I guess humor is the right category for this. Started a survey in rural Mississippi last week for an out-of-town attorney. Show up at the site and the property owner has no idea what we're doing there and didn't want us three without an explanation. I didn't know what the exact circumstances either, but thinking it might involve foreclosure I call attorney, and after a couple of calls back and forth, she smooths it over with him.
I'm thinking all is well, so we start looking for the quarter corner, which happens to be about 50 feet in front of the house. Neighbor comes out, beer in hand, half drunk and full of questions. One of them being "How much does a survey like this cost, about $200?" Then one of the occupants of the property owner's house yells at the neighbor and the fight ensues, which has nothing to do with the property line. I'll just say some pretty serious accusations were made.
We mosey on away from him and continue looking for corners. After about half a day we found a fence corner post.
Using aerial photos and preliminary measurements, we determine that the quarter section line goes through the property owner's house and the neighbor's trailer. We finally find a couple of buried rebars and try to match them to the deed. Well it appears that the rebars were intentionally placed to keep the property line out of the buildings, which made the line skew from the quarter section line by about 15 degrees, which led me to have not faith any either of them whatsoever.
At this point I decide the only thing left to do is find the section corners and reestablish the quarter corner. Well there are no intermediate points along the section line, so this meant over a mile or traversing through dense underbrush. GPS was not an option. For the first time since I went into business, I called my client and told them I could not complete the job for the fee and time frame we had discussed. I apologized and recommended a local surveyor. She was very understanding and said she would continue to call me for future work.
I still feel like maybe I should have finished it, but from a business standpoint, it wasn't worth it.
Well, ya see, it's like this. There're only three survey companies in the entire world (maybe four) who have the ability to do that job correctly. They've kept all the critical information in their little lock boxes through the decades to ensure no one from Oklahoma City (or your hometown) can ride in and take their guaranteed future profits away from them. So you might as well sit around in your PJs following the antics on a website dedicated to surveyors each of whom is better than the next one. That'll pay better than what you just described.
Sorry, Mr. Billingley, just had to lob one over the bow to get this week started with a bang. Truly, I feel your pain. Some jobs just aren't worth it. I had a situation a bit like yours once where the occupant of the house was going to lose all but 10 acres and the house of about 200 acres back to the lender. He came out to check up on what we were doing. Seemed OK about the deal. Then, when I had my back turned, my tripod with total station firmly attached magically blew over causing nearly $3000 worth of damage and putting me out of work for about two weeks.
Well, you lost that $200 fee!
There are some surveys that grow more complicated as you progress with the work. As the changing cost estimate approaches the "will not exceed" number and there is still a great deal of work to do, make the call. I have done that a few times. Once I make a full report to the client, they will either tell me to proceed or go home.
You've pretty well summed up why I hate surveying in the whole dang state and why I refuse to get a license down there.
Sounds like a normal survey to me.
Started a survey in rural Mississippi last week for an out-of-town attorney
That was your first mistake
I was thinking "rural Mississippi" was the first mistake...
I've done plenty of surveys like that in the past, but now it's up to me.
The problem with that is, when you're talking about Mississippi, "rural" is pretty much implied. If I didn't work in rural Mississippi I would hardly ever work in my home state.
