Long post coming, buckle up or bail out now!
I have a challenging client and am looking for advice how to best navigate. At first contact, she requested a survey on her 100'x200' city lot because she was in dispute with the location of the boundary between her and her neighbor, a family member. Both had lived in the homes for decades. My gut (correctly) sensed trouble, so I quoted a high fee that I thought would send her away, and requested a 50% deposit. To my surprise she accepted and paid the deposit promptly.
Skipping to now; my gut was right, survey was a nightmare. Bad record, lousy maps, bad deed misclosures. Field survey finds plenty of monuments, occupation following them, but it's a struggle to make them work with 1930's block map. The map is half illegible and has several inconsistencies.
At the location of one corner in particular, that which would mark the north end of the line in dispute, I find a very large metal scrap and trash pile. Tires, discarded metal, stack of old bricks, uncoiled barbed wire, and once I got through that, I found that sheets of tin roof had been laid flat on the ground and subsequently hidden under layers of leaves and dirt. I spent at nearly 2 hours in this corner, the search was challenging.
In all the ruckus, my client's neighbor came out. I ask him: "Do you know where any of your boundary corners are?" and "Where do you think your boundary line is and why?". He says he remembered there being "a stob" in the pile, and that he always thought the line went right down the wall of his shed. I had indeed found a pipe in the pile, it was hard to distinguish from the rest of the garbage, it was stuck firm in the ground, though it was leaning pretty severely.
When I finally have all the evidence and record I think I'm going to get, I render my resolution. I ultimately hold the pipe in the scrap pile, as I found it's location to be well within tolerance when measuring from the numerous other monuments. Drawing the line up to the south found pipe, distance checks near perfect, and it follows right along the outside edge of the shed as the adjoiner believed
Now the problem. My client strongly disagrees with my determination. She believe the line to be 10 or feet further into her neighbor, bisecting the mentioned shed instead of skirting right outside. She was absolutely livid that I even spoke to her neighbor, much less even considered anything he had to say.
"I am paying you to survey my line, not his. Why are you talking to him?"
"Of course he's going to tell you his shed's on his property, that's where he wants it to be"
"You said yourself there was a bunch of scrap metal, how do you know he didn't put that pipe where he wanted it".
"You are the surveyor, you tell him where the boundary line is, not the other way around"
I give the usual rebuttals:
"I'm not an attorney, I can't fight for the outcome you want, I look for the truth and render an opinion I believe is based in fact"
"Your neighbors statement did not determine the boundary, it was just another piece of the evidence, I considered it the same as your own statement"
"The line between you and your neighbor is the same line, there is no 'your' line and 'his' line"
Given her strongly held opinion, I took another deep dive to see if I could find anything that gave credibility to her claim. Given the issues with the record maps, it is conceivable that an alternate resolution could possibly put the line where she believes it to be. For a gut check, I reexamined all the records, with a purposeful bias to conform the boundary to her belief. I returned to the field to look for evidence I may have missed. After that effort, I found nothing that support her assertion. Occupation, monumentation, every single piece evidence except for her statement and the ambiguity of the record maps in my opinion could possibly lead to a resolution the way she was expecting. Even if there was, if the boundary was set the way she'd like it, on the side opposite in conflict her own shed and carports would be well outside. Covering all bases, I added a note to the map, summarizing her statement and my own statement as to why my judgement place the boundary line somewhere else
In multiple phone calls, I've held firm to my opinion on the survey, and offered multiple times to come to her house and walk her through the decision making. Confusing her perspective is that the conflicted line doesn't run perpendicular to the road, nor do the homes and shed sit parallel to the boundary line. She said every person who looks at that line can tell you that it's wrong. from her view because it doesn't go where it feels natural with respect to the structures.
I put the screws down today saying that I have met the obligations of my state standards, and those of our contract, and I would like the balance of the invoice paid. I offer to come again to her home to talk through the map. She makes it clear that she won't be paying unless I "fix the wrong line" and "do this job right". She began to question my eyesight, and wondered if perhaps it was too cloudy the day I did the survey, maybe I just couldn't see. I offer to come by one more time to discuss and collect payment, at which point she says "We either work this out, or I'll be calling the Better Business Bureau". I'm not interested in hearing threats, so I end the call without a resolution.
The way I see it, there is nothing I can say that's going to change her mind. Her conclusion is that my survey is incorrect, I have made a mistake, it is wrong. She is not going to accept my survey, or pay her balance willingly.
Option 1
Demand payment, attempt to explain the map again.
Option 2
Let her off for the balance owed, advise our business is complete.
Either way I am expecting a complaint to be followed to the BBB, and she may also discover she can file a complaint to my state board. Advice?
