Oregon is really narrowing down what a surveyor can provide for a final document. It is either a wet signed hard copy, or one with a digital signature that fits their qualifications. No scanned signatures, no faxes, no photo copies, no signatures traced in CAD.
Full Administrative Rule (OAR 820-025-0001): http://arcweb.sos.state.or.us/pages/rules/oars_800/oar_820/820_025.html
Quote:
A ÛÏDigital Seal and SignatureÛ is not a photocopy, scanned copy, or other facsimile of a signed and sealed hard copy document, nor is it a copy or facsimile of a rubber stamp seal and ink signature, nor is it a copy of a computer-generated image of a seal and ink signature. Seals and signatures described in this subsection (2) of the rule are not allowed on final documents.
Are other states doing this and if so what digital signature services are all y'all using to meet these requirements.
There are about 65000 documents on the Multnomah County Surveyors "SAIL" website with scanned signatures of surveyors on them, with more being added every day. Then there are all the other counties, too. Those are certainly "final documents". So I'm not sure exactly what this rule means.
Included in the text of that rule is the following:
[INDENT](3) For electronic final documents, a ÛÏDigital Seal and SignatureÛ (ÛÏdigital signatureÛ) is acceptable as an alternative to a stamped or computer-generated image of a seal with handwritten signature in permanent ink, if.....
[/INDENT]
So that can be read as a digital signature is an alternative for an image of a "seal with handwritten signature". Probably not what the board intended but that is what it says.
If you use the SKETCH function in CAD to create a block of your signature, put it over your stamp in a drawing file and plot to pdf, it is going to be very, very difficult for anyone to tell the difference between that and a scan of a wet signed document. If you do it right. As a matter of fact, if I use the SKETCH function to sign my stamp in CAD is that not actually my signature? The UPS driver and all the credit card companies seem to think it is.
The last great tangent Oregon State Board got off on was right of entry. Oregon Surveyors are now so exposed because of their medaling it is now scary to be a surveyor. Here is a snippet of the minutes from December 2015 Law Enforcement Committees review of a case. I retracted a few names but the minutes can be read on their website.
The OSBEELS received a complaint on May 28, 2014, from Ken W. Mr. W complaint alleged that RÛªs Surveying failed to provide the required notice for right of entry and some damage to fencing.[hl]
One of the property corners was in the public right-of-way and questions arose as to the need to provide notice.
A discussion was held regarding the difference between an easement and right-of-way. ORS
672.047 requires notice to enter "any" land - there is no exclusion for corners marking a right- of-way or easement. It was moved and seconded
[/hl](Kent/Van Dyke) to recommend to the Board to assess a $250 civil penalty for violation of right of entry under ORS 672.047. The motion passed unanimously. There was no further discussion.
So now I guess we need to run a legal add in the local paper informing the public that we are surveyors and will be working in the public r/w daily. No country for Old Men, Jp
Jp7191, post: 371919, member: 1617 wrote: The last great tangent Oregon State Board got off on was right of entry. Oregon Surveyors are now so exposed because of their medaling it is now scary to be a surveyor. Here is a snippet of the minutes from December 2015 Law Enforcement Committees review of a case. I retracted a few names but the minutes can be read on their website.
The OSBEELS received a complaint on May 28, 2014, from Ken W. Mr. W complaint alleged that RÛªs Surveying failed to provide the required notice for right of entry and some damage to fencing.[hl]
One of the property corners was in the public right-of-way and questions arose as to the need to provide notice.
