Disclaimer

The statement looks good, but that does not guarantee or even assure, that a member of the public will read it. ANY depiction of property can and will be assumed to be a boundary survey.

Andy

bridger48, post: 376599, member: 6251 wrote: It would nice if every project was a statuary and licensed surveyor evaluated Deliverable. the reality of most survey projects is the work is focused on something other than an evaluated boundary. It is not uncommon for an owner to wander into the office and hand over a topographical drawing, exhibit mapping or something created by GIS software believing the documents are usable for boundary determinations. Having used a number of disclaimers in the preparation of these documents over the years to protect myself and firm from the overreaching public and their lawyers. Regrettably not everyone is using disclaimer and I agree they can at least appear to be an unfriendly addition to the deliverable.

"This is not a statutory boundary survey, lines ran or shown have not been evaluated for title rights either written or unwritten. Occupation, structural encroachments, easements, utilities or use lines are shown by location only without assessing ownership. Placement of underground utilities are approximate and need to be verified prior to construction activity."

Thoughts or examples

bridger

Many drawings get sent out for review that are sometimes for planning purposes, I stamp Preliminary across them in big bold letters.

The disclaimers have always made me nervous, there are so many things that can be missed with them.

DO NOT RELY ON THIS CARTOON - FOR ENTERTAIMENT PURPOSES ONLY!

Dan B. Robison, post: 376611, member: 34 wrote: DO NOT RELY ON THIS CARTOON - FOR ENTERTAIMENT PURPOSES ONLY!

Serves me right for asking a question on Friday afternoon. ‰÷¼

I sent a pdf of a plan out to a client with a big, red, "FOR REVIEW" stamp embedded in the pdf. A week later we got the documents back to review and the stamp was magically gone. It had been sent on from the client to everybody, including the lawyers, after they removed the stamp. We gave them an earful about changing our drawings. Thankfully it hadn't been stamped yet.

Tiglinda, post: 376968, member: 1834 wrote: I sent a pdf of a plan out to a client with a big, red, "FOR REVIEW" stamp embedded in the pdf. A week later we got the documents back to review and the stamp was magically gone. It had been sent on from the client to everybody, including the lawyers, after they removed the stamp. We gave them an earful about changing our drawings. Thankfully it hadn't been stamped yet.

Watermark the stamp over the drawing so that it's impossible to remove the stamp without erasing part of the drawing. I do this in AutoCAD or Acrobat and then flatten the pdf so that editing is not an option.

There have been a lot of surveyors that wished they had not indicated property lines on a topo survey that weren't actually evaluated. I believe there is a hint of responsibility there, even with a disclaimer.

As one old surveyor put it so eloquently, "You cannot certify yourself out of a liability."

Stephen Ward, post: 376969, member: 1206 wrote: Watermark the stamp over the drawing so that it's impossible to remove the stamp without erasing part of the drawing. I do this in AutoCAD or Acrobat and then flatten the pdf so that editing is not an option.

I do that too - but I recognize that ANY pdf that can be displayed can be edited. Even with those with security certificates can be screen captured/snipped, saved, and edited. Those without security certificates can be edited directly in Illustrator or Photoshop and elsewhere.
Sadly, it's easier and cheaper than paying someone to do what is actually needed. Digital security for images is a myth. Quality degradation may be possible but that provides limited protection.

One thing you can easily do that may or may not work is to leave out critical information when sending draft/review copies - be obvious - include a note stating that this documents is a work in progress and that it is incomplete and that the final sealed documents will contain the complete data record. Sure that note can be deleted but at least they'll have to guess what is missing and try to figure out if that data is important or not. Without knowledge and editing, they'll have a product that has limited use.

I've attached a sample of how I handle drawings that need to be marked "Preliminary" or similar and need to be tamper-proof. The disclaimer was put on a special layer, the layer was set to a transparency of 50, and when plotting, I marked the checkbox to "plot transparency". Once the pdf was created, I flattened the document so that it's no more editable than a scanned document.

Do your worst, remove my disclaimer. I dare say most can't without it being very obvious or time consuming.

Stephen Ward, post: 377075, member: 1206 wrote: Do your worst, remove my disclaimer. I dare say most can't without it being very obvious or time consuming.

