Wow Bryan still not calmed down yet?
> .... I was enjoying reliving it through Paul for the time being.
Bryan, you do realize there is a charge for that, right? I am having a special this week though, the cost is just 1/2 what the County of Los Angeles charges to check a one lot Parcel Map...after all, I cant gouge a friend.
Wow Bryan still not calmed down yet?
You're the best buddy.
Let me know if you want to see the followup correspondence and maybe we can cut another deal.
Wow Bryan still not calmed down yet?
> Let me know if you want to see the followup correspondence and maybe we can cut another deal.
Yes I would like to see it Bryan
Stampy
I remember, vaguely, an episode of The Simpsons where Bart won a contest and his prize was an elephant. The elephant, named Stampy, was essentially a pain in the butt: destructive, intractable, voracious. As I recall, an expert was consulted and his conclusion was "Some elephants are just jerks."
I only bring this up because, as I've mentioned before, I am now a map checker (search "A Mapchecker's Tale" if you care to.) I am not Stampy the map checker or Skippy the map checker but It disturbs me that I could be lumped in with such. I certainly won't be by the surveyors that I work with, of course; but it is a fact of life that some of us are just jerks.:-)
Don
Stampy - Don
You're just to damn old to get lumped in Don :hi5:
it's not just the recording fees - Paul D
> >> (e) Adequate monuments shall not be disturbed. Inadequate monuments may be replaced with a well set and substantial monument. Double monuments shall be avoided whenever possible. The monument being replaced shall be noted in the field notes and on the plat, if one is prepared. When an inadequate monument is remonumented, the adjacent land owner(s) shall be notified."
>
> I like that part. First time I have ever seen a quasi non pincushion law.
I like it too at first glance. But I wonder if every surveyor practicing in NH reads it as an admonition to accept reasonably placed existing monuments, or a direction to yank the last guy's iron when your calculated position falls 0.2' away from it. The last time I worked in a non-recording state, the practice of yanking monuments you didn't agree with seemed to be fairly common. I was shocked the first time I saw someone at the company I worked for do it, and ticked the first time I went back to one I had set and found someone else's in the general vicinity and no sign of the one I set.
Answering the original question, I don't think that the cost of recording fees drives would be clients to unlicensed people. When comparing the cost of licensed vs unlicensed, the unlicensed person will generally charge anywhere from about 2/3 of what a cheaper licensed person would down to as little as 10% of the lowest priced responsible LS. When someone with 5 acres in the foothills just wants one pin replaced, the competent LS looks at it and quotes a fee of $5000, not counting map review fees, because retracing the controlling lines will take that much work, but some unlicensed hillbilly says he'll do it for $100, that is the motivation for those who hire the unlicensed.
It's not a matter of the marginal cost of filing the map, it's more on an order of magnitude between the PLS and an unlicensed guy who spends a 1/2 hour pulling a rag tap along the ground from the next closest iron or fence and drives a pipe in the ground.
In another case of local unlicensed people, there is a couple of guys who bought fairly decent equipment, taught themselves how to turn angles and store points in a DC, and how to use AutoCAD. They can read a map, so go out, do topos using one or two irons for control, draw up site plans and submit them to the county development services department. In many cases, their topo drawings are of about the same quality of some of the less careful or detail oriented LSs in the area, and their maps are better looking (a sad comment on the professiona as a whole). But just as often, their boundary data is incorrect because they have no idea what retracing a boundary is. Unfortunately, the county Development Services Dept (NOT the County Surveyor) gives them credibility by accepting their plans and even having them included on a list of plan preparers that they give out to members of the public who go to the County to find out what they need to do to accomplish a project.
This particular outfit typically charges 1/2 to 2/3 of what a reasonably competent and careful surveyor who creates a decent looking map might charge. They can do this because they cut corners without even knowing enough to realize they are cutting corners. With a pretty map that the equally ignorant county plan checkers accept, why would a homeowner or small commercial client who doesn't know any better want to spend half again or twice as much on a licensed surveyor whose map doesn't look any better and who may take nearly twice as long to get the map submitted to the county?
That homeowner who hired the unlicensed guys to do his site plan won't know that his new $450,000 home built according to the approved plan violates the 10' setback by 12' until several years later when his neighbor hires a real surveyor to do a boundary survey.
To answer Paul's question of how much for review and filing, county/state:
For an RS:
$135 flat fee for review of the first 2 pages of map + $25 per page over 2.
$11 filing fee for the first sheet +$3 per sheet over that
For a CR, $11 review fee, no filing fee.
El Dorado County, CA
Not even a blip on the economic radar of someone deciding between licensed and unlicensed.
