Corners.... and a map

Interesting parallel ppm. Here in sunny AZ if you set a monument, you have to record your map at the county, per state statute. If you find all acceptable monuments, you just provide the client with the map. Same rules in MI & NV.

Here in my rural county, the recording fees are $14 for letter size certificates of survey, and $24 for other size maps, which must be on mylar. Minor land division review fees are $700 - $1000, depending on how many parcels and the size. Subdivision fees vary upwardly. I just bill all that stuff as direct reimbursable expenses.

Me, I don't care if I'm just setting line stakes for fencing, GPS'ing a two track, or just locating a barn - the client gets a map. For their records, and my protection. Sometimes I even record maps I am not legally required to, but I think it's good for our profession to leave that paper trail for our fellow footstep followers.

Yes in Colorado. ALTA Survey Table A Item 1 is not negotiable in Colorado- you must set the corners if missing and file the ALTA Survey. ALTA Surveys and Land Survey Plats are not reviewed for the most part, so the filing fee is typically around $10 or $20 for the first 24x36 inch sheet and then $10 for each additional sheet.

For the few counties that have a County Surveyor and take the time to do a review of the ALTA's & LSP's to be filed, there may be an additional nominal fee ($10-$30 I believe) but not excessive in my opinion.

Kansas, yes and no. New description, yes. Retracement, no. Everyone gets a drawing. Section corner reports are to be filed with State and County. Some counties will only take them at the Register of Deeds Office for a fee between $8 and a whole lot more if big. Many counties have a repository of surveys in another office where there is no charge. The primary goal is to get them all available for others to follow.

In Florida, you don't have to file a map but do have to find or set all corners. I'm not even sure you could record a survey here if you wanted to, unless it was legal size and you recorded in the OR books.... But I'm not even sure the recorder would allow that.

> Answer for me (In Oregon): Here the counties charge about $400 just to "review" and file the map.

Man, that's gotta hurt especially if you only charge $300 for the survey.;-) I am just floored by some of the filing/review fees in some states. I don't mind someone looking at my plat and pointing it out if they think I have a mistake, but I don't want to forcibly pay someone to in order to file my plat.

> > Answer for me (In Oregon): Here the counties charge about $400 just to "review" and file the map.
>
> Man, that's gotta hurt especially if you only charge $300 for the survey.;-) I am just floored by some of the filing/review fees in some states. I don't mind someone looking at my plat and pointing it out if they think I have a mistake, but I don't want to forcibly pay someone to in order to file my plat.

Yea Tom, I'm on your page. Recording a survey should be the PLS's job. The recorders job is to record it. I don't really see any reason why a PLS should be "reviewed" for completing a survey of record, and $400 is crazy. I don't think a $20 recording fee is, but it's on the PLS's back - as it should remain.

I sometimes wonder in those states with those review requirements, the governing body then TAKES liability for the survey, so the PLS is then off the hook? Seems feasible to me? Yes, no??

Land divisions, ok that comes under review by whatever municipality or governing body in control. Typically they do get reviewed for compliance with zoning, fire, access, flood zones, yadda yadda. Not so bad IMO, and those fees are even justifiable in some circles. Sometimes seem excessive too.

$0.02

> Kansas, yes and no. New description, yes. Retracement, no. Everyone gets a drawing. Section corner reports are to be filed with State and County. Some counties will only take them at the Register of Deeds Office for a fee between $8 and a whole lot more if big. Many counties have a repository of surveys in another office where there is no charge. The primary goal is to get them all available for others to follow.

Having never been required to file a corner record in Kansas ( I have yet to set a aliquot corner in the state), I wasn't aware of the county filing requirement. When did that pop up?
B-)

> I sometimes wonder in those states with those review requirements, the governing body then TAKES liability for the survey, so the PLS is then off the hook? Seems feasible to me? Yes, no??

Yeah, yeah, that's what's going to happen, the County is going to take responsibility for something they do.

I wouldn't mind if the county built a road, and hired me to create a right-of-way plat, and told me that I had to use their drafting standards, and have it reviewed; but then, of course, they would be the client, and they would be telling me what they needed for a product.

