-
Rule 663.20 or Another Catastrophic Regulation in Texas
It was a dark day indeed for the public on April 16, 1982 when the Texas Board of Land Surveying (TBLS), the agency consituted by the Land Surveying Practices Act of 1979 to regulate the practice of surveying in Texas, adopted this draconian rule that required Texas registrants to actually set boundary markers!
[INDENT]
663.11 Certification and Monumentation of SurveysWhen delineating a property or boundary line as an integral portion of a survey, (survey being defined in the Land Surveying Practices Act of 1979, å¤2, subsection (1) or (3)), the land surveyor shall set, or leave as found, sufficient, stable, and reasonable permanent survey markers to represent or reference the property or boundary corners, angle points, and points of curvature or tangency. All survey markers shall be shown and described with sufficient evidence of the location of such markers on the surveyors‰Ûª plat. If the land surveyor shall prepare a written description of the surveyed premise, he shall include in that written description:
(1) reference to and a description of the survey markers as shown on the plat, and
(2) the seal and signature of a registered or licensed surveyor.[/INDENT]This tremendously burdensome rule threatened to destroy the residential real estate market and the Houston Board of Realtors had some helpful amendments to the rule that would have protected the buyers of residential properties from the awful knowledge of where the boundaries of their properties actually were.
By some twist of fate, however, the TBLS possibly either didn‰Ûªt get the memo from the Houston real estate peddlers or failed to understand the compelling logic of the Houstonians‰Ûªs case, i.e. that it would leave less money to pay for real estate commissions in most real estate transactions. At any rate, the rule was adopted as proposed and remained in force for twenty-six years until it was repealed in 2008. The language of 663.11 had been reproduced in another massively burdensome rule known as Rule 663.17 that still gives many land surveyors nervous breakdowns at the thought of actually having to comply with it.
However, to soften the blow of the weight of this regulation upon the backs of Texas surveyors, the TBLS proposed in June, 1992 to adopt a sort of a Carrot Rule to distract surveyors by gulling them into thinking about actually trying to do many things that no surveyor could possibly do. This rule was designated as 663.20 and read as follows:
[INDENT]663.20 Evidence of Non-negligent Performance
If the surveyor has evidence of the competent completion of any of the following, such evidence may be considered by the board as evidence of non-negligent performance of a surveying service. The evidence should show that the surveyor:
(1) personally inspected the boundary lines surveyed during the execution of the subject land surveying service;
(2) obtained and retained in his files copies of all instruments of record which were used in determined the location of a boundary line;
(3) examined sufficient indexes or abstracts of the land title necessary to determine the location of a boundary line surveyed;
(4) prepared and retained in his files evidence of a closure and area calculation based on the bearings and distances which he reported. This calculation shall not be an inverse calculation made from computer generated coordinates;
(5) determined the relationship of the azimuth base he is using and some base which can be produced without reference to the property surveyed (i.e. Texas State Coordinate Bearing or Geodetic Azimuth;
(6) tied his work to the Texas State Coordinate System;
(7) researched the records of the General Land Office and the County Surveyor for information concernnig the location of the boundary lines he surveyed;
(8) marked all monuments which he set in such a way that his monuments are distinguishable from any set by another surveyor.
[/INDENT]
The thought of a land surveyor actually having personally inspected the boundary lines surveyed during the execution of a land surveying service was, of course, completely unthinkable! How could a registrant sign and seal twenty maps a day if he or she had to actually visit the properties before doing so? Couldn’t be done in the age before Google Maps Street View. That provision was followed by progressively more burdensome ones that would place a simply impossible load upon the Texas registrant just trying to keep their signing pen flowing.The most maliciously cataclysmic prospect was naturally hidden in last place. It was fiendish in its novelty. Everyone knows that identifiable monuments are not necessary for a real estate closing, so why in the world should the consumer bear the tremendous burden of spending an extra fifty cents or a buck per monument set just to make them identifiable as the work of whoever it was that the real estate agent asked to come out to make the survey? I mean, if there was ever a problem the realtor could straighten it out right? Fortunately, Rule 663.20 was withdrawn by the TBLS and various Boards of Realtors all over Texas were able to breathe again.
Yes, the history of regulation of Texas land surveying has been one of narrow brushes with something.
-
49 Replies
-
Rule 663.20 may have left the pages of the Act as written above.
