Any mortgage surveyors out there?

I did some for a few years but ONLY if there was budget to do a REAL survey, not a drive-by.

As far as I know we don't have mortgage surveys in California. If some party to a transaction wants a boundary survey then we can do that but it's pretty rare for residential real estate transactions to involve a survey.

I've only had one call in the last 35 years for something like that. It was from an out-of-state title company that said their go-to guy was on vacation and he could usually do 4-5 of them a day. I told them that in California what they were asking for was a survey and that it would be in the thousands. Never heard from them again. I wish I would have pursued it more to find out if there was somebody here in CA that was doing that kind of thing.

I know a few who do mostly Mortgage Surveys, but given the bashing they routinely get here, I doubt they will respond.

I have a feeling they were BSing you because I've never heard of anyone doing 4 or 5 surveys a day like they have in other States. Or maybe they were mistaken about what they were receiving; I suppose it's possible a Subdivision Mill Engineering Firm could be doing 4 or 5 plot plans a day in new subdivisions.

I wonder why California seems to be unique in this regard. Do other States have a requirement in their Statutes that triggers the Title Company or Lender to try to at least get an owner's affadavit? I had never heard of ILCs or Mortgage Reports until 10 years after the dawn of the world wide web.

I don't know. That was a weird call and I didn't take down any contact info for the title guy calling. He acted like he had a guy that did this stuff for him on a regular basis but he needed somebody for this one time on a property in Oroville, about a two-hour drive for me in what is that, Butte County, which I know next to nothing about, except my wife graduated from Chico State and that's in that county, too. If all I had to do was drive by and confirm that there is a house on that lot, it still would have taken me all day. I think maybe the title guy was from another state where that kind of thing is done and he thought he had to do it here.

I think Merlin is correct

> I know a few who do mostly Mortgage Surveys, but given the bashing they routinely get here, I doubt they will respond.

I think Merlin is right on target with this one. I think that there is a market and a very few percentage take capitalize on it and are quiet about it.

The classic scenario of "Those who know don't talk and those who talk don't know"

I do a few "mortgage surveys" every year, but they are full blown surveys, generally on lots of 1/2 acre or less. Usually, in this area, the buyers are getting financing through a USDA loan, and that is part of the requirements.

Mortgage Surveys?

I've done 1,000's of loan closing surveys beginning when I was young and starting out in New Orleans during the late 60's through the late 70's, all through the 80's into the early 90's in Jackson, Mississippi. Then the banking institutes stop getting them. Sometimes they were called foundation surveys, making sure the the forms or slabs were withing the setback lines of the subdivision lots. None of these surveys were ride by inspections. Far from it. All the lot corners were located and measured. Along with the adjoining lots in platted subdivisions. All improvements were located. I remember setting up on lot corners sighting to the adjacent corner reading a tape being swung back and forth to the .01 of a foot to measure the location of a building or foundation corner. The same thing with fence corners. There was a lot of work and skill doing those surveys. I've always took pride in my work. I remember in New Orleans reporting building or slab locations .02' inside the setback lines, and the contractor or home owner having to get a waver from the building commission of acceptance. I remember some foundations having to be trashed for being out of tolerance, costing the the contractor some serious money. I'm sure this is not what you're referring to.

Let's see-

I did one for the first family home we built on 1980, and one for the second in 1993, and one at no charge for Uncle Charlie in 1998.

That's about it, and probably about all it will be. I don't have another house in me.

I know people who make six digit net incomes doing them, or at least they did before the housing collapse.

What exactly is a "Mortgage Survey"? In Va. I think the closest description is a "Physical Survey" as defined by 18 VAC 10-20-38. Is that the same thing?

Just curious.

Thousands to survey a residential property? What do you stake the corners with, gold spikes?

I did hundreds when I started surveying; working for a "loan mill." This was the early to mid 90's in Atlanta, GA.

Got out of that after 2 years, and I don't ever intend to get back in. I have done numerous "lot surveys" since then, but whether or not the intent was to secure a loan on the property, they were surveys just like any other, only of a relatively small parcel of land.

Anyway, the market for them has died in most places due to the fact that title insurers will write policies without them provided that their affidavit is signed instead.

Stephen Calder

I'm not sure what a "mortgage survey" is either. I've done hundreds of Mortgage Loan Inspections. But both here and on the old board we have tended to use the terms "mortgage survey," "Mortgage Loan Inspection," "ILC," "location survey," etc. interchangeably, whereas I suspect they not only come from different regions but denote different products, provided for different clients under different standards of practice.

Maine's licensing board defined and approved MLI's in standards it enacted in the mid -'80's but explicitly stated therein that the MLI is not a survey.

Drive by? What does that even mean?

I've never understood what the term "drive-by" means. How in the world can somebody drive by a property and without measuring anything and prepare a drawing? I've heard the term windshield survey as well, I don't get it.

An interesting observation that many surveyors feel (and has been discussed here) is that architects should be sanctioned for crossing into surveying and that the use of a total stations should only be conducted only by surveyors (such as accident surveys) and that construction staking should only be done by surveyors only after a boundary survey is done or that fence staking is boundary surveying and should only be done by a surveyor.

But yet when the issue of mortgage surveys, improvement location reports/certificates/inspections (to name a few) come up, a large percentage of surveyors cry foul. Stating that they don't do them with a greater than thou attitude. Or their state doesn't allow them, or that they are illegal and then criticize those surveyors who in fact do them. -- Talk about a profession that is dis-functional.

Drive by? What does that even mean?

I don't mean to bash anyone, personally.

Whoever is operating within their Statute is fine with me.

The only thing I know about these is what I read on here and private conversations with those who have done them. It appears that these vary (like most things) from place to place. Some places the Party Chiefs are all very experienced and all Surveys are Surveys. Other places there are firms using 90 day wonder Party Chiefs and the business is to push out as many in one day as possible which obviously will lead to abuse. It's like pushing the yellow light and occasionally entering the intersection on red, how often do you get caught?

Technically there is no such thing in Florida. I do plenty of boundary surveys for property sales, though.

Under our ad hoc system of surveys where it is left up to the ignorant masses to maintain the buried 1/2" rebars marking their property corners and major control (block corners for example) may or may not be in set by a variety of methods and evidences by private Land Surveyors who just happen along then, yes, it can cost thousands of dollars to get a less than satisfactory answer. It has nothing to do with the cost of the monument itself; it has to do with the value of the property, the perceived liability assumed by the professional and the amount of time and effort necessary to determine the property corners.

The complaint I have heard (not so much on-line but in person) is that 2" brass caps cost 15 bucks each but aluminum is only 5 bucks so we use aluminum to avoid breaking the budget which seems silly when we are spending thousands of dollars of the client's money (or staff time) to establish the boundary corners.

I think if every new subdivision lot got a substantial, neatly formed, concrete monument with neatly stamped 2" brass cap at the corner, prominently visible then the public would understand the value of surveying better. It's sort of akin to Ford Motor Company putting a pretty shiny nameplate on my F150. All the public see, if they can find it, is a cheap plastic cap.