It's an unfortunate situation. Decide now how important it is to you. You may get paid, you may not. Let it ride, calling or emailing her occasionally asking if she is going to pay until the necessary time has elapsed, 90 days or so I'd say, then get an attorney to send her a letter. If no traction there, have her served. You may go to court and get a judgement, but still not get paid. File a lien. Your call whether the juice is worth the squeeze or not.
So you actually FIND the existing corners ! ! ! That is nuts.
If it’s less than $2K just walk. You’ll have to spend more money for only a chance to get what she owes you plus you'll spend a bunch of time that could be focused on good clients or your family. Mark Twain had it right when he said, “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured”. It’s a bummer that there are folks like that, but you should give yourself a pat on the back for getting 50% upfront, you were wise.
It’s doubtful there’s anything you could have done to prevent this. Moving forward, I’ve noticed a pattern with female clients that makes me suspect that many of them assume I'll be dismissive of their concerns and talk down to them. In my experience (and what's more important than lived experience right?), most women view threats and security differently (not better or worse) than men. With this in mind, I try to spend a bit more time on the front end of a project when the client is a female in an attempt to make it clear to her that I care about her concerns and don’t find them to be silly, neurotic, or unjustified. The discussion you had concerning following the evidence is what I hit hard and with great repetition before the survey begins. I also tell all my clients that there’s a great chance that they will not like the results of the survey and there may even be a chance that they’d be better off without it. It doesn’t work all the time because humans are mostly emotional not rational, but it seems to improve their trust in me. Good luck and congratulations for developing the correct intuition about this client. Maybe next time you should apply a 2.5 multiplier so you can make money even if you only get the 50% retainer.
File a lien, send monthly statement with ever increasing interest added.
In my opinion, I'd decide whether it's worth the fight or not. If not, cut your losses, mark her as a "difficult client" and move on.
If yes, buckle down for the long haul and expect to pay dearly and still get a bad review/complaint.
This sort of thing happened to me a few months ago with a construction client. They wanted to argue over $800 (total contract of $15k) and they wouldn't accept the evidence I gave them showing our effort and that we were honest about our charges. I ended up writing off the $800 and moved on. I now don't schedule or perform ANY work for this client without a signed change order in my hands.
Tell her if she pays the other half you'll use the money to get an eye exam.
That made me me laugh.
Keep invoicing her every 30 days, with interest applied, then at 90 days file with your court to sue her for non-payment. You will be awarded the judgement. Wait the court directed waiting period and make the court directed process you are to follow. If no money comes forth, you can serve papers on her employer to garnish her wages or you can serve papers on her bank to have the sum taken from her bank account or, if necessary, you can file a lien on her property. The problem with the lien is that only clouds her ability to sell or refinance. If she decides not to sell for 20 years, that is when you would finally get some money. However, when your court system has a higher level in which to file the initial suit, you can go for the jugular in short order and set up action to sell her property in order to collect the debt. I have only gone that route one time. It worked perfectly. I received the initial amount plus interest plus compensation for all of my expenses in getting to that point. Those far exceeded the original debt. She learned a very hard lesson.
Some clients will be no-pays regardless of outcome of the survey. But, a far higher percentage of no pays come from clients who find your work to not have supplied them with what they wanted it to achieve. You can't go around magically raising people's houses by five feet to get them out and of the flood plain and into lower, or no, flood insurance expenses. You can't fix the fact their potential lender has rejected their request for financing based on valid other data. You can't get money from people, even after receiving a judgement in your favor, whose only source of income fits certain circumstances where garnishment is not allowed.
If the client tells you early and often, "I have the money saved up to pay you", run like a hungry dog after a fat rabbit.
You put her in the driver’s seat when you offered to go too her house and explain your survey. She should have come to your place of business. I’d walk away and chalk it up as a lesson learned.
Don't be concerned with the BBB thing, I went through that before myself when a client did not agree with the results that he wanted. If a complaint is filed against you, the BBB will reach out to you for your side of the story and your explanation as a professional will have them totally denying any action against you. The State Board would equally dismiss the complaint.
Don't lose sleep over it. If your ducks are in a row, you have nothing to worry about except putting up with the aggravation. Been there two times, cleared both times.
Ah, yes, been there, done that. The old 5/8" rebar solidly set and exactly where I thought it should be, well, it just can't be right, so I'm not paying you
I try to be pragmatic with horrible people and the fact is, writing it off and moving on is less stressful.
Yank any corners you set, inform her she's fired, pocket the deposit, and move on with life.
Seems like walking your client through the survey is basic costumer service in our businesses.
