Practicing Without a License

Yes, I believe it is considered practicing without a license in the states I'm licensed in.

It would be considered a violation of The Minimum Standards of Practice for Professional Land Surveyors in Kentucky. I would be obligated to discourage you from doing that type of work and also obligated to report you to the board if you did the work.

Yeah bud, that's a no no, and a big one from what you said, those positions WILL be relied on as the corner/line, you need a Licensed practitioner over seeing your work, if for nothing else your friends protection.

The temptation is not worth whatever you get from the task.

You could find yourself banned from ever obtaining a Surveying License.

Just say no, if the person can not understand, so be it.

Actually...

> I plan on just setting a baseline, locating the corners, and using COGO to comp the POLs between the stored coordinates. Would this be frowned upon in most states?

If the corners you are going to be using have a definitive pedigree; as in identifying caps or tags AND being referenced to a survey of record or in the possession of the property owner, there would be nothing wrong with what you've described.

If the property owner either had the corners set or found by a proper survey you are doing nothing but layman's work, like erecting a fence, there would be no problem. The infraction being the determination of each end of the line. If you are the one to 'discover' each end point you are extending a level of professionalism and liability that illegally exceeds your capabilities.

Actually...

I agree with Cash.

> I am an unlicensed field guy who has a friend that wants POLs staked along his property line. I plan on just setting a baseline, locating the corners, and using COGO to comp the POLs between the stored coordinates. Would this be frowned upon in most states? I am obviously not setting any Actual Corners, and would be using lath to mark the line.
More to the point, IMO - whose equipment do you plan to use to do this work?

>He will not be relying upon said line for building any improvements.
Sure. Of course not.

Actually...

I think paden cash has the correct answer.

> He will not be relying upon said line for building any improvements.

Unless he is going to pretty much immediately remove the lath then you have no way of knowing the consequences of your work. The lath could turn into something more permanent and be relied on at any time in the future for any reason.

If it's such a trivial operation and the surveyed monuments are already in place why not get the surveyor who placed the monuments out to stake the line?

Final thought, if you can stretch a string between two obvious corners I wouldn't worry about it. If you have to break out the gun and use cogo then it's surveying.

In KY this is unlicensed practice and the board will likely move to stop it.

Setting lathe on a line between two previously identified corners may not be an issue. Finding pins and telling folks what they are will likely be a problem..

You are surveying if he has reason to believe that the line you are marking is a boundary line. Now, if he has forty acres and somewhere out in the middle of it he wants to lay out a square area, say 200 feet by 200 feet, then I don't think anyone is going to squawk too much. Anyone can measure. Getting the corners to be square takes special knowledge or equipment unless it is such a small area that pulling measuring tapes snug from corner to corner is possible. But, anything along a boundary line is something to avoid unless you are the property owner or you have a license in that State as a land surveyor.

Years ago we had a fellow who was a fence builder who thought he was a surveyor. This was on a different survey board similar to this board. He has been rotting in prison for the past several years and will not be out for a long, long time. OK, now that I have your attention, here's the rest of the story. He's in for attempted murder or a very similar charge. It had nothing to do with staking fence lines.

Most lathes I've seen are danged heavy and would probably rust over time if left setting on a boundary line. 😉

You would be telling your friend where the property line is and documenting your opinion. Some have commented that if it's documented well already then it's not your opinion, you are simply clarifying someone else's. I would caution against it if you plan on pursuing surveying further as a career. Even if not, do you have insurance that would cover an error or mistake?

One recent job I found two front pins that checked real good. Set some line stakes on the way to the back corners based on the deed. Back corners didn't match by 5 feet. Turns out one of the fronts was actually 1.5' off and had been disturbed, no way to tell without having located the others. Changed the line stakes by half a foot or so. Could have located any two stakes on this lot and not discovered a problem.

You didn't mention checking into anything other than the two. How do you know how far to go with checks? If you locate all of the corners of that individual lot and they seem to check, is that enough? Many times it is not. How much evidence is enough? Can't tell you that because every situation is different. It's a judgment that States have decided one should have a license to make.

Seems so simple, and many times it is. But how do you know when it's not? If that were a knowable thing beforehand there wouldn't be any need for a surveyor.

Loggers flagging lines with a compass after looking at surveys and deeds, all the time in NY. Claim it's just approximate so not violating any laws. They also build bridges for the operation without an engineers design or stamp. I don't know about that, but at least they carry insurance that covers logging over the line or injury due to their operations.

Thanks for the input, since it seems to be pretty much unanimous, I am going to turn the work down. I plan on getting my license, and don't want to do anything to put that in jeopardy.

Until then I also don't want to do anything a licensed surveyor wouldn't want me to do. I'm a good field guy for only having two years experience, pretty good with comps, all the math and whatnot, but haven't gotten too far into the law aspect of things. I didn't want to act like most other field guys I've seen and just jump right in and pretend I know what I'm talking about.

The work was actually for a friend OF A friend anyway, and I wasn't too worried about it. He was quoted $150/hr by a local surveyor, and thought it was outrageous. He's got a 50 acre lot, with a lot of tree cover. So if this surveyor is as slow and lazy as the guys I have met we're talking an easy 8 hours of just field work, not to mention deed research and such. It IS a shame that somebody can't go out there and help this guy out, in my opinion.

The owner could: 1) hire a fencing company, they perform this type of work all the time; 2) hire a carpenter or laborer with similar job skills; 3) ask his neighbor to lend a hand so there might be less of a chance for disagreement down the road; 4) and not worry about any complaints to the state's licensing board as it takes my state of Illinois more than a year to even consider similar complaints with numerous examples and documented evidence provided with the complaint.
It's a shame that a state which makes it difficult to obtain a professional license (because we do protect the rights and well being of the public) has absolutely no backbone or teeth to support the license and allows others to mock the system and all professionals.
Now its back to the Sunday paper, the Panara dark roast coffee and a Happy Easter with the grandkids.

Jim

I used to think it was a shame too, when I was in your situation. But over the years I've seen too many instances where $500 favor or low bid has bought the poor sod 10's of thousands in legal costs and/or the loss of some portion of their land, buildings, wells.

Those that charge a lot of money for their opinion tend to be worth it in the long run.

:good: :good:

So I have to ask this question for discussion

Say the OP, as the field guy for a PLS, sets 2 corners per the PLS instructions that are not visible from each other, on a survey for one of the field guy's buddies. Buddy comes home that afternoon, sees corners, talks to the adjoiner and they agree to put a fence on the line. So he asks his buddy if he can come by Saturday and set a stake on the hill between the 2 corners so they can put up a fence. Field guy has an old transit at home, says sure, I can set up on the hill and wiggle in between the 2 corners and set a stake. Sets the stake exactly on line. Did he break the rules?

> If you have to break out the gun and use cogo then it's surveying.

Therein lies the problem....................

[sarcasm]It is, after all, the tools and the math that define our profession and our solemn duty to the public.[/sarcasm]