Yesterday I got a call from a Real Estate Agent. He is working on a deal with a buyer of some land owned by a Bank. (Foreclosure property)
Someone with the Bank's legal team had some concerns about a right of way to the subject property, Lot 2 as shown on a recorded Plat. The RE Agent explained that they had to be wrong. There was a road right next to the property.
I did some research and found that indeed, the property has roads on both the north and south of the property. But, they are roads in adjoining subdivisions and do not provide legal access to the subject tract. The rights of way stop just short of the property line on both sides.
One of the first documents I find in the quick search is a two lot subdivision that created the subject property. Lot 1 contained the house and driveway to a road that probably does have legal access. No mention is made of access to Lot 2. Clearly it can not be legally accessed through the adjoining roads. Yet, the surveyor never bothered to say anything about access through Lot 1. The bank at one time had a deed of trust on the entire property. The released Lot 1 a few months before having to foreclose on Lot 2.
You guessed it, the fecal matter hit the rotating blades and there are going to be LOTS of unhappy people before this one is over. What was that surveyor thinking creating a tract with no specified legal access? No telling.
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Then today I go to the field to do a survey of a portion of a small tract. The owner is in jail (drugs) and her mom (power of attorney) is having to sell a portion of the land to help pay restitution and expenses. The purchaser of the property is the neighbor. Everyone has fairly recent surveys so this should be no problem.
I found all the called for corners. We set a couple of new corners to define the new line without any issue. So why am I shaking my head over this one?
The neighbor (purchaser) has a driveway on the land. This is the only way to get to his house. The guy who did the survey I was retracing never bothered to mention rights of way, driveway or anything else in his description. Nothing. Not one word that someone other than the property owner had a driveway across the property.
Well, maybe the driveway was put in since the survey. I looked at old photos going back to 1995. The driveway was there in every photo I looked at. Near as I can tell it was put in when the house was built, probably in the early 1980's. There is no other way for this guy to get to his house. There is a mountain behind.
Maybe the surveyor decided that nobody asked him to be concerned about other persons long term use of the property he was surveying. Maybe he found some sort of right of way and decided it wasn't worth mentioning anywhere in any of the documents. Whatever the situation, it boggles the mind how some folks can think of themselves as professionals and still do this type of work.
Rant off. Shaking my head and heading home.
Larry P
I had a church survey where one of the patrons of the church lived next to it. He was driving through the parking lot and over the curb to get access at two different points along the common boundary line. He also had front road access. I had to let the church trustees know about it to make sure that the church protected it's rights.
BTW, I couldn't get the code you gave me to work, but obtained one from them directly.
I'll let you know how things work out with it, but go ahead and send me a quote over for one seat at [email protected]
Jason
sounds like an inexperienced field crew shot it and the PLS never saw it. nothing wrong with the supervising PLS not visiting every site, but you better be asking questions and having those guys take some pictures so you can see what is going on before you slap your name on it and send out the bill.
Larry here is how you handle the guilty party...
[flash width=480 height=390] http://www.youtube.com/v/sq1aU6rFcNQ?fs=1&hl=en_US [/flash]
i can't even guess how many times i have taken the time to locate driveways, buildings,ties to intersections, fire hydrants or whatever only to look at the finished map and see that none of that information made it onto the map. and then get scolded for spending too much time on that job for my efforts to do a good job.
Larry here is how you handle the guilty party...
I LOVE THAT CLIP:-D
When my son and I are joking around we use it all the time.
Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country. Typing class 9th grade!