The majority of those rules and their pretense of impact has been spread across and been written into the current Act in parts where they more aptly apply.Some of it was mute and special weapon against less fortunate surveyors that discarded/recycled paper products so their file would fit in their cabinets and with others who had opted for digital form and hen scratched notes that meant only something to the maker.
Much of the verbage was rewritten to make the terms more adaptable to current translations that fit new tools and to fine tune the direct meanings to include other forms of Surveying techniques that serve the same purpose.The majority of the Realtors and local Title Company Managers will never be satisfied with Surveyors getting their fair share of the costs and due compensation for our services that come with a Bank or other Mortgage Company protecting assets.
During that same period of time, all those speakers that stand in front of Real Estate Agents, Realtors, Bank officers and Title Brokers and Agents, Engineers and Surveyors were one by one being reeled in and grabbed them by the ear (or other prominent part to get their attention) to set the record straight and get on the same page as the rest of the Professionals and refine their message and relay the same facts to all parties and have relevance to their workshops and not just throw out those little quips that place tinks in others armor.
I recall a former PC saying that if you can get any judge or jury into believing that your 3ton elephant is a duck and that it waddles like a duck and quacks like a duck, they just might agree that it is a duck long enough for you to get out of there without a scratch.
B-) -
What’s interesting to me about Rule 663.20 is that it attempted to induce a Texas registrant to improve his or her own practices beyond minimum standards by saying, in effect, that “if you actually do these things, you may be in a better position to defend yourself against complaints of substandard practice”.
Each of those provisions of 663.20 was plainly intended to do away with various common failings one can point to in the work turned out by Texas registrants, but the rule apparently received so many negative comments that it was withdrawn without adoption.
-
It seems to me that you are doing the twist again by dramatically overemphasizing identifiable monuments with respect to real estate closing. If realtors objected to the proposed regulation it wasn‰Ûªt solely because ID caps were going to be required! And, I dare say a lot of surveyors breathed a sigh of relief as well when it was withdrawn!!
On a related matter, did you participate in the drafting of this regulation?
-
It seems to me that you are doing the twist again by dramatically overemphasizing identifiable monuments with respect to real estate closing. If realtors objected to the proposed regulation it wasn‰Ûªt solely because ID caps were going to be required! And, I dare say a lot of surveyors breathed a sigh of relief as well when it was withdrawn.
-
It seems to me that you are doing the twist again by dramatically overemphasizing identifiable monuments with respect to real estate closing. If realtors objected to the proposed regulation it wasn‰Ûªt solely because ID caps were going to be required! And, I dare say a lot of surveyors breathed a sigh of relief as well when it was withdrawn
-
Dang! Some people’s threads are more prone to receiving the dreaded “This message by has been removed from public view.” than others for some reason.
.
.
.
:-$:-$:-$:-$:-$ -
While I like most of the items listed, the statute itself is poorly formed. It’s very subjective. The board may use this to prove there a surveyor wasn’t negligent? Negligence is proven by negligence. You don’t disprove negligence by demonstrating completion of unrelated tasks. If I neglected to find an original monument and my survey closed perfectly, this wouldn’t prove that I wasn’t negligent. Nice sentiments, poorly framed into a truly confusing rule. Except that it doesn’t really even read like an enforceable rule.
-
Shawn Billings, post: 346172, member: 6521 wrote: While I like most of the items listed, the statute itself is poorly formed. It’s very subjective. The board may use this to prove there a surveyor wasn’t negligent? Negligence is proven by negligence. You don’t disprove negligence by demonstrating completion of unrelated tasks. If I neglected to find an original monument and my survey closed perfectly, this wouldn’t prove that I wasn’t negligent. Nice sentiments, poorly framed into a truly confusing rule. Except that it doesn’t really even read like an enforceable rule.
I shudder to think how the proposed rules could be applied by a board investigator of like mind as Kent. What a hammer he could wield!
-
Except it doesn’t appear to be punishable. If you do these things the board may take it into account as evidence that you weren’t negligent. This seems like disproving a negative, which shouldn’t even be necessary. The evidence of not being negligent is not being negligent. I guess that’s why they put ‘may’ in there which pretty much neutered the rule.
