Paul in PA, post: 413338, member: 236 wrote: As a surveyor you have obligations to the adjoiners as well as your client. a house too close to a lot line, negatively affects the adjoining parcels. Since you say you could not find existing corners and have merely split the curb, I believe I is time for you o bite the bullet and prepare to do an actual surveyor,
If I followed your line of thinking to it's conclusion I would have to restore every monument of record I failed to find, or found out of it's proper position - whatever that is. While I agree that, as a professional, I have certain responsibilities to the public I don't think this extends to solving -pro bono- every survey problem that may come to my attention.
I have made certain findings. The interested parties will be informed.
You offered to help someone with information. Your preliminary information reveals a likely problem. You haven't been asked to do the work required to quantify exactly what's going on. How that translates into some great responsibility to go bull in a China shop filing maps and declaring disaster is beyond me. You are doing the right thing letting your client know. I would give him the option of hiring me to walk through fixing it, but you aren't on the hook now and you know it.
I know nuthink! I see nuthink! I vas not here!
Mark Mayer, post: 413375, member: 424 wrote: If I followed your line of thinking to it's conclusion I would have to restore every monument of record I failed to find, or found out of it's proper position - whatever that is. While I agree that, as a professional, I have certain responsibilities to the public I don't think this extends to solving -pro bono- every survey problem that may come to my attention.
I have made certain findings. The interested parties will be informed.
Is this the advise you would give to another surveyor?
Jules J., post: 413385, member: 444 wrote: Is this the advise you would give to another surveyor?
By posting here I believe that I am doing just that.
To client: "I visited the lot as requested, and made some rough measurements. I discovered a potential problem with the building setbacks. Perhaps I could find the problem if I did some records research and a boundary survey. Would you lake me to proceed? The cost will be $$$."
To owner of lot: "a prospective buyer of ___ asked me to review the building location. I discovered a potential problem with the building setbacks. Perhaps I could find the problem if I did some records research and a boundary survey. Would you lake me to proceed? The cost will be $$$."
Two phone calls followed with 2 notes in the mail repeating your offers.
Done deal.
When you tell your client that his 27.5ft house will not fit in a 26ft hole, you have stated the obvious.
What he does afterwards is all on him.
I have seen many a beautiful design hidden from view because of how it fit into the rest of the world.
And then again, very few mobile homes have a door on the end of the house.
0.02
Mark Mayer, post: 413375, member: 424 wrote: If I followed your line of thinking to it's conclusion I would have to restore every monument of record I failed to find, or found out of it's proper position - whatever that is. While I agree that, as a professional, I have certain responsibilities to the public I don't think this extends to solving -pro bono- every survey problem that may come to my attention.
I have made certain findings. The interested parties will be informed.
I do not believe you have to restore any monuments, but you do need the certainty of where the lot lines are and where the house is relative to those lot lines, for any future defense. You were hired to survey? and if the client does not wish completion that is a contract issue. If you cannot say with certainty in Court what you have said on his board, that is a professional issue.
I do not ask you to solve the client's problems, but I do believe you should be prepared to solve Mark Mayer's problem.
Paul in PA
Jim Frame, post: 413135, member: 10 wrote: Those sound like real sweet neighbors. Have they started cooking meth in the kitchen yet?
Not yet but I have seen them lighting something small and dropping it into an empty plastic coke bottle then inhaling and going into rigors for about 30 seconds, so it must be stronger than incense. I hear on the radio in New Zealand companies advertising due diligence services for house buyers, including scanning for meth lab evidence - comforting to know.
I had an e-mail this week from a broker because the assessor shows the parcel to be 24' side and the building as 25'. Obvious problem, right. I gave them a price as requested for a boundary survey including showing the building. The lender or attorney, someone, responded with a note that an ALTA survey was not needed as long as the surveyor would certify to all encroachments.
Guess what, I won't certify to all encroachments, or even some encroachments. I will do a boundary survey and show the building, but any conclusions they care to reach are up to them.
Bruce Small, post: 413643, member: 1201 wrote: ....an ALTA survey was not needed as long as the surveyor would certify to all encroachments.
I'm really not clear on what "certify to all encroachments" is supposed to mean.
I would certify that I located all above ground evidence commonly associated with encroachments. Might as well make it an ALTA...
Mark Mayer, post: 413645, member: 424 wrote: I'm really not clear on what "certify to all encroachments" is supposed to mean.
It means they don't want to pay me for an ALTA survey but they do want me to assume responsibility for all (that being an all inclusive term) encroachments. Mrs. Small didn't raise any kids dumb enough to fall for that.
Mark Mayer, post: 413645, member: 424 wrote: I'm really not clear on what "certify to all encroachments" is supposed to mean.
[SARCASM]That means locate all the improvements. show them on your survey, then put on your black robes, pick up your gavel and judge which ones were placed in a manner contrary to the legal rights of anyone at anytime for any reason, label as such on your survey and then certify that you are absolutely correct in all of these matters.[/SARCASM]
Can you certify that you located all the encroachments without specifying what was encroaching? (that kind of sounds like weasel-words). My point being you locate an improvement that crosses a boundary line but you don't use a label calling it, specifically, an encroachment.
Bow Tie Surveyor, post: 413731, member: 6939 wrote: That means locate all the improvements. show them on your survey, then put on your black robes, pick up your gavel and judge which ones were placed in a manner contrary to the legal rights of anyone at anytime for any reason, label as such on your survey and then certify that you are absolutely correct in all of these matters.
I could do all that but, since I am a surveyor and not a judge, it wouldn't be worth the paper it's printed on.
After some consideration of the matter I am thinking that it means that a twit at the title company doesn't know WTF a surveyor can and cannot do for him.
they don't need to know much... just get a signature and date. "Certify" is all. nobody is asking you to survey or research
When an encroachment has been addressed or there is suspicion of one or more, a boundary survey can set the stage for everyone to see the facts.
A simple difference in opinion between surveyor findings and/or client's belief may appear that an encroachment may exist.
Most of the apparent encroachments I've encountered were traced to the fact one neighbor attempting to take advantage of the way they viewed the law and they were using that interpretation to take something that clearly was not theirs.
"The confusion between junior and senior rights" and "the belief that one can actually move their boundary and then wait out adverse possession to own something is legal" has been the cause of many conflicts.
Easements are not always described to be where the facilities are actually located.
When I am surveying a property, I do not ever call anything an encroachment.
I find that objects of possession, location and use will either be correct or intrude or protrude across a boundary line.