Not the same Perry
With an UST, the cost is driven and justified by environmental concerns (some probably valid, many not) and all the ever increasing requirements that go with it. environmental issues are an easy route to go for those who want to grow the power and size of government.
Map review has a much lesser potential for ever increasing fees. I say that as I consider a few jurisdictions in CA that abuse that policy.:-P But on whole, and with specific guidelines of what is subject to review and what is not, the fight over what constitutes reasonable fees is much more of an even field than it is with something as volatile as USTs (sorry for the pun).
In CA, the reviewer might try to comment about the placement of the title block or style of the north arrow, but the surveyor can tell him to stuff it, file it anyway. As a result, such stuff doesn't happen all that often and when it does, it's by an unlicensed tech and a call to the County Surveyor usually clears that up.
Stampy - Don
> You're just to damn old to get lumped in Don :hi5:
Sigh..
Don
it's not just the recording fees - Evan
> > >> (e) Adequate monuments shall not be disturbed. Inadequate monuments may be replaced with a well set and substantial monument. Double monuments shall be avoided whenever possible. The monument being replaced shall be noted in the field notes and on the plat, if one is prepared. When an inadequate monument is remonumented, the adjacent land owner(s) shall be notified."
> >
> > I like that part. First time I have ever seen a quasi non pincushion law.
>
> I like it too at first glance. But I wonder if every surveyor practicing in NH reads it as an admonition to accept reasonably placed existing monuments, or a direction to yank the last guy's iron when your calculated position falls 0.2' away from it.
I see what you are saying Evan.
> For a CR, $11 review fee, no filing fee.
>
> El Dorado County, CA
So far CR's are no charge in LA County
Govt Reviewers
Review by the County Surveyor can be a two edged sword, depending upon the CS and his/her staff.
For a small shop or solo practitioner, it's good to have a second set of trained eyes give your map a once over before you record a map with a typo, a working line you forgot to erase or working layer you forgot to freeze before plotting.
There have been times when our local CS, in reviewing one of my maps has suggested a note of clarification, or even made me aware of an unrecorded document in someone else's possession that I might want to consider. These suggestions often result in making a good map better.
But if the CS or his/her map check staff presumes a level of authority they do not have, it can be frustrating. Some reviewers in some jurisdictions might nitpick over symbols, wording of notes that are perfectly clear but don't follow some standard format they like to see, or other style issues. Occasionally, a reviewer might even incorrectly try to mandate that you change methodology.
Fortunately, in CA, all that crap is beyond their authority. They can suggest changes, and suggest that you consider a different methodology, but they cannot mandate those things. At the point that the surveyor of record has decided he is done addressing review comments, as long as he has all of the minimum statutory content correctly shown, he can direct the CS to file the map as is.
Come to think of it, review has another benefit to the public and to the profession. Not everyone who submits a map submits an even reasonably good one, and not all people with a surveyor's license are actually competent at surveying (gasp!). I have seen some incredibly poor examples of surveying and mapping submitted for review. In the cases I've seen, the reviewer, if not licensed took it to the CS or a licensed deputy or associate CS who then tried to work with the surveyor of record to get them to consider proper methods and to create a map that clearly shows data that reflects a reasonably performed and analyzed survey. In some cases, the CS is succesful, and in a couple of cases, the surveyor of record is obstinate and stubbornly refuses to change much of anything.
Even an incompetent surveyor (who hasn't already been found to be incompetent by the Board) can direct the CS to file without further review. So even incredibly poorly performed and patently incorrect boundary surveys can be filed if that's the route the surveyor of record chooses to go. But the law gives the CS the ability to add notes of disagreement on the map before recording. So you could end up with a map with a set of point/counterpoint notes in which the surveyor of record and CS address the points of disagreement.
Such notes rarely are placed on filed maps, as most of the CSs in this state are either highly competent, or at least judicious in their use of disagreement notes, and most private surveyors either respect the opinion of the CS, or are otherwise loathe to have such notes placed on their filed maps. I think that it is a good compromise between the autonomy the license should reflect for the private surveyor, and the need for the local government to occasionally step in and identify a potential harm to members of the public.
One of the few things CA does right
Is the Corner Record. It might range anywhere from showing one monument and local ties to bearing objects or swing ties, to something almost to the level of a RS. It is intended to be used in the types of situations Dave and Jud are describing.
You replace on or more monuments, but hit no other triggers for an RS (basically anything material affecting boundaries which does not show on a previous record map), and you may file a CR. A CR might be completed in an hour or two and will cost either the same as the cost of filing a standard letter size document or in some counties, nothing at all.
It's a great tool where filing a whole new map is overkill, not really serving the needs of the client, and provides a pedigree for the newly placed monuments.
It's so rare that I get to point out something CA govt has done better than other states. I'm glad it happens at least once or twice in a lifetime.
