About 25 years ago a certain local real estate broker discovered that having me do surveys for various of his clients (listings) helped to get the property sold. He, and his clients, had a tendency to pass along the good reviews thus leading to even more work over time. His son-in-law who worked part time as a real estate salesman hired us to do a few projects for him directly and referred numerous clients (listings) our way. When the broker passed away a few years ago his family hired us to do some work to facilitate settling his estate. Now a granddaughter is a real estate salesperson in the same firm where her father and grandfather had worked. She has referred numerous clients (listings) my way, including one job just a few weeks ago. She has a brother.
A few weeks ago a fellow calls to hire us to locate his boundaries. It's a single lot in one block of a 1950's era subdivision. No big deal, just work it in when possible. Last Thursday I am on site. I'm standing near the setup in an alley when a car rolls up and a nice young woman begins to inquire as to our purpose and if we were working for the City. When I explained that it was a standard private survey for the couple who owned the house directly to the west of where I was standing she said, "Oh, I think he wants us to help pay for what you are doing." That was news to me. There had been no mention of anyone else having any interest in what we were doing. She went on to explain as she pointed towards a very new, very nice, very expensive privacy fence that she lived in that house and she and her husband had recently had said fence constructed and that my client had decided it must have been built on his property. (Note: Her husband is the brother mentioned at the end of the paragraph above.) I immediately thought to myself that it would have been nice if the client had admitted that there was such an issue motivating the survey. She asked if her fence was on the wrong property. I truthfully admitted that we were still tying all the pieces of information together and that we had no idea about the answer to her question at that point. But, we did add several shots to our list immediately, thanks to her openness.
Today we returned to set the final corners......................and to add a couple of points on the apparently disputed line...............that would show that the very nice fence was from 0.8 to 2.9 feet across the property line. We had only been there about ten minutes before she decided she needed to haul a bag of trash to the receptacle in the alley so she could "accidentally" discover what we were doing. Excellent timing on her part. She was not a happy camper as she saw the 2.9 foot problem. It's really too bad that her husband did not seem to inherit the family intelligence relative to employing surveyors BEFORE problems occur.
I probably should nominate myself for this category as well.This morning as I drove through a stretch of gravel road the county has temporarily upgraded for an unofficial detour route while a bridge is being replaced I commented that they had foolishly lowered the speed limit to 30 mph. The sheriff and his crew have far more important things to do than patrol that stretch of backroad. So...............midafternoon I was returning over the same little detour doing maybe 40 mph, which is about 20 mph lower than normal, when I drive past a nice pickup on the side of the road with the words "Sheriff's Deputy" in big letters on the side of the bed.
Nah. Not me. Not sweet, innocent little ol' me.
Had a nice chat with the deputy as he inspected my drivers license. He asked me if I happened to know the speed limit on that little stretch. I told him that it had been set foolishly at 30 mph by the commissioners after they chose to ignore my educated analysis that 45 mph would be a far more reasonable figure, as I pointed to the new sign about 50 feet in front of my vehicle that exclaimed "30 MPH". He took a short stroll back to his vehicle and made a call. Then he came back, handed me my license and we had a friendly discussion about a variety of things involving how things could be improved in the County. Then we both went back to doing what we were supposed to be doing. No harm, no foul.
Holy Cow, post: 380873, member: 50 wrote: I drive past a nice pickup on the side of the road with the words "Sheriff's Deputy" in big letters on the side of the bed.
Down here in nut world the Sheriff's office and Highway Patrol use Mustang GT350's and Dodge Chargers with the "scat pac" in them. All of which are unmarked. I love it when you see a Mustang on the sholder "lit up" behind a Ferrari, Lambrogini or a supercharged Yugo.
Our county has a Mustang and a couple of Chargers, too. The 4WD pickups are there because of the places they need to go that NOBODY wants to take a Mustang or Charger.
I try to remember to ask most every time, "why do you think you need a survey"?