A discussion was held regarding the difference between an easement and right-of-way. ORS
672.047 requires notice to enter "any" land - there is no exclusion for corners marking a right- of-way or easement. It was moved and seconded
[/hl](Kent/Van Dyke) to recommend to the Board to assess a $250 civil penalty for violation of right of entry under ORS 672.047. The motion passed unanimously. There was no further discussion.So now I guess we need to run a legal add in the local paper informing the public that we are surveyors and will be working in the public r/w daily. No country for Old Men, Jp
I guess cooler heads prevailed. Per March Board meeting,
Case #2894 ÛÒ B, Theodore
Mr. Boyd summarized the informal conference held with Theodore B for case #2894 and the resulting recommendation from the LEC to close the case with a letter of concern. Mr. Singh added that the LEC suggested an article be drafted clarifying that most monuments along the
right of way are held in private ownership and notice is required before surveying. It was moved and seconded (Boyd/Miles) to close the case with a letter of concern. The motion passed unanimously. There was no further discussion.
Just the fact that this case was not struck from day one is concerning to me! Still No Country for Old men, Jp
ppm, post: 371774, member: 6808 wrote: Are other states doing this and if so what digital signature services are all y'all using to meet these requirements.
Before the Texas Board of Professional Land Surveying clarified their position on signatures last year, I was using Globalsign digital encrypted signature with password and a USB key. It is about to expire and the option I picked costs about $300 per year.
Mark Mayer, post: 371859, member: 424 wrote: There are about 65000 documents on the Multnomah County Surveyors "SAIL" website with scanned signatures of surveyors on them, with more being added every day. Then there are all the other counties, too. Those are certainly "final documents". So I'm not sure exactly what this rule means.
Included in the text of that rule is the following:
(3) For electronic final documents, a ÛÏDigital Seal and SignatureÛ (ÛÏdigital signatureÛ) is acceptable as an alternative to a stamped or computer-generated image of a seal with handwritten signature in permanent ink, if.....
So that can be read as a digital signature is an alternative for an image of a "seal with handwritten signature". Probably not what the board intended but that is what it says.
If you use the SKETCH function in CAD to create a block of your signature, put it over your stamp in a drawing file and plot to pdf, it is going to be very, very difficult for anyone to tell the difference between that and a scan of a wet signed document. If you do it right. As a matter of fact, if I use the SKETCH function to sign my stamp in CAD is that not actually my signature? The UPS driver and all the credit card companies seem to think it is.
As far as I can understand this whole section 820-025 requires all documents to be either:
1. Hand (or wet) signed.
2. have a digital signature (that qualifies in 820-025)
3. Be marked 'Preliminary', 'Draft', 'For Review' or something similar.
Signing an original and making 10 copies (and providing the copies to the client) would not be allowed. Faxing would not be allowed. Sending a PDF file that has either a scanned signature over your stamp, or a CAD generation of your hand signature would not be allowed. Making another photo copy of an ALTA Survey from 6 months ago because your client 'lost' theirs again, would not be allowed.
I think that this will be the next disaster in line after Oregon's Right of Entry.
In Texas and official copy of birth, death, deed, real property, probate or other stored record from the Clerk's records to present in court or to an official agency for identity purposes must be stamped and sealed by the Clerk as to the fact it came from her records.
I've never signed and sealed once original and make other copies. I always prepare 6 originals of each property description and drawing for signature and seal. (I have told my clients to make a copy of these documents for show and to carry in their truck if wanted and to put these originals in their lock box or bank box or whatever for future use because they are the official document required by the bank, court or title company)
On occasion there is a client that needs it now. For that occasion, I will sign and seal an original, rub the embossed seal with red pencil and scan to color pdf to send while keeping a copy of that document in my files. Why color pdf, because there are a few color bits of text on my originals that appear as a security feature.
I've made CADD dwg of my seal and scanned that into a tiff for my text documents.
Still, the wet ink signature goes on everything before leaving my office.
That is just the way I roll.............
Symantec Class 1 Individual Subscriber CA - G5. $25 a year. I sign PDF's with Adobe Reader. Customizable and easy-peasy.
