I had a request from an old client to have me sent him all our work.?ÿ
This is unusual to say the least, all the results of the work we've done for them is of record form, but he wanted more, files and such.?ÿ
At first my response was a hard no, then I realized all the files are scanned.?ÿ
It took a while in the scanning process to figure out that the files needed to be organized into categories, sure enough his files are all separated.?ÿ
Our scanning was to help our research and storage issues. So far it's paid off better than I ever expected and it's very close to being finished. Here is one time it's simple to send off scans of our work, without anything sent I don't want to send.?ÿ
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It is great you can do that so easily.?ÿ The huge question in my mind is why anyone other than your office would need anything other than the final product.?ÿ I can imagine someone in a lawsuit having their lawyer make such a request for a single project, but not everything you ever did for said client.
Every place I have worked has a clause in the contract that the research, calculations, CAD, etc. are "instruments of service" and belong to the company. That said, sending copies of these documents is not out of the question. For a fee. Why don't you have a conversation with this old client and find out why they are asking for this stuff? And discuss the fee for providing this information if you decide to send it.
Every place I have worked has a clause in the contract that the research, calculations, CAD, etc. are "instruments of service" and belong to the company. That said, sending copies of these documents is not out of the question. For a fee. Why don't you have a conversation with this old client and find out why they are asking for this stuff? And discuss the fee for providing this information if you decide to send it.
It is very common for the owner to do the preliminary plat, get the civil plans done, get the permits in order and sell. They make money off their skill in negotiating the process, the appreciation, and the added value and reduced risk to the buyer. If the plans and other things were not available to the buyer in a fairly seamless way, there would be a significant hiccup in that business model, and probably you would never see the clients again.
Typically, we simply change the billing name and move forward, so I guess there is a fee involved, but not for past work.
And, we would send on the work to another engineer to finish, including CAD, if asked. We would charge for the time to get the data together, but we would not charge some additional fee. If I do so, I am careful to strip the CAD pretty bare of paper space, seals, etc., and I add a disclaimer to refer to signed documents, etc.
Moe's question seems a bit different, in that it is to the client. I would much rather send it to another professional, to make sure the connection was made.
They are trying to sell the place.
Then the only useful thing for them, I would think, are copies of the final survey drawings and reports? ?ÿIs this a micro-manager-personality issue?
There has been a lot more than typical land surveying that we've done for them.
The permitting, ADWR's, planning documents, research, the list is extensive.
Then there are the rezoning, well surveys, on and on.?ÿ
We've hired engineering firms to do a number of tasks for them and those files aren't available to me beyond the final documents.?ÿ
The volume of the scans is daunting to sift through for anyone, it will take a large drive to copy them. But it won't take long to copy them over.?ÿ
Point being is that the scanning is saving us all kinds of time.?ÿ
Aha, well done.
I was hoping that you were needing someone from the Midwest to come out there in the "Big Western States" and do a scan for you? Damn.
Maybe next time.
