contract surveying

"""We are looking for experienced field survey crews to perform land title surveys in the Baltimore / Washington DC Metro areas and the surrounding counties. Duties include locating property corners, improvement, provide field sketches and taking pictures. The ideal candidate should process own field equipment and be proficient in the use of data recorders."""

looks a little different, in that it is not an individual looking for his/her own work, but prolly still wrong. what you think, is it a title company?

i like the 'process own field equipment" part. interesting play on words

Here's the problem with that. A contract crew, as in a crew that works as an independent contractor and be issued a 1099, cannot meet both the requirements of the IRS and the surveyors board at the same time. If I hire a crew and agree to give them $X and then give them a 1099, according to the IRS, I cannot tell them how to do their job. They have to be truly "independent". Well, if that is the case, they are violating the state surveyor's law for not being under responsible charge.

Moe, yes, the first thing that crossed my mind was a title company.

I was not trying to say this is right or wrong, just that it is happening. I will leave it to those more experienced than me to make those calls.

Tommy, that is the clincher.

You also practically have to accept what results they give you as fact with no real proof from their raw data information.

Of course, any surveyor worth their snuff will be glad to share what they did with no regrets, just to show they are as good as everyone else.

To me, if a contract crew or any other personnel refuses to be under my supervision or refuses to give up all files and information (or copy of them), they gotta go.

😉

Ok, let me ask you this. If you hire a contract crew, do you hire them on as employees, or do you tell them they get $X to do the job?

From what I have seen, the crew is often given $x per job and they are not employees of the companies.

I have tried hiring a contract crew 10+ years ago and pay a percentage and it never worked out well.

By letter of the law, it is not legal.

That said, it still goes on.

30-40yrs ago I remember when one company had more work to do than they could handle due to workload or crews out sic or on vacation and another local was without, it was common to lend a crew back an forth to keep up and keep everyone working.

Today's red tape, insurance restrictions and all makes it a nightmare to even think of the possible traps to be caught up in. It is hard enough to find a few good hands that you actually want to work for you.

tommy

> Ok, let me ask you this. If you hire a contract crew, do you hire them on as employees, or do you tell them they get $X to do the job?

Isn't a contract crew, by it's very definition, a subcontractor? ( NOT an employee?)

It's both wrong and illegal in NY for boundary work.

To operate as an independent contractor you must be licensed and any crew members would be employees.

If you want to freelance...get your ticket.

Rick

Tommy,

I agree. Contract crews can be used for construction layout/monitoring in most areas. It is normal that some oversight is still going to be given, but the crew is qualified to make initial decisions because no license is needed for the monitoring or staking that is going on. The crew can be told to put things where the plan says they should be. This is a mathematical and measurement exercise. Not to belittle the fact that it takes expertise to fit plans to the ground in some (most) circumstances. But the task is clear.

For title/boundary work it just doesn't work. The crew can be told only generally what to look for. But the gathering of evidence needs judgmental calls that require more specific direction. What is needed nobody really knows, so someone has to make a decision.

Nothing wrong with contracting a field crew and their equipment to collect data or set monuments under your supervision. It is the bookkeeping that keeps both out of trouble with the IRS and the behavior of the one holding the license that the crew is working for that keeps him or her out of trouble with the Board. We all need the right to work where and how we can.
jud

I'm with Jud on this. There is no blanket rule that fits. Surveying is a very individual thing.

The trouble with wanting to have nothing but employees under your direct supervision is that sometimes you get what you ask for: people who reliably show up for work, reliably leave at quitting time, and reliably do only what they are told. Exactly. You can't trust them to dig for something on their own, they won't think to look. You ask them to run an errand, make sure to include the part about "and come back when you're done."

I suppose it is these people who we fear as contract crews doing nefarious unlicensed things, like putting math on the ground, rileing up the adjoiners, disturbing the harmony of the neighborhood with a wanton disregard of local monumentation & occupation. We taught them how to do one thing well without thinking too hard about it or asking questions, then we laid them off. Now they need to make money doing what they know how to do. We fear what we created.

In some locales (thousands of miles from mine) contract crews are a known and understood part of the surveying ecosystem. Some of our dearest and most informative (and now licensed) posters will queitly admit that at a certain sophmoric stage of their apprenticeships they had wound up with a truckful of gear and a dance card kept full by three or four local licensed surveyors. As I see it, this sort of arrangement should be encouraged everywhere. It is the future of the surveyors' apprenticeship, one that rewards initiative and self-education.

When I am licensed, I will want a crew who I can trust to make measurements, find and document evidence, dig the extra mile, stop by the courthouse on a hunch, check stuff on the truck. Employees? Contract? Cash? Chickens & goats? An ounce of gold a day paid at sundown? You can bet that if I find That Crew I will pay them however they want. They can even borrow the truck to go see the Grateful Dead.

Don't kid yourself that just because someone has a w-4 rather than a 1099 on file they are magically deserving of your trust.

I am not an advocate of using contract crews as a business model, but I have used them and suspect I will in the future. They work well when you have an unusual spike in work load. The idea that you cannot supervise a contract crew seems contrary. By the very nature of the word "contract" they are going to give me the product exactly as I have asked for it, or I do not exercise my part of the contract; cutting a check. Not much different than an employee. The board here in Texas try to regulate this ability and the state attorney general stepped in. It seems some powerful engineering firms and petroleum companies had an interest in the debate. In the end, it was deemed an acceptable business practice. The boards have a duty to regulate the profession, but it's authority cannot supersede acceptable business practices or limit competition.

God Bless Texas

Having worked as a contract crew I feel just the opposite about boundary and construction. I would never do construction as a 1099, as I would be assuming liability beyond my ability to support, even bonded.

Boundary and contract crew comes down to the personal relationship and trust between the contract data collection crew and the registered professional, just as it does between the paid employee and professional.

I know to go the extra mile, because this is one of the several mentors that trained me, pretty much the only ones I'll work for. Last year they were down to one and two man shows, and needed a field crew about once or twice a week each. Some matched me step for step on the ground, some never left the office for the lot and block stuff in established subdivisions.

It has always been my understanding the final legal responsibility for a signed and sealed product rests with the professional, regardless of how they acquired raw data.

I'll only do construction layout as a full time employee, under the company umbrella for liability. Anything else is just begging for trouble. One missed revision and 124 anchor bolts have to be changed, with overrun costs running into the five figures.

Excellent post HB.