An attorney wants this certification ADDED to an ALTA survey when I'm nearly done, almost all of table A (no contours.
Would you add it? How much do you think it's worth? Thanks in advance.
SURVEYOR’S INSPECTION REPORT AND CERTIFICATE
_________________________
The Registered Land Surveyor should complete this report. The survey or plat must show all reference points mentioned in the legal description; the boundary lines; all courses and distances; the location of the improvements on the subject property and the distances from the lot lines. The survey or plat must contain a complete legal description of the subject property, including the commencement point and the point of beginning. The survey or plat must show the public road(s) by which subject property has access, and such road(s) should be designated as being public road(s) or private road(s), as applicable. The survey or plat must show any encroachments, party walls, easements, etc. The survey or plat must be dated, sealed and signed by the Registered Land Surveyor.
_______________________________________
THIS IS TO CERTIFY to (********************************) that (1) I made an accurate survey of the properties standing in the name of State of Mississippi, for (GRANTOR) and shown and accurately described on that certain ALTA/ACSM Land Title Survey for the above-named parties dated ______________________________ (Job/Project No., which survey is incorporated herein by reference, and (2) I made a careful inspection of the subject property and the improvements located thereon at the time of making the survey, and from such inspection, I found the property to be occupied by N/A – Not Occupied.
I also certify that all of the following affirmative certifications are accurate and correct, except as noted below:
_____________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________________
1. The subject property has direct, legal access to at least one public roadways that are physically and legally open, as shown on the plat.
2. The survey complies with the minimum standards for land surveys in the state in which the subject property is located.
3. The legal description above is the record legal description of the subject property or is completely and entirely within the boundaries of the record
legal description of the subject property.
4. There are no encroachments by buildings or other improvements of the adjacent properties upon the subject property.
5. All of the buildings and improvements on the subject property are within the boundaries thereof.
6. None of the buildings or improvements of the subject property are located within the boundaries of any easement shown on the survey.
7. The survey shows all visible improvements, all recorded easements, and all other plattable matters of record.
8. The survey shows all buildings (with dimensions) and the measured distance perpendicular to the nearest point on all boundary lines.
9. The survey is a correct and complete representation of the conditions as they existed as of the date thereof.
10. All rights-of-way, old highways, abandoned roads, lanes, roadways, driveways, drains, sewer pipes, water pipes and oil pipelines over and across the subject property are shown on the survey.
11. All springs, streams, rivers, ponds lakes or other bodies of water bordering on or running through the subject property are shown on the survey.
12. All cemeteries or burial grounds located on the subject property are shown on the survey.
13. All telephone poles, electricity poles, wires or lines located the subject property or otherwise serving the subject property are shown on the survey.
14. There is no indication of development, construction or repairs on the subject property within the last 12 months.
15. The description of all of the present improvements is indicated on the survey.
16. All fences located on, across or bounding the subject property are shown on the survey.
17. All easements for “support or beam rights” and party walls are shown as such on the survey.
18. There has been no change (or officially proposed change) in street lines adjacent to the subject property within the last six years , and there is not indication of recent street or sidewalk construction or repairs.
19. The subject property is not subject to any overlaps, encroachments, gaps or gores.
Witness my signature on the ______ day of ____________________________, 2013.
I dont sign Attorney certifications. Period.
There were a few that I don't have much issue with, but most of them are outrageous. I would tell him that the ALTA Certification is what I would use. I would not sign that without my E&O Insurance Attornies reviewing it. My guess would be that they will chew that one up and spit out. That is asking for the moon.
No way.
There is only allowable ALTA certification. A certification like that would turn your ALTA into something other than an ALTA.
"QUESTION #4: What happens if the Surveyor is requested to change the Certification?Does that mean it’s not a “real” ALTA/ACSM Land Title Survey?
There is some concern in the Client community regarding the use of the words “only” and “unaltered” in Section 7 covering Certification.
Under the 2011 Standard, the only certification allowed on the face of an ALTA/ACSM Land Title Survey is the Certification in Section 7, except as required by law or regulation. Some state surveying boards, for example, require specific wording for Certification.
The Certification in Section 7 is almost always sufficient and this standard “short-form” Certification covers every issue that the Surveyor can actually and honestly certify to by stating that the Survey was conducted in accordance with the Standards. The change effected by the wording in Section 7 of the 2011 Standard is essentially a statement from the title industry and the surveying profession that title insurance coverage can be provided without additional or alternate Certification.
For those Clients who require an additional or alternate Certification, it is permissible to negotiate with the Surveyor to provide another additional Certification on a separate sheet of paper and cross-reference it to the Survey.
In lieu of an additional or alternate Certification, the drafters believe that Lenders may simply use these standards (including Table A, and Table A, Item 22, if necessary) as the basis for their requirements. "
The above is directly from the ALTA web site. Your client is asking you to certify to things that are not the responsibility of the surveyor. The attorney is asking you to certify to things that are legal calls and his business. He is trying to shift the responsibility all onto you.
Under Mississippi regs, your seal is all of the certification that is required to meet state regs,
Respond with the ALTA/ACSM 2011 Standards along with a letter that correlates each of his items to items that are ieither in the Standard certification or the to the applicable Table A item, and explains that you must use the certification in the standards. Also let him know that you would be happy to renegotiate the contract to include those items which were not indicated in your original agreement, with the understanding that not only will your fee change to reflect the additional items not asked for previously, but the delivery date will need to also be pushed back in order to performe the additional research, fieldwork, and drafting required to address those items.
After absorbing your letter, the attorney will have you sign the standard ALTA certification for the originally agreed upon items by the next business day.
