I'm putting together an ownership map.?ÿ
A ranch wanted it for planning purposes.?ÿ
The county GIS shows them owning a strip between two neighbors that were split off from the ranch many years ago.?ÿ
To resolve that I got the adjoiners deeds and researched them both back to creation.
What actually is happening is that the adjoiners are overlapping with each other, but the ranch is not involved (except for a poorly written deed from 1949).?ÿ
So when explaining the issue I felt compelled to show the two deed lines of the adjoiners, that was a mistake.?ÿ
That got back to the neighbors, now I'm getting calls from attorneys jumping into the mess.?ÿ
I only wanted to show that my client's property is nice and clean with everything, if the GIS was correct,,,,,,,,,,,what am I saying, of course it wouldn't be.?ÿ
?ÿ
The fact that you informed your client of what is going on with the properties that he hired you to inform him about will never get you in trouble.
Hurt feelings aside, the neighbors are responsible for their own problems and if you can cure that, then do so and charge them accordingly.
Attorneys call you to bill their clients for the call and the only person you have to answer to is your client.
Everyone else is fishing for information from you and until they hire you, they do not deserve an answer unless it is the answer to "How much is it gonna cost for you to survey and fix this mess"
yes, it's all fishing, it isn't a survey issue, it's all about title. The "fix" is all there in the record.
I've been fished by attorneys and with prior alert if?ÿ it's my client's attorney I'll stay on the line and answer fact questions, but no more.?ÿ Sometimes your client's attorney is not your friend.?ÿ All other attorney contacts, in a friendly way I'll suggest they research the public record or subpoena me with cause and see you in court.
I agree some attorneys pad their bills by charging 1/2 hour to "contacted the surveyor" @ $180/hr (30 second call).?ÿ An attorney friend of mine (RIP) actually a roommate?ÿ for a year once told me he charges his client if he's sitting on the toilet thinking about the case and it could be 30 minutes.?ÿ Ka-ching there's a billable 90 bucks.
Am I a saint, no, I've charged 2 hours to "office processing" on a task defined contract which took me 30 minutes to accomplish (thanks to my efficient systems) to burn up that line item when the contract is ultimately completed.?ÿ Ya gotta feed your kids anyway you can.
Uh oh, now there's a title issue.?ÿ Damn surveyors.?ÿ Sounds like some old fashioned boundary surveying is in order.?ÿ But that's too expensive.?ÿ Better hire an attorney to fix everything.
A story was told at the annual conference a while back.
ALTA. A bearing in a legal description has a quadrant screwup. As in reading N 89?ø58'30"W instead of the N 89?ø58'30"E it should have been. Clear scrivener error. Documents in chain of title and monuments found prove it. Surveyor shows the corrected bearing as the boundary, but also shows the alternate "wrong" line dotted and clearly labelled for what it is. The dotted line goes through a building.?ÿ Somebody in a lawyers office sees a line going through a building, freaks, and ultimately the deal is killed because of it.
Millions of dollars are lost, mainly by the seller of the property. Surveyor's a$$ is sued off.?ÿ
(shaking head in disbelief of the outright stupidity that exists in this world)
Had a boundary like that years ago.?ÿ Very close to north.?ÿ Words in the description read N and W but the labeling on the plat said N and E.?ÿ It had to be N and W to close.?ÿ Local title company had no problem understanding the situation and rolled with it.?ÿ No problem.?ÿ But.......................if it had been the Philadelphia lawyer I encountered on a different job a few years later it would have turned out much like your story.?ÿ Absolute idiot.