Jp7191, post: 371919, member: 1617 wrote: One of the property corners was in the public right-of-way
The meeting minutes are unclear and I've heard various first, second and third* hand accounts about the status of the road and the location of the monument (on the R/W line? smack dab in the middle of the R/W?). I am going to send in a request for the file contents of this case and hopefully the exhibits since the minutes are so vague regarding the monument's location and the road's legal status. We do a lot of digging for corners in public roads.
If this corner was entirely within a dedicated public road that the surveyor was digging up, then yes, it is 99% likely that abutting owners own to center line (some roads were conveyed in fee, but that is rare in Oregon and I understand questionable in court) because in Oregon a road dedication to the public in a deed or on a plat creates an easement. However, it is about the most exclusive easement you can imagine:
- The owners don't pay taxes on them
- The governing body (city or county) has jurisdiction over what can be done in them
- Within City Limits the cities can charge utilities franchise fees within them
- Outside of cities utilities can use them to place and maintain facilities. With the consent of the public agency, NOT the underlying owner
To me the following quote sums up the situation -
ÛÏWhile a highway exists there is nothing more than a mere suspension of the abutterÛªs right.Û
- A Treatise on the Law of Roads and Streets; Third Edition (1911) Byron L. and William F. Elliott
(in 1911 ÛÏHighwayÛ was a general term for public roads before modern "highways" built and controlled by state and federal DOTS came into existence)
This quote is used in Elliott regarding the fact that a vacated road vests back to the underlying fee owners. But the key concept is that the existence of a public road is a SUSPENSION of the abutter's rights. That, coupled with the Oregon statutory definition of:
ORS 368.001 (5) ÛÏPublic roadÛ means a road over which the public has a right of use that is a matter of public record.
... should hopefully put the kibosh on further complaints about surveyors searching for corners within public roads without consent from abutters who may one day have the ability to exercise rights over the road bed if and when the road is vacated.
* Note that no Oxford commas were harmed in this sentence
Unless a Board Rule was passed that I missed, I don't believe that CA has such stringent rules on seals & signatures. Personally however, since I work in an office where several people have access to the CAD files, I don't want electronic forms of either my signature or my seal floating around. I have seen where CAD techs (in other organizations I've worked at, not here... yet) have inserted blocks of the seal & signature of the licensee in responsible charge of a project and plotted the drawings before the licensee ever had an opportunity to review them. CAD tech thought he was being helpful.
Too easy for an unreviewed drawing to go out by mistake or on purpose without having received the review the seal & signature is supposed to attest to. A proscription from making copies of the properly signed & sealed original seems way overboard to me. There are plenty of instances where a copy should be just fine. In those instances where some manner of approval or significant action is going to be taken based upon the drawing, the party receiving the drawing for that approval or action can and should have procedures in place calling for copies which are signed & sealed by hand to ensure proper review by the licensee. Almost all do in the jurisdictions I've worked with.
As to the right of entry decision by OSBEELS, since they're deciding to change the nature of a public road RW, are they going to require surveyors to send notice to the underlying fee owners of all parcels along all streets & roads that they plan to drive over on the way to a project, the office, grocery store, or even their kid's soccer game? Are they going to coordinate with DMV to ensure that the same requirement is placed on other users of public rights of way? If a surveyor is trespassing to locate a monument within a public road RW, then so are drivers on the roadway, the pedestrians on the sidewalks, and especially any pedestrians where there are no sidewalks. I don't recall ever seeing any public road RWs of a specified width having certain portions of those RWs with extended or limited public rights as compared to other parts of the same RW.
It seems like they arrived at their decision the same way many surveyors try to arrive at boundary decisions - they tried to approach it by interpreting what they thought the law was in the way they think lawyers would reason it through - and in doing so, completely missed the point of the law and screwed it all up.
Much better to first consider the matter from a perspective of applying common sense, and then reading the law in that light, making one's application of the law in that context. Seems like a couple of the Board members belatedly looked at it from a perspective of common sense and were able to prevail on the rest of the Board to do the same. But they still felt that they needed to issue a letter of concern to save face and avoid admitting that they had previously made a very poorly considered decision that could not have withstood a court challenge.
