ALTA Surveys R Us

You are correct about everything.............well, except one little item............it is a waste of time.

A waist of time is the narrow part of an hourglass..

Don't feel too bad. I read an obituary last week for an elderly fellow who had broken the "color bearer" by being the first non-white basketball player at a junior college in about 1947.

Your surveys still have to meet your standards for your state, ALTA standards and additions to whatever your state standards are. IMOHO, you have to either find or set corners on a real piece of property, for a lease, maybe not, depends.....

In my state, you must set monuments, it's the law.
THere is a specific board rule stating such for ALTA's

I have informed this National Provider of this fact, yet they still continue to send me RFP's for ALTA's without item 1.

I sent back (early on) proposals with item 1 included, now I don't bid at all.

I guess they must be finding someone to do the work.
If I find out who and I will file a complaint with the board.
(And I hope you read this)

Bob - it would be my bet that they are using your quote to check the fee of their "on board" surveyor or maybe simply "peddling" your quote to their "on board" surveyor. I had one do me that way last Fall - I knew I wouldn't be doing the job since I could tell that the client was much too familiar with what an ALTA Survey was and already had all the Table A items checked. I didn't give him a quote and sure enough the next morning there was a survey crew on the site working away.

I have received a few just as you described, with Table A requirements already checked. It was from a "Due Diligence" company out of Texas for a property 45 minutes from my office. I network with a surveyor in that town frequently, but he didn't receive a RFP. The Texas company had a short turn-around, so my fees reflected expediting the project. Needless to say, I am not surveying on that project.

> IMO, A surveyor can not do an ALTA survey without setting the corners.

Setting monuments isn't an absolute requirement in California. I've done many ALTAs that comply with both ALTA specifications and CA laws that didn't involve setting anything. The situation appears to be different in your state.

The ALTA regs clearly state that State rules must be obeyed.
If this guy keeps telling you that there is no need to set the corners, send such correspondence to your State Board and see how long he keeps his COA to offer such services in your state. (If he does NOT have a COA from your state, your problems will be over!) B-)

Do you realize that if your State requires you to set monuments it is against the law for anyone to ask you not to?

That's going to require an explanation for me. Who would enforce such a law and where is it codified?

> Do you realize that if your State requires you to set monuments it is against the law for anyone to ask you not to?

I disagree with you Jim. The public isn't expected to know the laws governing these situations. That is the domain of the professional. That is why we are granted a license to perform certain services that the public can not.

I vividly recall asking a banker friend of mine if I could .... (insert complex set of steps that got us to the desired result). I didn't realize that he was bound by certain regulations that would prevent what I described. I apologized and told him I wanted him to tell me any time I suggested an approach that wasn't completely legal. It was his job to keep us both out of trouble.

The analogy from surveying would be to have someone call and ask if you could take your elevation for his elevation certificate from an old quad sheet he had. Sometimes the client very well knows what they want is not allowed and for very good reasons. Other times they ask without understanding why the approach is illegal.

Larry P

You can do surveys here in CT and not set a single property corner. Happens all the time here.

> You can do surveys here in CT and not set a single property corner. Happens all the time here.

Where I'm from, we do those types too.
It happens all the time here, we call those types of surveys:
Mortgage Surveys / Mortgage Loan Inspections / ILC's