I had a call from a fellow wanting a survey.
His property and others back up to a pond. It seems that people are cutting across his property while fishing or walking around the pond. He would like to stop this activity. There is no access easement that I have seen.
The rear lot lines along the pond are the subject of any surveying. I explained that these lines are often poorly monumented and would require ties out to the front of the lots. He just wants to go around the pond.
Starting gathering deeds and found that the back yard is criss-crossed with a variety of easements. I called to discuss as the mapping of these was going to blow up my estimate of a simple lot survey.
He informed me that:
1) He didn't want HIS lot surveyed, he wants the 2 lots to the left of his surveyed.
2) He doesn't care about the easements, just the lot lines.
3) He will pay for the 2 surveys.
I explained that he's opening a box of issues and I was going to need some time to sort out how to move forward.
My first alarm bells:
1) Conflict of interest (disclosure should handle that)
2) Not including recorded easements. They look like this:
3) Access to the lots. I don't know what the adjoiners attitudes are regarding this guy.
4) Who do the adjoiners surveys get certified to. " A plat of he property of Smith, certified only to Jones" sticks in the craw.
5) I'm not comfortable with future reliance on my plats by the adjoiners when the easements are left off the plat.
I'm sure there are others that will come to mind.
So, have you ever surveyed a property with the adjoiner as your client?
Lake/pond properties are a joy to survey
Simple and survey should rarely be in the same sentence.
I don't see how he has any standing to have that work done, unless there are certain rights he has based on easements or such on those lots. Have ended up with complete surveys of adjoining & abutting lots as a result of putting together the pieces, but always with permission of the owners.
Ultimately he's come to you with a problem: people potentially trespassing on his property around the pond. You know how best to address this problem. He can tell you what he thinks he wants, but if in the end it's not going to solve his problem, then it doesn't matter if you've done exactly the work he's asked for, he'll be unhappy. He's not the expert, you are. If he's not interested in hearing your proposal to solve his problem, then you should decline the work. Let the next guy get wrapped up in this mess.
I wouldn't touch that job. 😎
I'm not sure why you'd have to only survey the neighbors property to figure out if people are trespassing across him. It should be simple to determine if there are any easements across his property that allow people to walk across it. If not, stake his line and tell him to build a fence.
tfdoubleyou, post: 425867, member: 12051 wrote: If he's not interested in hearing your proposal to solve his problem, then you should decline the work. Let the next guy get wrapped up in this mess.
Sometimes you can convince the client to put the pin back in the grenade; but after more than a couple of attempts the prudent thing to do is to look for someplace to shelter yourself from the blast.
Your client is attempting to dictate the scope of your work.
When someone asks you to survey something, you decide what you need to locate to be satisfied with the survey.
How can he order a survey of property he doesn't own? Only way I know of would be if the adjoining owners agree to the deal.
I got hung on one like that of a local Funeral Home. Owner of one in the next county over wanted the one in my county surveyed, he was thinking about buying it. I asked if everybody knew about it, he said yes. I know both owners. So I'm out looking for corners and one of the owners of the one I'm working on comes out and wants to know what I'm doing. Turns out one of his relatives who owns a share was the one wanting to sell, he didn't know anything about it. That was the end of that survey.
I have declined this particular project.
JB, post: 425883, member: 346 wrote: I have declined this particular project.
Sounds like the proper decision on multiple levels.
I have seen it done. A fellow was fighting with a city about their forcing him to do something he did not want to do. He hired a firm to survey over 20 properties in the same town so as to show that all of those were in violation of what he was being accused of being in violation of. One was the mayor's house. Another was a business owned by a member of the city commission. He told them that if they couldn't clean up existing issues he would do what he wanted to do and see them in court. He had the money to waste and the city backed down.
We survey other people's property every day. Why stop now?
JB, post: 425883, member: 346 wrote: I have declined this particular project.
I'd say you did the right thing. The only way I would have done it is if I had contacted the adjoiners and gotten their approval to survey their property. Even though you might be able to legally do it without their approval, it wouldn't be worth the headaches.
