I have often wondered if there would be a demand for offering old surveys to the public.
Obvious questions that would arise might be:
The value or fee associated with a 25yr old drawing?
The liability of supplying the public to my drawings?
I have many thousands of survey drawings that, if made available to the public could be a source of revenue.
Not worth your time.
Paul in PA
Why would you say that?
I have considered using that as a marketing ploy.
"Surveys' $10.99!! (for a copy of a real survey) Call us for a proposal to survey your property!"
Old Surveys made available to public
I usually share old surveys with other surveyors but not the general public.
After nearly 40 years in business, I have surveyed many of these a second time and a fair number a third or even a fourth time with an updated plat. I view this information as a part of my retirement plan.
I will provide a copy to the original client, for a fee, but not a third party.
Everything I've ever surveyed is on file at the county engineer's office. State code says the client is only person who has to get a copy of survey, but I always ask if they mind it being on file.
I do reside in a recording state, and all monumented land surveys have been deposited with the applicable county office (since the recording was enacted) - But there are a lot that pre-date the recording act date.
Moreover - I have numerous Plot Plans, Foundation Certificates, Site Plans, Topo's, Location Certificates and Drainage Plans that have been cross referenced in a database to PDF files that have been scanned.
IMHO there should be a state and or national repository set up and that ALL surveyors should be required to submit their work to.
Old SurVEys made available to public
As noble of a program that sounds, the issue would be administrative. Most of us want other surveyors to use our work. Key word "surveyors". Key words #2 "most of us"
The problem is the data mining of old records to save some 3rd or 10th party potential client money. Industries such as real estate transactions, ie. title companies, realtors, lenders. Lest we forget the never to go away low-baller surveyor mining for his own data to gain an edge.
It is right up there with a National Survey License, god forbid it takes that path to oblivion. Survey brokers are bad enough, but to require a national data base is.....
Old Surveys made available to public
:good:
> IMHO there should be a state and or national repository set up and that ALL surveyors should be required to submit their work to.
Why? Why should a client who pays for a service, HAVE to file it for posterity? Why burden the client and surveyor with the lowest common denominator of an individual checking and questioning every little thing.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it and if you can't tell from flagging, metes and bounds descriptions, or types of corner monuments, who surveyed it before, then you probably aren't paying close enough attention to the area surveyors.
You Sell An Old Survey And You Own Every Error On It
Some states have held that if you advertise So and So's old surveys you are liable for errors on his work even if you did not sell a copy. Even if you win in court I have seen $20,000 in legal bills not covered by E&O.
Paul in PA
> I have often wondered if there would be a demand for offering old surveys to the public.
>
> Obvious questions that would arise might be:
>
> The value or fee associated with a 25yr old drawing?
> The liability of supplying the public to my drawings?
>
> I have many thousands of survey drawings that, if made available to the public could be a source of revenue.
I regularly have clients ask me about copies of old work. The answer is always a polite No**.
I explain that a survey is a professional opinion that was generated at a specific point in time and under the circumstances that existed at that time. Over time, things change. This is why if you break an arm the doctor won't call up the lab and get the x-ray of your arm that was made 15 years ago. You don't need old data, you need current data.
I can easily see someone getting old data, making decisions based on that data, being harmed by those decisions because circumstances had changed ... then suing you for damages.
As the Professional, we are held to higher standards and obligations than non-licensed people. As such we should not give someone something they think they want when we should know it may not be suitable for the intended purpose.
Larry P
**The exception is if a fellow PLS calls wanting a copy of the work. In that case, they are not members of the public and are expected to know whether the information is suitable for their intended purpose.
Old Surveys made available to public
> After nearly 40 years in business, I have surveyed many of these a second time and a fair number a third or even a fourth time with an updated plat.
Did you hit your dimple exactly every time?!
Good case study on consecutive/identical surveys based upon modern equipment VS. past practices and equipment!!
Unless your KM!!! :excruciating:
Please indulge.
Curious minds inquire!
Can I submit a FOIA?
1st, there won't be much market for those maps.
2nd, members of the general public will generally not have a legitimate use for an old map. Sometimes they may simply want additional copies for their property records, or to identify whether the pin sticking out of the ground near their back fence corner is the one that was set to mark their boundary corner. But more often they want to try to use an old map to circumvent getting a new mortgage report, or to draw their own site plan on top of for some form of building permit. which leads to ...
3rd, under some circumstances, providing new copies of old maps could be seen as implying that you verified that the info was still correct, and you could open yourself to liability. In almost all cases, if it went to court, the judge would look at the certification date, note that the certification was not redated to when you provided the copy, and dismiss the suit against you, but you would still incur some expense to get to that point.
Generally, if you're in a recording state, direct them to the County Courthouse or County Recorder (whoever keeps the maps in your jurisdiction). If they are a good and regular client, generally no problem. But whether a regular client or not, if I do supply a copy, I wouldn't think of it as a money making activity, but a public service done for free or for the cost of making the copy. It's good PR. I would also supply a form letter that states the limitations of use and the limitations of the veracity of the data shown, given that no work was performed to update or verify that data shown is still valid.
I would provide copies to colleagues as a professional courtesy.
Something like this...
I did what you are talking about. I have scanned, indexed, built a database, designed a website and started a separate company to resell these records.