-
LRWells, post: 346160, member: 7284 wrote: It seems to me that you are doing the twist again by dramatically overemphasizing identifiable monuments with respect to real estate closing. If realtors objected to the proposed regulation it wasn‰Ûªt solely because ID caps were going to be required! And, I dare say a lot of surveyors breathed a sigh of relief as well when it was withdrawn
Okay, you prolly need to reread Rule 663.11 again. Rule 663.11 is the grandparent of the present rules, with some amendments. What was so objectionable to the Houston Realtors waaay back in May, 1982 when 663.11 was adopted was that surveyors would have to actually SET BOUNDARY MONUMENTS. The Realtors thought that what were then called “Mortgage Inspections” would really serve the consumer better than some burdensome rule that would actually require a surveyor to survey the boundaries of a property before making a map representing his or her opinion as to the relationship of improvements to the tract boundaries.
-
Shawn Billings, post: 346172, member: 6521 wrote: While I like most of the items listed, the statute itself is poorly formed. It’s very subjective. The board may use this to prove there a surveyor wasn’t negligent? Negligence is proven by negligence. You don’t disprove negligence by demonstrating completion of unrelated tasks. If I neglected to find an original monument and my survey closed perfectly, this wouldn’t prove that I wasn’t negligent. Nice sentiments, poorly framed into a truly confusing rule. Except that it doesn’t really even read like an enforceable rule.
Actually, what the TBLS was proposing was in effect “Extra Credit” for going well beyond the minimum standards and meeting certain standards that were not required by Rules 663.17 and 663.19. I think the idea is sound from an enforcement standpoint since it properly focuses the attention of registrants upon working to a much better standard than the minimum.
The flakey practitioners aren’t ever going to consistently meet minimum standards, let alone do substantially more than minimum, so 663.20 didn’t let them off the hook.
-
I must agree, that was the last stand of the Mortgage “property check” in Texas.
-
I think it’s more a function of the subject. The Texas minimum standards of practice we’ve been discussing appear to be widely disregarded in the sector of the survey market that accounts for the majority of the surveys of residential properties in the metropolitan areas, i.e. Houston, San Antonio, Austin, Dallas, and Fort Worth.
-
If you’re commenting on Rule 663.20, you ought to reread the actual text of the rule as proposed which is what I posted above. It was in effect an “extra credit” rule, not a minimum standards rule.
-
Bring on the 4-dimensional digital cadastre that aligns with the real-world – the current system is like the imperial system of measurement. In years to come people will look back to posts like this and piss them selves laughing!
Anyone would think what we were trying to adhere to is underpinning the success of the planet.
-
Except even a coordinated cadastre still requires monuments. From what I think I know of surveying practices in the various Australian states, even though plain wood stakes may be commonly used to represent boundary corners, the cadastre still depends upon a system of permanent monuments from which the positions of the corners can be reestablished.
-
Or the coordinate system proven in which the property corners are expressed on some plan or in some database, i.e. to show that as the coordinate system changes, the actual points positioned on the physical earth remain unchanging.
-
Kent McMillan, post: 346341, member: 3 wrote: Okay, you prolly need to reread Rule 663.11 again. Rule 663.11 is the grandparent of the present rules, with some amendments. What was so objectionable to the Houston Realtors waaay back in May, 1982 when 663.11 was adopted was that surveyors would have to actually SET BOUNDARY MONUMENTS. The Realtors thought that what were then called “Mortgage Inspections” would really serve the consumer better than some burdensome rule that would actually require a surveyor to survey the boundaries of a property before making a map representing his or her opinion as to the relationship of improvements to the tract boundaries.
Yeah, blah, blah, blah. I don’t need to reread 663.11, and I am very aware of the issue regarding mortgage inspections. What you did above was blame realtors for the failure of 663.20 to be adopted, and overstated their reason for objecting. If, they in fact did object.
-
Kent McMillan, post: 346353, member: 3 wrote: If you’re commenting on Rule 663.20, you ought to reread the actual text of the rule as proposed which is what I posted above. It was in effect an “extra credit” rule, not a minimum standards rule.
I don’t need to reread 663.20 again. I carefully read the rule before making my post and reread it after considering Shawn’s response to my post. Given how the board apparently misapplies 663.17(d), it doesn’t take much of an imagination to be wary of how 663.20 could be applied, in particular the SPC provisions.
-
I know this is asking way too much, and some followers of this thread will probably think I am on a fool‰Ûªs errand. But, did you participate in the drafting of this regulation?
Log in to reply.