I received this quote from a surveyor we hired.
"Gary
Yes, we can provide a 8 ½ x 14 drawing suitable for recording at the Bay County Register of Deeds.
The drawing prepared was a B-Size drawing made for the purpose and use as a court exhibit.
A reconfigured drawing, made for the purpose of recording, will be a lump sum in the amount of $250
Please let me know how you would like to proceed.
Thank you
Saginaw, MI 48607 "
Does this sound a little excessive?
> Does this sound a little excessive?
The formatting for recording probably requires specific elements that aren't needed for the court exhibit, and vice versa. Drafting time and administrative overhead can easily hit $250.
> Does this sound a little excessive?
Not really. Depending on the circumstances, it could easily be much more.
I understand why you would question this price. It is because what you believe you will receive is a simple piece of paper. What it takes to make what is on that paper worthwhile to any future user is far from simple. Not in every case, but, frequently.
This will take a significant amount of time. First, to prepare the reconfigured drawing in such a way that it still provides all of the important information in a comprehensible manner. Second, to proofread the first draft for thoroughness and readability. Then, in most cases, some revision time. Again, proofread to ensure the revisions were made correctly and to be double sure that all critical information from the large plat is on the small plat. This may sound simple, but, there is definitely an art to packing all that information in a tight space.
You could take the survey to a printing shop and have them reduce it to that size. However, it may not be legible.
It is not just a copy, you are giving a complete survey to someone, and depending upon what your BOR believes, you are extending your liability to a new purpose or renewing your last liability to a new person.
I will gladly make the drawing available in whatever size they want when they make the request at the time they order a survey.
Most any drawing can be produced into a PDF of high quality that can be reduced and printed on 24lb paper at typeset quality found in magazines. It takes only a few steps to print it.
After the sale has ended, those terms have ended.
The next time is is needed, it is worth the same as the first time the papers were produced.
A $1,500 survey will produce a Title Policy for the same amount if not more. In that respect you are giving a copy so they can issue another new policy for another $1,500 premium on your free give away and extending any liability back on you.
The attorney will bill out another $300 to make out a new deed based on your free copy.
Realtor will get another 6% minimum commission based upon your copy.
So, is is not just a copy when everyone except you is making money at your expense and liabilty.
It bites my a** when somebody makes the statement that the survey has already been paid for and they expect me to give them a free copy when they never were involved in that project, made not payments to me and in the end they will get commission or make money in some fashion if you will just run and get them a copy for them.
I always let these people know that if the piece of paper is not worth anything, why are they taking so much of my time telling me how important to them to get a copy.
[sarcasm]"Don't expect to ride this bus for free"[/sarcasm]
PDF's can be nearly worthless
Some are great and some are terrible. A great deal of the quality is dependent on the type face used. I've encountered many lengthy legal descriptions that are unreadable on a PDF.
:good:
Well said!
No, that is a bargain. I would take it now.
Reducing a B size drawing to legal size is a major pain.
That's actually cheap.
PDF's can be nearly worthless
My deliverable and stored PDFs are "press quality" and will print with photo quality
The ones people send me are usually PC viewing quality only and not printable in normal settings
When they print terrible, select print as an image in the printer dialog box and software mojo will take over presto, you have a readable image on paper
My favorites are the negative ones with black background and whiteish images
Takes some photoshop magic when that happens and luckily a simple invert pick on the image will help on the amount of ink necessary to print.
0.02
One of the good things about recording surveys in MI is there is only one size - legal. Subdivisions must be on C size mylar. Margins better be right too. Look at some of the site condo's recorded over the years as exhibits to the master deed - illegible.
I would think that the reduction from B to legal would render the text to small and would not be recordable as a survey. Plus they must bear an original signature. So maybe as a miscellaneous document? Likely the $250 is to re-draw the map, and could include multiple pages along with some disclaimer notes of choice.
Sounds too cheap to me, especially considering it is just a copy that is being used for unintended purposes than the job was done for. Let the lawyer figure it out and record it himself.
> One of the good things about recording surveys in MI is there is only one size - legal. Subdivisions must be on C size mylar. Margins better be right too. Look at some of the site condo's recorded over the years as exhibits to the master deed - illegible.
>
> I would think that the reduction from B to legal would render the text to small and would not be recordable as a survey. Plus they must bear an original signature. So maybe as a miscellaneous document? Likely the $250 is to re-draw the map, and could include multiple pages along with some disclaimer notes of choice.
>
> Sounds too cheap to me, especially considering it is just a copy that is being used for unintended purposes than the job was done for. Let the lawyer figure it out and record it himself.
why is limiting your options a good thing? especially in this day and age where they will just scan the document in anyways?
If the scale can be kept the same, time to re-create the new drawing should not be very long for an experienced draftperson.
+/- 1 to 2 hours for drafting, +- 1 hour for review by surveyor, price is fair
> A reconfigured drawing, made for the purpose of recording, will be a lump sum in the amount of $250
>
> Does this sound a little excessive?
No. If it was as simple as hitting "reduce" on the copy machine, than you could do that with what you have, correct?
In my state, making a drawing for recording means that it has conform to certain standards. This means that a drawing used for other purposes will need to be completely redone (typically) for a record of survey. Additionally, notes would need to be reviewed, a narrative changed or added, etc. And of course, a new signature by PLS would be needed. $250 would be the low end.
I appreciate that you asked about this, rather than assume that you were being taken advantage of.
David Myhill
First, Thank You for the opinions and comments.
Good point, that the content needs to be minimized and re-configured to the 8.5 x 14. The delivered / stamped survey included the whole neighbourhood and it would be tough to just shrink-to-fit.
Question:
What is the usual deliverable in doing a residential survey? Isn't the entent to register the survey with the county?
Gary
It depends on what State you're in. Every state has different requirements.
Oops. I just reread your original post and saw that you posted your state. Someone from MI will need to respond.
Thank you for taking the time to look for clarification.
The intent of the survey and the statutory requirements relative to a boundary survey may be very different. It depends on many things. First, the intent can vary from merely looking for existing monuments to establishing a new tract to proving someone else's opinion to be wrong to including tons of information that goes far beyond finding or setting property corners. Second, the statutory requirements vary from State to State to Province to Province, etc. and are subject to local demands of specific municipalities. Many statutory requirements are general in nature while others are amazingly complex. That it is why it impossible to get a single answer from a group of surveyors spread around the world. The answer, quite literally, is in your own backyard.
In my case, many of my projects are simply to locate existing survey monuments known to have been set based on various files available to me and then determine their locations relative to one another, deed dimensions and/or improvements. Many other projects involve working between existing survey monuments to establish new tracts for transfer of ownership only. Other projects go further to require inclusion of a variety of other information such as topographic data, utility locations, street and sidewalk locations, structural locations, and on and on and on.
According to the statutes in my area, only surveys that create new tracts must be filed. Retracement surveys do not have such a requirement. However, section corner data must be filed with the county and state no matter what type of survey is performed. Similar, and extremely different, requirements exist in other jurisdictions. Many times we discover that specific little people think they can overrule statutes and common sense in order to substitute their own versions of what must be shown on the plat and exactly how it is displayed. These little demi-gods sometimes get away with it. Good surveyors do everything possible to stomp out these little demi-gods.
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to your question.
