Mr. Big Shot attorney wants me to modify my recent (4 months old) ALTA survey and insert and re-certify using his certification.
I've got a problem with this.
Ask him how much he would charge to sign that if he were a land surveyor.
And then double it.
well, it's not an ALTA with that certification. Tell him to read the alta standards and that is the certification you will use.
you are not in the insurance business, title, drainage or any other.
sign at your own risk, but charge 1% of the sales price so you can get your name added to the title policy.
PLS30820 says all you need to say to Mr Bigshot! I might add a "pound sand" but that's just me!
Current ALTA standards say that no other certification other than those contained in the standards should be used. Make him read the standards and say no. If he wants a different certification then remove all ALTA references from the map and charge accordingly. It's not an ALTA survey unless it has this certification only.
7. Certification - The plat or map of an ALTA/ACSM Land Title Survey shall bear only the following certification, unaltered, except as may be required pursuant to Section 3.B. above:
To (name of insured, if known), (name of lender, if known), (name of insurer, if known), (names of others as negotiated with the client):
This is to certify that this map or plat and the survey on which it is based were made in accordance with the 2011 Minimum Standard Detail Requirements for ALTA/ACSM Land Title Surveys, jointly established and adopted by ALTA and NSPS, and includes Items of Table A thereof. The field work was completed on ___________.
Date of Plat or Map:_____ (Surveyor’s signature, printed name and seal with Registration/License Number)
I agree that it is not an ALTA with that certification. I've discussed this very thing many times over with other LS associates of mine, and I rarely find that any of us signed a certification sent directly from an attorney without some modification to make what we were certifying to within our scope of service. Even then, if it wasn't the approved ALTA cert., then it was not labeled an ALTA.
guys
the attorney knows full well it is no longer an ALTA.
he wants you to sign this "I Guarentee" certificate so he can have someone else to sue IF there is a problem. The attorney does not care about you , your family, your business or anything else. NOW the sad part is that MOST of
our 'fellow professionals' will come out here and grip about this certificate and the GO SIGN THE DAMN thing because they fail to have the cahones to say no, the ALTA is all you get.
Just say NO!
Just say NO...
In addition to what has already been said, ACSM has never adopted ANY standards! NSPS did..., but not ACSM.
There can be ONLY ONE certification on an ALTA/ACSM survey and that is listed in the Standards. Anything else sort of negates the purpose of the ALTA survey, which is to minimize/eliminate problems.
Stick to your guns, the attorney has no where else to go on this......
Hopefully you've already been paid.
Just simply tell the lawyer that you cannot accept the additional liability for the original survey cost.
> Mr. Big Shot attorney wants me to modify my recent (4 months old) ALTA survey and insert and re-certify using his certification.
>
> I've got a problem with this.
Almost everyone else did a good job of covering the essential facts. Just say No is definitely the way to go.
But, while you are working on the best way to professionally say.... No, thank you, ask yourself this question.... Why does the attorney want me to sign that certification?
Why indeed?
First, it helps to understand the role of the attorney in a real estate closing. No, they are not there to do the deed research (that task is usually handled by a para-legal). No, they are not there to prepare the documents, again someone else in the office usually handles that responsibility. No, they are not there to represent your best interests.
The only real reason for an attorney at most real estate closings is to shift liability away from their client.
Who is their client? Sometimes the seller, sometimes the buyer and sometimes some lender or the title insurance company. But I have never seen a closing where the attorney represented the surveyor.
Since the job of the attorney is to shift liability from his client, the logical question is "shift to whom?". Anyone willing to take it.
The attorney who is taking their job seriously is supposed to ask you to take on more liability. If you say no, they at least tried for their client. They tried and justified their fee for the closing.
