recorded but some are not (you have no idea what percentage). My question is how do you estimate the value of his files/records? What price do you put on 20 years of work and/or research?
> My question is how do you estimate the value of his files/records? What price do you put on 20 years of work and/or research?
My feeling is there would be very little value. A lot would depend on the quality of theses files. I've recently taken over a branch office from another surveyor and found his files to range from incomplete to non-existent. Such files would have less than no value at all. You'd have to pay to have them hauled away. On the other hand, if there is 20 years of god notes and comprehensive data, organized in a retrievable way, perhaps there is something in it. Most of the time you can get these things from the surveyor's widow for the taking.
That is similar to my thinking. I would be willing to pay a reasonable amount for good information, but would not be willing to pay for "sentimental value". After all, in theory he has already been paid for that work.
> My question is how do you estimate the value of his files/records? What price do you put on 20 years of work and/or research?
I think I'd pull about twenty files at random across the whole span of time and, after examining them carefully, put a value on each. How far back does the research typically go? Are the reports and explanations in the files or are they mostly just coordinate lists and calculation sheets? Are they in areas where there is apt to be further demand?
There value isn't the aggregate value on average, but the utility to you of what you are likely to actually use. If you are only likely to use 100 files over your possession of them, then the value of the whole collection is some fraction of the value of the 100, I'd say.
Obviously, you won't be simply sticking your own signature on some old map to sell as a new survey. The value is in the information they contain that you can use.
In many cases, unless a firm has a sterling reputation and at least a couple of generations of records, a reasonable compensation for the retiring surveyor is to promise to preserve his records for posterity.
The downside to having old records is that some former client may want you to update a survey and have the fee they paid twenty years ago in mind as an upper bound of what the update should cost. Likewise, if word gets out that you have the records, you'll have to waste time talking to all sorts of folks wanting free copies of something and you'll be keen to avoid any liability you acquire by virtue of having furnished the free copies that someone then proceeds to do something crazy with.
We bought another surveyor's records about 10 years ago. It was a waste of money. Every time we have tried to use the files it ends up taking longer than if we just did the research without the files.
I have put some thought into this as well. What if the former surveyor stayed on as a part-time employee. The company continued to list his license on the insurance, assuming he doesn't let it expire, and then he could update and sign his own work on the occasions it's is necessary. He wouldn't have set hours and may only come to the office every couple of months, and could charge for his signature. Is there some version of this (probably not so simple) that would be worth the effort? Or is this likely more trouble than beneficial?
Though this may require a whole different thread! 🙂
Michael, did you get them for a decent price?
I have 40 years of files in one county. Forty of the five drawer file cabinets and thousands of plats and a ton of stuff that no one else has. When I decide to quit I will surely not give them away. The next guy can hit the ground running. That is worth something.
John Harmon
> Is there some version of this (probably not so simple) that would be worth the effort? Or is this likely more trouble than beneficial?
I don't think that would work. I mean, updates aren't just a matter of changing a date and you certainly don't want to pick up some large liability for something you really have very little control over or knowledge of. If someone is paying you the fee and you're paying the sometime surveyor out of that money, you've bought a much larger liability than I'd ever want on something that was essentially a gamble. Suppose the retiree is no longer around when the survey that he signed as your nominal employee explodes, who is the spotlight going to be on?
I see your point. That's about the response I expected. It never hurts to "think out loud" though.
As to your previous post. Most of the records I have examined have very little other than calculation sheets, work maps, coordinate lists, tax assessment maps, and hand written field notes copied from field books. The last 6 or 8 years maybe, the research got better. Before that it left a lot to be desired.
And you are correct. I am not planning on signing someone else's old plats as my own. I'm no genius, but I ain't crazy neither. The records would have some value though. I am thinking of a situation where there is no plat on record, but I find rods on lot corners in the field, recognize it as the previous surveyor, and at least now have his maps to see what he did. Even if I decide to disagree with it, I now can explain the pins. Not that that is a large value, just some value.
> The records would have some value though. I am thinking of a situation where there is no plat on record, but I find rods on lot corners in the field, recognize it as the previous surveyor, and at least now have his maps to see what he did. Even if I decide to disagree with it, I now can explain the pins. Not that that is a large value, just some value.