> Respond with the ALTA/ACSM 2011 Standards along with a letter that correlates each of his items to items that are ieither in the Standard certification or the to the applicable Table A item, and explains that you must use the certification in the standards. Also let him know that you would be happy to renegotiate the contract to include those items which were not indicated in your original agreement, with the understanding that not only will your fee change to reflect the additional items not asked for previously, but the delivery date will need to also be pushed back in order to performe the additional research, fieldwork, and drafting required to address those items.
>
> After absorbing your letter, the attorney will have you sign the standard ALTA certification for the originally agreed upon items by the next business day.
While you are renegotiating, make sure you require a signed certification from the attorney stating that they have provided you with all information required to sign said certification and that they will accept all liability for any omissions.
> Would you add it? How much do you think it's worth? Thanks in advance.
Any time you see the word "all" in one of these things it should be a red flag.
I might sign a supplemental certification, but only after receiving advice from council, whose charges would be passed on to the client - for starters. And no lawyer would allow a client to sign this monster. So while I might sign a supplemental certification there is no way I'd be signing this certification.
Frequently the requiring of significant additional fees is enough to make these things go away.
We were asked to do the same thing for a survey we're doing. I politely told them we could use their certification because it didn't conform to the alta acsm standards and that most of their statements were redundant to the alta standards. They reviewed our proposal and gave in without incident.
From memory it was identical to what you posted. I think those 'long form' certifications get passed around the title community like Nigerian emails.
Take the value of the land, multiply by 2, and that would be my bill for that cert!!!
N
There isn't enough to make that worthwhile. Don't have time to go through each item. But no don't sign it and don't spend time explaining why you won't sign it. You didn't agree to it upfront. Give them your final ALTA, your bill and move on, they won't hold up a transaction over this. If they ask why you didn't respond to it, just laugh and say, "Your kidding, right? I gave you an ALTA which is what you asked for". You contracted for one, you gave them one.
A reply something like this should work wonders.
"I contracted with my client to provide an ACSM-ALTA survey. What you are requesting will fundamentally change that contract. My client has expressed that he (she or it) is unwilling to incur any additional expense. Before we negotiate possible changes to our contract we need to establish who will be paying the additional fees. Please send me a non-refundable fee of $1,000 for the time I will spend negotiating these modifications. Once that fee is received I will be happy to schedule an appointment to discuss the changes for which you will be paying."
Larry P
I was hoping Larry would respond to this post; although I'm a little disappointed....
I was looking for the:
> "Lawyers use this tactic to pad their bill". You know, the old; Well, I tried to get your surveyor to sign my certification, but him and I went round and round, and in the end, he refused. I tried several times, made some changes, but he still refused to sign. At this point, there is nothing else I can do to convience him, I have tried several times. So we will be stuck with what ever he is going to give us; I appologize, on his behalf, for making this more difficult than it should have been. Every other surveyor I have ever dealt with, signs my certification with out any problem.
I would suggest you warn your client; and tell them to NOT pay any extra, for these shenanigans....
I hope you and yours enjoy this beautiful day, I know I will...B-)
Cheers,
Dougie
:good:
I'll try to do better next time Doug. 😉
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.
Larry P
How about this, although all of your thoughts and suggestions were good, and appreciated: I posted your certification on a surveyor board and asked other surveyors how much they would charge to add it to an alta survey. At least 12 of my peers reviewed it. Not one suggested adding it for any amount of money. They all threw it on the floor, stomped on it, and called it bad names. I'm certainly not going to turn down the unanimous advice of twelve of my peers, less I might wind up being judged by 12 other peers for my own bad judgment. Here is your alta that we negotiated.
or something like that.
I would not sign the lawyers certification. I state in my contract that I will only use the certification as stated in the (use applicable year) 2011 ALTA/ACSM Land Title Survey Minimum Standards.
:good: B-)
I'd decline. Our job is to follow the surveying standards. Not some Lawyers wishes.
It makes a difference who is asking for this. If it's an attorney for your client's mortgage lender, which is likely, the client has to deal with him or her in order to get financing. In that case the idea would be to cool that attorney down rather than stir them up.
The 2011 ALTA change no doubt reduced the number of problem certs. But it looks as though they are coming back, like vampires that weren't properly staked down. This one is full of liability traps, in my opinion. Item 9 is an especially bad one.
During my years in active practice, I used to modify this sort of certification and send a re-drafted version back to whoever was asking for it. I must have modified several hundred certifications in this way.
Sometimes the modified certs would be accepted out of hand, since they were long and impressive-sounding and something like the originals; other times there would be questions or objections that would need to be discussed. I can only remember a couple of times when it was not possible to come up with language that both I and the attorney requesting the cert were comfortable with.
It's important for surveyors to be able to spot liability traps in certifications. If the surveyor is not only familiar with such problems but also knows how to deal with them, it saves time and money for both the client and the surveyor.
I did quite a bit of research on this subject some years back, in connection with writing an article and teaching a seminar about it. I talked with Walt Robillard and with another surveyor/attorney in Minnesota, as well as a couple of other local attorneys. I also found some very helpful advice in manuals published by an E & O insurance company. I can post some of this material, or e-mail it, if anyone would like to read it.
Modifying certifications is not as complicated as writing descriptions, from what I've seen, but it does take some study, practice, and advice. Not everyone is comfortable doing it. For those who are not, it's best to check with your E & O insuror as Jimmy Cleveland suggests, or bring in an attorney with a strong background in construction law.
I'd just tell him that he doesn't want to know how much it will cost.