My liability is shielded in the corporate structure of the new company I created. My state, Georgia, has a law that the surveyor is only liable for six years after the survey; therefore, I will not resell any records that are less than six years old. That is coded into the website. As far as the professional courtesy is concerned I will always honor that. If another surveyor calls looking for one on my surveys I will happily give it to him as always. If they are on my website searching all the records that I have compiled then they have to pay. I do have a discount for surveyors though. The general public has to pay $25 for a map, surveyors pay $10, and contributors pay $0.99. A contributor is someone who has given me their records. Yes people have contributed their files to my site.
I am currently writing an article in for my state professional organization, SAMSOG. I think it should be published in their December issue. If anyone is seriously interested you should check out all of the details in the upcoming issue. http://samsog.org/index.cfm I only know of a few other companies that have done this. There is one out of Canada. http://www.landsurveyrecords.com/
My site is https://www.glsarchives.com/surveys/index.php?county=Fulton&district=17&land_lot=3
The search query is embedded in the URL.
As far as making money, HAH! Good luck. I could have bought a small turbine powered aircraft for what I have put into this little project. If you are serious about it I would be willing to sell the computer code, database design and structure to you for around 15K.
I wish you all the best,
Josh Lewis 4
Something like this...
Interesting site! I hope it works for you. I was just curious how automated your site is?
Something like this...
Once I load the data onto the server I don't have to do anything. Well maybe one or two things. From the customer's point of view they have to create a membership. When they are creating a membership they can say weather they are a surveyor or not. I get an email sent to my phone saying there is a new member waiting for surveyor status approval. I give them an approval and they receive the discount for being a land surveyor at that point. Sometimes there is a little delay because I am in the field working. Once they set up their membership they can then "purchase maps" once they purchase a map the website asks for a credit card. They can chose to save the credit card information or not. If the credit card info is saved then when they come back to buy a map again they do not have to reenter it. When they buy the map they purchase goes into my company’s bank account. I get another email alerting me that there was a map purchase.
Josh 4
Something like this...
Josh,
Your site and concept is very impressive.
If you would indulge me, could I ask a couple questions?
Once you began to have a working model and database, what changes in concept where there?
Has the site been well received from the public?
What percentage of online records do you relative to the overall existing properties in the counties served?
How long has the site been up?
What type of marketing have you been doing?
Would you do it again?
Thank you-
BP
Something like this...
> Josh,
>
> Your site and concept is very impressive.
>
> If you would indulge me, could I ask a couple questions?
>
> Once you began to have a working model and database, what changes in concept where there?
Man I could spend a long time with that question. The whole thing seems like it was very fluid from the database design to the original buisness model to market research. As I became more educated about relational databases and querry language the database changed to acomidate those advances. Like what would happen if the survey had frontage on two roads, or it was in two diffent counties? We did not want to enter plats in twice or multiple times. There are way to address that with the database. As far as who we would try and sell to? well that is still working out. We advertise, get feedback and refine. I think there is some fancy business model about iteration and design. I kind of fell into that patern.
> Has the site been well received from the public?
I have not marketed it too much to the public yet. I have mainly concentrated on land surveyors and real-estate attorneys. Your next question has a lot to do with that. I have only had to refund one person’s money. A survey bought a map and he complained he could not read it. I was happy to give him a credit. I saw it as feedback. Since then I have tried to make the thumbnail view larger and if the map is hard to read I put a note in the description warning that it is illegible. I know that even a hard to read map is better than nothing sometimes. Just a side note: I hate thermal paper.
Oh yeah, I did booth at an arts fesival. People loved it. The maps were easy to sell and it worked out great. You see that was kid of weird. When the lay person could see the map and touch it they paid $75 for a print. They called it art?? You take that same person and sit them in front of a computer and most of the time they will not even consider buying it at all. I still have a lot of market research to do there.
> What percentage of online records do you relative to the overall existing properties in the counties served?
That is a good question. That was part of my "concept". You see I live and work in down town Atlanta Ga. I think we have some very screwed up property down here. By that I mean a lot of the oldest property or oldest subdivisions are based on unrecorded plats. I was able to get access to a title company that had these original maps. Most of these maps were lost or unobtainable. There were about a 100,000 of them. That started the nucleus of the collection plus we (my dad bought the company in 1972) have been in business for around 50 years so I had a pretty good head start there. Since then, I have been buying or acquiring records in the two counties that make up downtown Atlanta. I like to think that I have a map on 80% of all properties in Fulton County. It might not be the individual lot, it might be the subdivision map, or the boundary the subdivision was based on. Even though the site displays a lot of other counties, the main density is Fulton and DeKalb County. 50% would be a conservative answer.
> How long has the site been up?
The site has been searchable since April.
> What type of marketing have you been doing?
Rather not say (on line) you can email me at jlewis4@glsurvey.com
> Would you do it again?
Yes. I believe if you are not innovating within your company you will be at the back of the pack. I have had some real lean times but I honestly believe that things are turning around. This project has helped. I don’t know if I will ever recoup my money from the site but it has helped our surveys. We are able to do a better job. For instance I now know if I need to do a proration or if junior or senior rights apply. Before if we were surveying an unrecorded subdivision, I had no idea. Now I can quickly find that out.
Happy to help.
Josh Lewis 4
>
> Thank you-
> BP