An attorney who has an upcoming boat payment might even decide to ask several times. Do they truly expect you will change your mind if they apply more pressure? Actually it doesn't matter whether you agree or not. If they try 10 times, they will be able to tell the client their fee reflects their best effort to shift that liability. Making a 4 minute phone call to you (or email or letter etc.) that gets charged as the minimum 12 to 15 minutes of billable time is how Hillary Clinton was able to bill as much as 30 hours a day when she worked at the Rose Law Firm.
The whole thing is a game. The attorney wins whether you accept the extra liability or not. Most of the time you lose either way. You can say No over and over and waste your time. Or you can say Yes and have the sometimes considerable extra liability. (Before you even consider saying yes, carefully read your professional liability insurance policy. All the policies I have seen say that is you agree to accept liability for which you would not have otherwise been responsible, you are not covered.)
The attorney knows he is playing the game. It's your move. Make the right one.
Larry P
Just say NO!
Actually, Jim, the American Cngress on Surveying and Mapping adopted the standards in 1962, 1988, 1992, 1997, and 1999. The only reason that the ACSM did not adopted standards in 2005 and 2011 was that the ACSM had become a "collection" of organization, of which one was the NSPS.
I disagree with some of the comments above. I think of this as an opportunity.
I would discuss with the attorney what the conerns are. Develop a way to address them. Charge accordingly.
It seems like the attorney has found something they don't like. What is it? How can it be addressed? Charge for it.
An ALTA/ACSM survey may turn up problems; so might a title search. A surveyor should be willing to help solve those problems.
The surveyor should charge for time taken to discuss and work out these problems. This includes time on the phone discussing it, or time taken to correspond in any other way.
You have to assert that your time is valuable. No one else will do it for you. You have to be part of the process rather than an absolute.
If you put yourself up as a deadend to the process, then you are not going to get much business. If you are a rubber stamp, you are not going to get much business either.
Just say NO is a great catch phrase, but it does not reflect the complicated world we do business in. IMHO.
I attended an excellent seminar with Gary Kent who was involved at a very high level with the new ALTA standards. He said that in drafting the new standards they had many attorneys from the title insurance world offering “guidance”. He related that one of them, in a fit of complete honesty said something to the effect of: “My job as an attorney is to get the Surveyor to sign off on anything I think will protect my client. I will bluster, provoke and threaten ungodly wrath in order to get that certification and any Surveyor who knuckles under and signs off on it is a damned fool”. He is NOT your attorney.
By the way, if Gary is coming to your area, just go. His are the only seminars I attend where at 5:45; I’m ready for another couple of hours.
Most of that is...
o.k. I don't like the storm drainage part (we can't see underground). But a few tweaks and the right compensation, and I'd sign it. might not be an ALTA/ACSM land title survey, but that might not matter in this case, I don't know.
Duane, has a point might think about how to make some cash here and still get a good survey out the door.
The title lines and lines of occupation aren't even exactly coincident at my house, for Gawd's sakes.
> The title lines and lines of occupation aren't even exactly coincident at my house, for Gawd's sakes.
I definitely agree with you there. I didn't see "same" defined legally, but dictionary.com had:
same? ?[seym] Show IPA
adjective
1.
identical with what is about to be or has just been mentioned: This street is the same one we were on yesterday.
2.
being one or identical though having different names, aspects, etc.: These are the same rules though differently worded.
3.
agreeing in kind, amount, etc.; corresponding: two boxes of the same dimensions.
4.
unchanged in character, condition, etc.: It's the same town after all these years.
There are always error in measurement. While we are protected by State minimum requirements, certifying that our measurements are the same as any deed is never true.
I'm just thinking about the fences which are not exactly perfectly on the lot line. The difference may only be 6" but they aren't the same.
I absolutely hate when the attorney, lender, etc. comes back during a review or a few months later and wants another certificate (or two) added. We always put just the ALTA cert on the drawing. When someone comes back and wants some other cert on one of our ALTAs we typically say..... Well if you want this cert on this survey it's probably going to cost you an additional 5 to 10k. Then they are just happy with that one cert on there.