Actually, it only took about two minutes in Photoshop to produce the disclaimer-free pdf of your map I've posted below. Just saying. :>

Stephen, I like the transparency and may have to adopt that. My note was flattened in the PDF.

Kent, I'm pretty sure that's what the client did.

Kent McMillan, post: 377081, member: 3 wrote: Actually, it only took about two minutes in Photoshop to produce the disclaimer-free pdf of your map I've posted below. Just saying. :>

I should've known better than to throw down the gauntlet.......Well done Kent. At least with my method the client can't claim that the removal was an accident or oversight and all but the most skilled will leave artifacts. My goal is to make my pdf's as close to a scanned copy in terms of difficulty of manipulation as possible.

I do a similar thing when I have to submit plats for review. I put my seal on the plat, but I overlay it with a non-transparent stamp that says "Preliminary - Not for Recording" that blocks a good portion of my seal. I want to make sure that anyone who misuses a preliminary map can't say "I didn't know".

Kent McMillan, post: 377081, member: 3 wrote: Actually, it only took about two minutes in Photoshop to produce the disclaimer-free pdf of your map I've posted below. Just saying. :>

[USER=1206]@Stephen Ward[/USER] - you knew this was a personal challenge for Kent, didn't you......

Rankin_File, post: 377215, member: 101 wrote: [USER=1206]@Stephen Ward[/USER] - you knew this was a personal challenge for Kent, didn't you......

Just pointing out that Photoshop is a program that more than a few people know how to use to "replace color" in an image. For a black and white plot with a transparent overlay in two colors, red and pink, it is not much of a challenge to replace the red with white background color and the pink with black.

Kent McMillan, post: 377217, member: 3 wrote: Just pointing out that Photoshop is a program that more than a few people know how to use to "replace color" in an image. For a black and white plot with a transparent overlay in two colors, red and pink, it is not much of a challenge to replace the red with white background color and the pink with black.

I'll have to create one in a rainbow pattern with a large number of slight color variations to make folks work for it if they insist on editing my drawings. 😀 So far I've been lucky and haven't had a client modify any of my drawings, closest I've come was a developer a few years back. He let a subdivision approval lapse without letting us record the plat. Without contacting us (he owed us money), he pulled out a copy that was about three revisions old and submitted it to the planning commission. I found out about it when I was cc'ed on three pages of corrections/comments from the planning commission about 5 days before corrections deadline. Needless to say, he didn't meet the deadline that month.

Stephen Ward, post: 377219, member: 1206 wrote: I'll have to create one in a rainbow pattern with a large number of slight color variations to make folks work for it if they insist on editing my drawings.

A half-tone watermark pattern would be much harder to remove. It would not be a simple replacement of two colors, one for background (white) and the other for black.

Don't even need Photoshop... easily enough done with Acrobat.

Stephen Ward, post: 377204, member: 1206 wrote: I should've known better than to throw down the gauntlet.......Well done Kent. At least with my method the client can't claim that the removal was an accident or oversight and all but the most skilled will leave artifacts. My goal is to make my pdf's as close to a scanned copy in terms of difficulty of manipulation as possible.

I do a similar thing when I have to submit plats for review. I put my seal on the plat, but I overlay it with a non-transparent stamp that says "Preliminary - Not for Recording" that blocks a good portion of my seal. I want to make sure that anyone who misuses a preliminary map can't say "I didn't know".

Stephen - just curious, why do you seal a Preliminary drawing? We use exactly the same stamp, but I never seal a Preliminary drawing...

I'm leaning toward never issuing preliminary plans at all, especially in PDF form, which are too easy to distribute (so they will be).

I once had a $40,000 septic system entirely installed from a preliminary plan. Fortunately, there were no changes on the final approved version. The preliminary plan was clearly marked "PRELIMINARY DRAFT - NOT FOR CONSTRUCTION" top and bottom with 1" high orange letters, and a further note where the seal and signature should have been. That was not enough to stop the installer, or the"architect" that sent it to him.

Most people, especially homeowners, have no idea what "preliminary" means. They just know they have a plan, and that all they think they need.

Interestingly, the "architect" I mentioned was now acting as a builder, having lost his architect license about 10 years before. Considering the crap that architects get away with, how bad does one have to be to get his license yanked?