But somehow, in these states, you are paying them and you have no choice but to pay them to check your plat. Some of the posts I've seen on this site indicate that the county checkers are telling the surveyor the text styles to use, or whether they should have a preceding zero before the single-digit degree or minute. The most a county checker, in my humble opinion, should be looking at is whether the plat has all of the elements required by state statutes, and is of an acceptable media, and size for filing purposes.

I like your idea. Draft it for them, may the precise changes they require, take you signature and seal off the plat, and send them the plat and a bill for your time and the $400. I'm sure that will work. :-/

> I sometimes wonder in those states with those review requirements, the governing body then TAKES liability for the survey, so the PLS is then off the hook? Seems feasible to me? Yes, no??
>

[sarcasm]I would think they could certainly be named as a co-defendant in the counter suit.[/sarcasm]

Our filing fee here in Central CA for a Record of Survey is $700. $1390 for a parcel map plus $10 per parcel.

Too bad you can't get two other licensees to sign off that they have checked the map and have the fee waived, because I could pay them their hourly wage and still save a few bucks that way.

"Sometimes I even record maps I am not legally required to, but I think it's good for our profession to leave that paper trail for our fellow footstep followers."

AMEN!

The corner filing requirement has always required that both the County and State receive the forms. On a county line, all counties touched should receive a form. The counties are the primary source of all survey data for each county so it only makes sense.

Some places are power hungry. Others take advantage of the situation. Most are very nice. At least, that's my experience.

In Kansas, up until surveyor licenses started being issued in 1969, all surveys relevant to that county fell under the responsibility of the County Engineer/Surveyor. Until about 1987 a Professional Engineer did not require a separate license as a Land Surveyor. So, the current plat review situation sort of falls back to putting pressure on the county administration to have something in place to address land survey issues. For many years most counties tried to pretend they had no responsibility for anything despite being the repository of about 98 percent of all the records needed to do proper surveying. KSLS pushed through the review process by getting the statute altered to allow each county to contract with a licensed land surveyor to, at least, do plat reviews if that county did not already have someone on staff with a license. Prior to that there was an appearance that only a fulltime county employee could take responsibility for county survey-related issues.

Far more important than the review process is the need to have someone in each county actually available to consult with other surveyors. As I provide limited services directly to three counties at this time, I end up helping out other surveyors fairly frequently. In fact, just yesterday I exchanged emails with a surveyor from Minnesota who is working on a major pipeline project concerning the procedures for filing Land Survey Reference Reports (corner reports) and the minimum standards for monuments per Kansas statutes. No big deal. Just helping out.

Oh, by the way, there is no charge to the surveyor in any of these counties for reviews or general assistance. A number of other counties have a review fee of something like $35 or so which goes 100 percent to whomever they have contracted with to do the reviews.

As for the reviews, I could tell stories for the next week on oddball errors that have been found. Including having the survey in the wrong county or the wrong township. No need to worry about type fonts or nitpicky foolishness. There are plenty of serious issues that don't get caught. When you have a thousand pieces of information all coming together into one final drawing the odds are that something will go wrong and not get caught by the person most knowledgeable ( the signing surveyor). Frequently this is as simple as having a number in the boundary description (say 104.50 feet) that is labeled as being a different number (say 877.00 feet) on the plat. It's a simple drafting mistake, but, somehow, it doesn't get caught.

Mr Cow, you have such an eloquent way of pointing out the obvious. Or at least what should be obvious. Then again, we're still training our young grasshoppers and try to keep them on the right path....

I like how nobody from the original 13 colonies responded. We barely file anything here in NJ...Major and minor subdivisions are about it. Even minor subdivisions can be filed by deed, so there wouldn't be a map. It must be kind of a pain filing stuff all the time, but at least you have access to some more information when you are doing a retracement. Often we just have an old deed, some adjoining deeds and maybe an old filed subdivision if we're lucky.

I guess by not filing there is a lot less QA/QC with surveys that get completed.