One of these days, I might wise up and stop trying to be nice.
?ÿ
Caller:?ÿ Hey Jon, I am closing on that couple of acres you surveyed for me over on Red Road.?ÿ I found the corners out by the highway, but I can't find the other two.?ÿ Could I get you to go out and find them for me and get a bill over to me?
Me:?ÿ {This guy has paid every bill within minutes of receiving it, I know the other corners are in because I drive by that location all the time, they are on State Plane, so it should take no more than 10 minutes to hop out of the truck, find, NRTK check, and flag them.}?ÿ Don't worry about it, I'm sure I'll be passing by in the next couple of days, so I'll just re-flag them.
The next morning, I'm out of town working on a project in the neighboring county and receive a text from caller:
Hey Jon, there is some kind of problem with the survey.?ÿ It is supposed to be 2 acres, but all they are finding is 1.16 acres.?ÿ Call me asap.
I text back:
Out of town, if a problem w/ survey I will fix it.?ÿ Most likely a misunderstanding of paperwork.?ÿ I'll look into it when I get back to the office.
I get back to the office and look at it.?ÿ It appears that someone is trying to go back to the two parcels caller originally bought the property as; which included 1.16 acres around a house and 10?ñ acres in a field.?ÿ When he bought it (under a company name), he had me survey it to abolish the house lot and make the house and 9?ñ acres one tract with tract 2 being a 2+ acre tract retained by the highway that he is currently trying to sell.?ÿ So now I have to figure out why they are doing that.?ÿ Trip to the courthouse to look at current deeds.?ÿ Turns out that in the years since my survey, the company sold the 9?ñ acres off using the correct description from my survey and then conveyed to caller and his wife, as individuals, the entire property using the old description - no exception of the 9 acres he sold off already and no reference to the survey by me for him.?ÿ So the attorney's office was seeing the 1.16 acres described in the deed and thinking that was being very generously rounded to 2 acres.
I call him:?ÿ I've looked into it and there is no survey problem, but there was an issue with the way things were deeded.?ÿ {explain problem of how things were deeded since my survey}?ÿ I've emailed the attorney a copy of the description from back then and explained how the buying/selling that has occurred leaves that as the remainder of the property - so they should be on the right track now.
So about 1-1/2 hours into what should have been a 10 minute favor to someone.?ÿ I could send him a bill and he would gladly pay it, but I figure I'll get it back on the next survey for him.
?ÿ
But it is a good reminder - don't try to be nice to people, it will only become a problem.
That's the way you do it.
You have described quite well why the word EASY is so infrequently applicable to our work.
Not knowing the full business relationship between the poster and his client, I will say without any hesitation that the offer to go back out and flag the corners from a prior survey that I did was good client relations. I would do it as well for a repeatedly fast paying client.
The issue comes in when that client, after the date of my survey and the description of the larger tract is further subdivided by deed without my participation and the client could have not mistakenly caused that to happen without getting some kind of financial or other benefit.
If I spent the time researching what happened post survey to my client that already was aware that land conveyed by deed without my involvement, certainly me, as the Surveyor derives no benefit without billing my time to look into it for the proofs that the client was already aware of is through his own transactions and using me as a pawn to provide the answers that a title search would absolutely reveal.
I do favors for family and close friends only, aside from some MAJOR clients that give me the payback on the back end. None of us should be giving work away as a "favor" to a client that already knew what the answer was.
