Below is part of an email received by the Iowa Engineering Society. No, not the surveyors society, the engineering society.
Dear Sirs,
I am writing on behalf of our local chapter of the [name removed to protect the guilty]. We have been offered a gift of a small tract of land in west central Iowa to use as a wildlife preserve. The donor has been using the property for that purpose and would like to see it maintain it in that use. Our problem is that the survey cost for legally describing the property run from nearly $3000.00 to well over $4000.00. That plus other transfer costs would put an extreme burden on our club. We attempted to identify the property using GPS readings but the County Auditor would not accept them as a sufficient legal description.
Is there any way that you would be able to help us with this problem? We would appreciate any assistance or direction you could provide. There is a great deal of pressure being placed on Conservation concerns by high agricultural prices and by the State Legislature and there will be fewer opportunities such as this one available in the future.
A pro bono job for a wildlife preserve seems like cause I could get behind.
:coffee:
Of course they sent it to the engineering sociey, the surveyors society is part of the evil empire trying to fleece a conservation club.
Can the surveyor make a deal with the club; maybe free membership for a year, hunting privileges, etc? (okay, maybe not hunting, but you get the idea)
I can see both sides here.
Our local surveying chapter likes to do an annual charity job of some sort, generally a cemetery location or church type survey. One member takes the lead and finalizes and stamps the finished product if there is a need for that. These events are generally well-attended.
For a $3,000 job though, the chapter could be taking the food off of somebody's table in this situation. Our charity jobs are those that would never happen otherwise.
Hard to judge without knowing size of parcel and other details.
But I wonder if they would be happy about a similar letter written about the high cost of designing a parking lot or other amenity attached to the property?
Depends where you are. With all the 'conservations' around here, along with the state & federal lands, there is hardly anything left for the common man.
Dan-
As a co renter of my patch of the planet ..........
Ask this group to open up all lines around the property in order to survey the boundaries and pay all hard costs, survey monuments, gas etc.
Possibly once they see there is the "W" word involved (Work) the $3/4,000 will be a paltry amount and might shift the bark embedded in the group's forehead and let the members thereof see fiscal reality more clearly ?
What are the lawyers involved selling her/his services for ?
Cheers
Derek
Funny headline. I'm concerned too. Concerned that Survey costs are outrageously LOW ...
Sorry but it sounds to me like the local chap needs to ask the state and national orgs for some help. Around here, the conservation groups have plenty of money for lawyers, maybe they should spend some money buying some land and incurring actual costs and doing what they want with it, instead of paying lawyers to fight with other people about what those people are doing with theirs.
> Below is part of an email received by the Iowa Engineering Society. No, not the surveyors society, the engineering society.
>
>
> Dear Sirs,
>
> I am writing on behalf of our local chapter of the [name removed to protect the guilty]. We have been offered a gift of a small tract of land in west central Iowa to use as a wildlife preserve. The donor has been using the property for that purpose and would like to see it maintain it in that use. Our problem is that the survey cost for legally describing the property run from nearly $3000.00 to well over $4000.00. That plus other transfer costs would put an extreme burden on our club. We attempted to identify the property using GPS readings but the County Auditor would not accept them as a sufficient legal description.
>
> Is there any way that you would be able to help us with this problem? We would appreciate any assistance or direction you could provide. There is a great deal of pressure being placed on Conservation concerns by high agricultural prices and by the State Legislature and there will be fewer opportunities such as this one available in the future.
Dan,
It seems to me that the Engineering Society was looking for some LS to stand up and do it on the cheap... This being AFTER the "local wildlife society" tried to survey it themselves with some sort of GPS, and the the local County Auditor (thankfully) would not accept their data as a description. This tells me that both the Engineers and "wildlife society" don't have a lot of respect for what we do, and the costs associated with doing it right.
Maybe that is just my take on it though... I may be completely off base... believe it or not... that HAS happened before.
Carl
It seems like they have the same impression about surveying that a lot of the general public has. With GPS, surveying should only take a few minutes now, right?
> It seems like they have the same impression about surveying that a lot of the general public has. With GPS, surveying should only take a few minutes now, right?
riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight. just a few. Just drive around and shoot the fence posts.
I'm with Rankin on this one.
I wonder how much they spent on attorney's to negotiate and close the deal, and I wonder what (if any) the salary is for the "groups" leadership.
Why not just increase the membership dues to cover the survey costs? Why not ask for donations within their own group, before asking for freebies from a professional organization.
If I performed the "free" survey, could I transfer my professional liability for the survey to the conservation group?
Gee, if I was "given" free land, I'd at least kick in something myself to make it happen.
Good grief.
Why do they need to have it surveyed? Seriously, why not just accept it as is. Let the neighbors pay for a survey if they want to know exactly where the boundary lines are...
If you know what county this is located in, it would be a very nice gesture to give the County Auditor a call and just say "Thanks" for not accepting the GPS junk that the conservation group tried to pass through. There have been many cases where county officials have accepted this type of stuff. We must continue educating those in the county positions so that they are our allies and reject this stuff like was done in this case. Surveyors win when this happens.
> It seems to me that the Engineering Society was looking for some LS to stand up and do it on the cheap...
I don't believe the Iowa Engineering Society (IES) had anything to do with the email or trying to find a cheap surveyor. The conservation group sent the email to them looking for help. I doubt it was even forwarded to their membership.
Perfectly stated. Thank you.
Stephen
Maybe what you should do is send a letter back saying "you're right, I'm concerned too. The price of this survey is way too low. It should be more like $6000.00 to $8000.00"
Could always send them some tape, string, a mailing tube and a copy of the April 1961 Popular Science magazine ...
Surely their attorney can write a good enough description for them.
If it's too expensive then don't take the property.
