Sorry for your loss.
I lost my father in 1989 and I still miss him terribly. Every day.
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> The new owners could be expected to jump all over me if I screwed the pooch with a cut rate survey done as a family favor.
>
I guess the real lesson here is that it is quite all right to do favors and even work for free... but a "cut rate survey" (below normal accepted standards) can make nothing but trouble for everybody.
PS: while working in the garden I kept thinking... those "favor" jobs... I usually do more hand holding on them, probably what I/we should do on all projects.
Every survey should cost minimum $5k, with generous but documented discounts for the truly deserving. If we were really smart we would be writing survey derivatives and printing the invoice on watermarked paper and creating some kind of survey-backed securities based on the discount given. Someone get to work on that!
My future business plan is to offer only one kind of survey, one that you can create pretty much any other kind of survey from as needed, because maybe the client doesn't quite know what they need, or the place changes hands and you get to work with the new owner.
The advantage is in having one redundant process, no exceptions. Could be the fieldwork process, could be the office/drawing process. Could be the pricing and billing process!
The ACSM/ALTA standards imply a process like that for the fieldwork, and specify a "One True Certification", which is its own sort of "one redundant process, no exceptions."
Every problem begins when someone gives you a sob story and you change your process!
Peter,
I would like to suggest that discounting your work or giving it away significantly undercuts the value of all your other work. People talk, and I've heard enough stories of how someone got a survey for $300 and I should match that price. I've also done work for free for family and thinking back, it was a poor decision on my part. I get price shopping calls from "friends" quite often, I just qoute them my normal rates. Just MHO.