Mike Berry Said, I am going to send in a request for the file contents of this case and hopefully the exhibits since the minutes are so vague regarding the monument's location and the road's legal status. We do a lot of digging for corners in public roads.
Thanks Mike. The point is we should not even have to pay attention to these points. For a board and administration that is at least two years behind in their case load prosecuting poor practitioners you think they would blow right by this bs. Oh I forgot, right of entry, and personal development hours is low hanging fruit for OSBEEL's that has little risk of challenge in court. Still no country for old men! Jp
Jp7191, post: 372117, member: 1617 wrote: Mike Berry Said, I am going to send in a request for the file contents of this case and hopefully the exhibits since the minutes are so vague regarding the monument's location and the road's legal status. We do a lot of digging for corners in public roads.
Thanks Mike. The point is we should not even have to pay attention to these points. For a board and administration that is at least two years behind in their case load prosecuting poor practitioners you think they would blow right by this bs. Oh I forgot, right of entry, and personal development hours is low hanging fruit for OSBEEL's that has little risk of challenge in court. Still no country for old men! Jp
Well, it's my understanding that since there is No standard of practice codified in Oregon law. The board can only prosecute "poor practitioners" on opinions of boundary location. If said practitioner has an opinion that differs than the boards and a savy attorney that can fight administrative law, then said poor practitioner will leave with a warning that their opinion is different than the board. (and hefty attorney bill). The AAG know this, the board knows this so they are relegated to enforcing the codified laws that are in their realm. Right of entry, Failure to file. Failure to prove PDH's.
I agree public ROW should not need ROE letters or notice but the AAG thinks all us Oregon Surveyors are continuous law breakers when it comes to ROE. To fully comply one pretty much needs to send letters, post notices, take a picture of the posted notice. note it in the field book and don't you dare chop down a leaf or flower.
Jered McGrath PLS, post: 372167, member: 794 wrote: Well, it's my understanding that since there is No standard of practice codified in Oregon law. The board can only prosecute "poor practitioners" on opinions of boundary location. If said practitioner has an opinion that differs than the boards and a savy attorney that can fight administrative law, then said poor practitioner will leave with a warning that their opinion is different than the board. (and hefty attorney bill). The AAG know this, the board knows this so they are relegated to enforcing the codified laws that are in their realm. Right of entry, Failure to file. Failure to prove PDH's.
I agree public ROW should not need ROE letters or notice but the AAG thinks all us Oregon Surveyors are continuous law breakers when it comes to ROE. To fully comply one pretty much needs to send letters, post notices, take a picture of the posted notice. note it in the field book and don't you dare chop down a leaf or flower.
Jered, thanks for the reply. So the system is broken and nothing is being done to fix it. In the mean time we continue to throw words around like professional, protecting the health safety and welfare of the public..... If you want to laugh read the law enforcement committees minutes from the last meeting about not holding original monuments within a subdivision. So now we have to make an ORS law on how to reestablish typical property corners within an existing subdivision? I thought that was comon knowledge from surveying 101 we all took at our local JR College. Sorry about being so cynical but it is looking like a joke to me. Jp
Attached is an example of a survey that osbeels has in the que for about two years that they have done nothing with. (The narrative says found monuments as shown set monuments as shown, and no found monuments are shown!) I won't be surprised if they end up doing nothing but sending a letter of concern. Their reasoning might be, the law does not specifically says you have to find monuments to survey from. 🙂 I once heard that typically 10 percent of survey professionals are questionable and need to be charged judged and punished. But if the 10 percent is not regulated it creates and unleveled field and that number will grow until we are in a state of chaos. Jp
Jp7191, post: 372197, member: 1617 wrote: If you want to laugh read the law enforcement committees minutes from the last meeting about not holding original monuments within a subdivision. So now we have to make an ORS law on how to reestablish typical property corners within an existing subdivision? I thought that was comon knowledge from surveying 101 we all took at our local JR College. Jp
I used to think that using the control within a subdivision to re-establish a lot within the sub was basic survey knowledge as well. But then I was involved as an expert in a negligence case where the surveyor had ignored the control within the subdivision where the lot he was surveying was located and instead used the control of an adjacent subdivision. In order to relate the maps to satisfy his assumption that the back corners of one subdivision were common to the back corners of the other (no indication on either map of the developers or surveyors having coordinated), he had to make a couple of assumptions without much basis behind them (1: The original surveyor of one of the subdivisions mislabeled a lot width, even though the block closed using that lot width; 2: The unlabeled bearings of the sidelines of the lots in the block were 90 degrees to the RW even though there were ample distance measurements to show otherwise and every other block in the sub was at 88 degrees).
