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Congratulations, but not really the point of the thread.
My take being that I don’t want to be the repository and source for documents for time immemorial for any and all who’ve no connection to me or my original client, but just by the mere fact that I did a survey on a piece of property that they now own. Property that was worth a pittance compared to what it is now, and proposed improvements which they now want to add using my old survey, which certainly does extend liability.
If it’s public record, they can go find it. If not, then I’m more than happy to perform a new survey for them for a fee.
We need to make it so surveys and liability are limited only to our client. All subsequent parties should have to have one performed for them. It’s not about ability accuracy or standards, more about accountability and liability.
It won’t happen, but I can dream.
@jim-in-az
I’m a little shaky on the concept that a private profession or business has some sort of public responsibility, other than performing up to the mandated standards and in an ethical manner.
If you screwed up, someone someday may sue you. You will have to defend yourself against the suit. It is most likely that someone will be someone other than the guy who paid your bill.
For example, you prepare an elevation certificate for a location showing the existing ground level to be four feet above the BFE. In fact you misread a three as an eight producing a five foot error. The existing ground is actually one foot below the BFE. Your client builds a slab on grade structure of some value with the floor being at or slightly above ground level. He then sells that property to someone else who sells it to someone else. One day the dreaded hundred year flood occurs and runs water all over the floor of that structure ruining $500,000 worth of some product stored there. “That’s impossible., they say.” When they begin investigating they discover you are the one who screwed up. Guess who they believe should compensate them?
I believe that would be a disaster for our profession, and doesn’t really make sense.
A survey that only has value to the person who paid for it, is inherently less valuable, which means that our ridiculous fees (from client’s perspective) are harder to justify.
I don’t see how arguing that we have no responsibility for gross negligence just because our client sold their property is a winning argument for us.
For an example, say I monumented a boundary 10′ beyond the obvious true boundary. My client sells his land. The buyer builds a structure in that 10′ relying on my monuments. I shouldn’t have any responsibility?
Just my personal feelings, but I have always taken pride in the fact that my work will potentially be around and relied on for hundreds of years. It would be a lot less personally satisfying to produce a piece of paper for one person’s immediate use.
No one has yet been able to explain this: How does somebody using your “old” survey extend your liability? Your liability was created when you signed the survey. It doesn’t end, unless your State creates a limit for you. Then it ends, unless you resign the survey. The monuments you set are still there, right? Your plat is the justification for where you set them.
As for the public responsibility see Thomas Cooley and the quasi-judicial function. If you don’t want to call it a responsibility to the public, call it a responsibility to your client to get the limits of other’s rights correct.
REWARD $50 check for anyone who can show me evidence of a court case where the surveyor has been held liable for providing a copy of a survey he has done in the past. I’m too lazy to do the research but I think it unlikely anyone can produce the mythical creature.
If it is more motivation, I will write you a check and make the same donation to Wendell.
You may have to pay. Someone will probably come up with a freak case. Courts of equity come up with some crazy stuff. This doesn’t mean it is something we need to worry about.
Remember the hot coffee law suite? Today every local coffee shop serves coffee just as hot without any warnings or liability waivers. There have been no other successful lawsuits based on coffee temperature.
- Posted by: @aliquot
Improvements have no place on a boundary survey
This statement and the following responses piqued my interest.
I??ve been surveying for 20 years in Georgia and have the records of my mentor who started in 1958. I inherited another surveyor??s records that go back to the early 1940??s. If a survey was platted…the improvements are shown. I??ve never thought twice about it.
That??s standard practice for all of my peers…at least in my area of practice.
I did look again at our minimum technical standards and sure enough…improvements shown is not required.
I wonder why that it became standard practice in my area to show the improvements.
The question raised is why charge for that if the client just wants to know where their lines are?
We don??t. If they just want their lines marked, that??s what we do without drawing a new plat. If we find a discrepancy with the record, we then recommend a new plat be drawn and recorded.
My words were probably a little too strong. I can imagine situations were it would be appropriate. I also think the term, “boundary survey” may mean different things to different people.
You said, ” If they just want their lines marked, that??s what we do without drawing a new plat. If we find a discrepancy with the record, we then recommend a new plat be drawn and recorded.”
I would not consider marking lines a boundary survey. I would consider it marking lines… When you find a discrepancy and draw a new plat you are doing a boundary survey. It would perfectly reasonable to keep any product you produce when no discrepancies are found private. If someone called me asking for something like this, I would direct them to the document I used.
Recorded is the key here. This gets you out of the business of worrying about what is being discussed here, and ends any continuing responsibilities you have if you don’t want them.
This has been a very interesting thread. Obviously, local expectations are different in different places. As mentioned before, in my corner of the universe the focus is almost always on the boundaries and not what exists inside those boundaries (excluding ALTA jobs). Not to say that is the best and only way to do things, at all. That’s just the way it is. Anyone could sort through thousands of record surveys in area of work before finding a significant number that also show every improvement inside or possibly crossing those boundaries.
Truthfully, I am thrilled we do not draw in the improvements. That would be a total waste of my time as the license holder. The thrill is in the boundary determination. Draftspeople and button pushers can handle all of the fluff. The meat of the survey should be in the reasoning involved in establishing and finding boundaries. That’s the portion of surveying that separates the big dogs from the inside dogs. That’s the portion that shows up on all the testing, for a very good reason.
Ok, just got a call from a guy who had copies of two plans done by a company that my company bought the records from 20 years ago.
He told me that one plan was wrong, and the original “master” plan that was done for him, in 1983 is right.
I looked up both plans and they were in agreement, no conflicts that I could see. After a bit of nonsense, I deciphered that another surveyor was recently staking a lot for a woman who just bought, and this guy says it’s wrong. He said the other surveyor just used the “metal thing” and marked some trees, didn’t use GPS at all.
I told him that the other surveyor is a good surveyor, and he’s probably staking the lines that are on the plans. He disagreed. At that point I asked him what he wanted from me. Asked if he wanted to hire me for something. He then went back to saying how the marks don’t match the “master” plan.
He didn’t say it exactly, but I think that he was trying to get me to do something for free, go out and “fix” the lines, because we owned the records of the original surveyor, and somehow we’re responsible for whatever goes on with that land. I don’t know. It was odd.
@oldpacer you and me both. I don’t understand the need to belittle the details of other’s practice. From the outset of this conversation, the backhanded comments from the “boundary line only” minority have been disturbing. I’ve just ignored them, but they are there. I’m out! Got lots of boundary surveying to get done!
In my state of Ohio, “boundary survey” is very specific as outlined in Ohio Revised Code (ORC) 4733-37.
There is a provision for a “mortgage location survey” under ORC 4733-38. This type of survey requires showing major improvements and is intended for the mortgage lending industry. The requirements for the boundary are less stringent than ORC 4733-37 and is typically inline for what most residential owners are looking for in my experience.
@wagner152
Most states have something like this. Land owners don’t want these, the banks and title companies want them.
Landowners may convince themselves they want them because they are a fraction of the cost, but they want to know where their boundaries are, they dont want a tool invented to transfer liability from the title companies to a the surveyors at the lowest possible cost.
Whether they want a drawing with their buildings shown or not doesnt effect the boundary work.
My creditors children are cold, and hungry. If you want something from me there must a reciprocal consideration. This is a business, not a charity.
Can’t find a double like so one will have to do. If 10% of the surveyors talking about ‘what happened in court’ had actually been there our entire profession would be perfectly laid out in case law…
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