I think that the way I'd go about valuing the records is to make an agreement to pay the surveyor $XX per project as an access fee for, say, the next six months and at the end of six months you will both know (a) how often you found something useful and (b) what it all amounted to in terms of value to you.
The problem seems to me to be that the surveyor is thinking that his records are worth one heckuva lot more than realistically they are. So, if you offer him some realistic figure you piss him off and if you offer him some lump sum he'd accept, you're unlikely to make your money back. The real problem is arriving at the actual value of the records and determining whether having them simply preserved has any value to the retiring surveyor.
You would have to get deep into his filing system, and spend a day or two looking through his files to have any idea on value.
Are they well organized?
Are they well done in the first place (do you trust his judgement as your own)?
As far as keeping him on as a document reviewer/signer, in my state he would have to be in responsible charge to sign.
Exactly! To me his records are a small part of researching and preparing a estimate for a project. To him they are his life's work. I really wish he would suggest a price first, the I would know if it was even worth negotiating or not. I don't want to offend him with a small number, but am not refinancing my house to buy them either. By what I have read on other posts to this thread, buying such records has not proved extremely fruitful to others.
The company I currently work for has the records of two previous surveyors.
One has been very useful as most are not recorded (1908-1947 approx.). Many of the plats that are recorded say "6.2 chains along the road" or something similar. The work maps alone have helped a lot. They give more accurate courses along roads, which are now nearly invisible old road beds.
The other previous records are not worth the paper they printed on (1950's - 1970's). The field notes don't even close by 10's of feet. Plats closures are not bad, because they were obviously forced. They usually miss found corners known to be set by said surveyor by 8 - 15 feet (in lines as short as 250').
Both were given free of charge as Norman said above.
> What price do you put on 20 years of work and/or research?
Hopefully, he already got paid. That question doesn't apply here. If that is the way he is thinking, he isn't ready to retire.
In this sense what is "responsible charge"? Do you mean supervising the project himself? Or do you mean majority owner of a company?
My brother has a PhD in economics. That's almost exactly what he said.
> > The problem seems to me to be that the surveyor is thinking that his records are worth one heckuva lot more than realistically they are. So, if you offer him some realistic figure you piss him off and if you offer him some lump sum he'd accept, you're unlikely to make your money back..
Well said.
> The other previous records are not worth the paper they printed on (1950's - 1970's). The field notes don't even close by 10's of feet. Plats closures are not bad, because they were obviously forced. They usually miss found corners known to be set by said surveyor by 8 - 15 feet (in lines as short as 250').
Interestingly, I've found that the most valuable records are those of the very best and very worst surveyors. The folks in the middle, not so much. The very best surveyors's files contain a wealth of information that would be fairly time-consuming to assemble from scratch, if it could still be done.
The worst surveyors's records are useful because they give a clue as to what was actually done and can explain why things on the ground bear such a passing resemblance to the record that was created of the work. That actually can be quite valuable.
> ...He wouldn't have set hours and may only come to the office every couple of months, and could charge for his signature. ...
That would very quickly start to stink of "stamp for hire" and get you both in hot water.
Value of files - Phone number??
> Situation: A local surveyor that has been in business for 20 years wants to retire. He proposes that you are welcome to purchase his company. If he can not sell it, he will stay in business. He has given no numerical value, instead he wants you to make an offer. You have no idea what he believes it to be worth. The value of his equipment can be easily determined. He rents office space, so real estate is not in the equation. Income of said company is self explanatory. In the state you are in recording of plats is NOT mandatory. Most of his plats are recorded but some are not (you have no idea what percentage). My question is how do you estimate the value of his files/records? What price do you put on 20 years of work and/or research?
I know this is not answering your question, but you mentioned most every thing of value except his phone number. I took over the records and phone number of a guy who retired after 30 years. His records are a big help, but the money I paid him was worth having his phone number. All 30 years of drawings he did have the same phone number. About 1/5th of all the calls I get are from people looking at a drawing he did and calling back for additional services.
Just a thought.
Scott
How much is his phone number worth?