Not only did the other surveyor testify that it is common practice in that particular area to hold such assumptions even when clear data on the map indicates otherwise, but so did the county surveyor who he got to testify as an expert for him. I wasn't really surprised that the surveyor whose practice was at question would testify that way. He was trying to defend his bogus survey and demonstrated many other acts of negligence and incompetence in the same survey. But that the County Surveyor would testify to that making baseless assumptions contrary to clearly expressed data of a map that results in properly closed figures really took me by surprise. That County Surveyor is a graduate of one of the "leading" 4-yr survey degree programs in the country and has participated several times in the development and grading of the state-specific licensing exam.
That we have people of this low caliber of boundary knowledge in a position that most assume requires advanced knowledge (CS), and further that such a person is involved in testing the knowledge of those seeking to become licensed really concerns me as to the future of the profession to meet the expectations held by the courts, other professions, and the general public for surveyors regarding the level of expertise of boundary principles.
Our Board seems to think that the future of the profession hangs on the numbers of licensees. I believe that it is more likely to meet its demise when the rest of the public comes to the realization that most surveyors don't have anywhere near the level of expertise that they've expected of a licensed surveyor.
Having heard one of the instructors from that "leading" geomagician's school speak very eloquently but also very inaccurately about boundary surveying at our state conference this year further discourages me. I can only hope that there are enough of us out there trying to counteract the ignorance being taught and that there are enough surveyors who listen and agree that what we're saying makes more sense than what their unlicensed professor read to them out of the standard text books.
Uh oh, running off on a tangent rant. Better quit now.
Evan, I'm almost sure this case is not as complicated as they made yours. It is not usual to see a map of survey in a subdivision in southern Oregon where the surveyor finds two mons on centerline and 3 of 4 original lot corners during a resurvey of a subdivision lot and calls all three out of position by very small bearings and distances (less than 1/2 foot) such as, found 5/8" re-bar with plastic cap stamped XXX per sub map xxx, N42-32-21E 0.22 feet from computed position. With no explanation of why it was not held and sets the fourth. I don't know the details of the State board case I mentioned above but I don't suspect it is much more complicated than what I outlined above.
I have to agree with the statement about the expertise expected of the L.S.
Jp
Jp7191, post: 372247, member: 1617 wrote: Attached is an example of a survey that osbeels has in the que for about two years that they have done nothing with. (The narrative says found monuments as shown set monuments as shown, and no found monuments are shown!) I won't be surprised if they end up doing nothing but sending a letter of concern. Their reasoning might be, the law does not specifically says you have to find monuments to survey from. 🙂 I once heard that typically 10 percent of survey professionals are questionable and need to be charged judged and punished. But if the 10 percent is not regulated it creates and unleveled field and that number will grow until we are in a state of chaos. Jp
Not the best job redacting the parties. lol
The Boards SOP committee met from 2009 to 2012. Im sure lots of information is detailed in their minutes. In the end I believe they found they the majority of surveyors would not support a Standard of Practice being codified. I guess the market will have to do it. LMAO.
