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Recording Order
I think I posted about this on the other site and I think the thread has since been lost, so… starting a discussion once more.
I’ve had some projects recently where the client either split or consolidated parcels and also created some easements. We’re required to monument corners that are unmonumented, as well as easements in certain circumstances, and monumenting things triggers the recording of a survey SO… these new easements are either going to show up on the survey as having an instrument number (from being recorded before the survey) or as being proposed (if recorded after the survey).
I’m not a fan of labeling things proposed on my survey, especially if there are also pins in the ground, because I think it has reasonable potential to confuse the public. So what I’ve been trying to do is make the client record the easement first so I can show it with confidence on my survey. So far I seem to get weird pushback (from coworkers, not client) on this even though nobody can supply me with a reason things shouldn’t be done this way. I mean literally the biggest and really the only argument I get is “Well, that isn’t how we’ve done it in the past!”.
I understand there is something to be said about local convention, but I don’t know widely shared this opposing sentiment even is. For all I know it’s just my coworkers who think this way.
Anyway, I plan to ask other surveyors this question at the annual conference and maybe at a society meeting too, but in the meantime I’m curious to hear what the guys here think.
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14 Replies
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I can’t see how the word “proposed” would lead to any confusion but I also don’t understand why the client would push back on filing the easements before you file your plat.
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It’s the combination of my survey showing an easement and actual pins in the ground monumenting it that I think is potentially confusing. Yes, it might say proposed on the survey but in light of this other apparent evidence I think it’s reasonable for a member of the public to think “Well, an easement must have been recorded”.
It’s not the client pushing back actually, it’s basically coworkers. I don’t know why the client would care, I’m not having them do something they don’t already have to do.
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What prevents you from drawing a current survey that is correct. Then when the easements actually are created, pin them and file a new survey? Are recording fees in your area large?
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Nah, fees are very reasonable actually, a simple $5 per page is all. But the time to update the survey, print the mylar, make another trip to the field to set the monuments, and then make a trip to the courthouse to record would make it expensive enough that I think the client would complain. Plus I think that’s paperwork bloat that just doesn’t need to be there.
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OK on the paperwork bloat. How long do you have to submit your survey? 90 days? 1 year? Perhaps there is enough time that you can just wait for the client to record the easement and submit the survey then. Do you have to submit the “proposed” survey immediately? If a client needs months to record their easement, they should be amenable to paying for your extra work to produce the proper survey submittal.
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We have 90 days from the conclusion of the fieldwork to record. But like I say the client has never been the roadblock, just coworkers who have apparently always done survey first then easements.
I think the way I suggest is perfectly logical, but maybe there’s something I’m not seeing about doing this way that causes problems. If there is I’m certainly not hearing it from the opposition. 🤣 How do you handle it if you’ve got multiple things going on with a property at once like this? Do you do it a certain way, or just whatever way gets monkeys off your back the quickest?
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Your method is cleaner than putting pins in the ground for an easement that may not happen. In times past we would prepare descriptions prior to any field work. I still do on the right jobs.
I would enciurage you to stick to your guns if nobody can give you a real reason not to. I sure can’t think of one..
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The situation is similar for property line adjustments in Oregon. Most counties want to see the adjusted property recording numbers on the survey. I usually reference my monuments on the descriptions noting my record of survey’s by drawing date vs the filing date. We have to submit the survey for review with the county surveyor so I just leave a spot for the recording numbers on the review copy. I then add them to the final survey before filing. I have such a survey sitting on my machine waiting for me to print mylars today.
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Recording the survey after the easement is recorded is the optimal way by far. Why would co-workers care?? Who is doing the actual recording? It shouldn’t be making any additional work for you, it should be the opposite. Having the easement referenced on the survey is great downstream info for everyone. In Idaho it’s a requirement for most easements.
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I’ve seen too many cases of a “Proposed” easement, or “Proposed” public R/W, or “Proposed” property line location or “Proposed” road vacation to ever be a proponent of using that word on a survey. Like with monuments, the public relies on these words. In 1983 a survey shows a “Proposed” public R/W dedication extension of an existing road along the north 30 feet of a property’s survey. The survey sets in a drawer or filing cabinet or an online tiff document ignored and unnoticed for 30 years. In 2013 the abutting property is bought by an innocent greenhorn based on the fact that they have access over that property rather than the other 5 mile winding mountain road legal access shown on maps. Hey presto! We only need to grade and gravel 500 feet across a field along the 1983 easement that was proposed 30 years ago and, therefore, must be a fact by now.
The names and exact circumstances have been changed to protect the innocent, but this $hit show ended up in my lap 10 years ago, along with various others of the same flavor. Show what is there at the time the survey is filed. It’s a survey, not a crystal ball. Let the other chips fall where they may. Not just in someone else’s lap 5, 10 or 50 years down the road
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This reply was modified 7 months, 1 week ago by mike-berry.
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This reply was modified 7 months, 1 week ago by
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Why would co-workers care??
I have a theory, but I’ll go into that in more detail in another thread. I think the answer is they shouldn’t, but the response/argument I got was a combination of “that’s not how we’ve done it in the past” and some incorrect beliefs about what the county requires.
Who is doing the actual recording?
The client.
It shouldn’t be making any additional work for you, it should be the
opposite. Having the easement referenced on the survey is great
downstream info for everyone.I agree 100% and this was my explanation to my coworkers.
I would enciurage you to stick to your guns if nobody can give you a real reason not to.
I did that, and yesterday I was essentially fired for it.
There was another issue at play there and I think it’s worthy of its own discussion, but it’s not relevant to the nature of this thread so I won’t start it here.
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I think follow through is the more important issue. Easements are little troublemakers that deserve equal or perhaps more attention than parcel boundaries at times. Add two hours to your budget for calls and emails to your client and/or their attorney to make sure they actually record the easements correctly. Much damage has been caused by PLSs with the, “Here’s your survey, bye”, approach (I’m not putting any posters here in that category).
I prefer to reference my plat in the easement deed as most clients cannot trace a deed but they can see an easement on a plat. I am far less concerned about people being confused because they found evidence of an easement, proposed or otherwise, than I am about someone recording an easement and not monumenting it correctly or at all.
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I did that, and yesterday I was essentially fired for it.
Uh – what???? You got fired for that?
“…people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” -Neil Postman -
We do lots of these. The sequence is to file the plat and instrument together. Thus, the easement isn’t proposed, the plat and instrument are simultaneously (together or the same day) filed. Many of them are filed in the same instrument, “Exhibit A” referenced in the deed and being the description while “Exhibit B” which is the plat referenced in “Exhibit A” and will be the next page of the instrument or a ROS is referenced in the description which is filed at that time.
Please don’t file proposed, if it’s proposed it shouldn’t be in the Clerk’s office. It should be in a dusty file in a job folder.
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