foggyidea, post: 424726, member: 155 wrote: I disagree, when "by the hour" pricing becomes the norm then the client can't budget for your work, give them a range and they only hear the low end.
That is certainly a human tendency, but survey estimation is self-correcting over time and a surveyor learns to produce estimates that are likely to be realistic.
By the way, I did find out that the governing board of land surveyors in Prince Edward Island, Canada, specifically prohibits fixed fee proposals exactly because of Kent's issue.
Yes, it's likely a cultural thing. The piratical free market in the US is considered to be healthy and good for reasons that probably won't hold up to ethical inquiry in the long run.
Kent McMillan, post: 424725, member: 3 wrote: Actually, that's a rule of the licensing board that I posted. I didn't invent that. So conflicts of interest are inherently unethical and can at best be mitigated by a licensee's disclosures to a client.
The surveyors who want to claim that taking on a project for a fixed fee that turns out to be insufficient to make money on the project doesn't tend to place their self interest in conflict with the client's interests are free to do so. It does sounds oblivious to reality.
I never said you invented a rule, so try not to make stuff up in your rebuttal. The opinion that you have that fixed free pricing almost always results in unethical behavior, or shoddy work is laughable. If that was the case I think the board would have long since written a rule specifically prohibiting fixed fee pricing. The way you attempt to read between the lines to get the answer you want is even more ridiculous. If you really wanted to split hairs any survey you perform there is a possibility of a conflict of interest. You cant predict the future. So who is to say that you or your heirs might not purchase a tract you are surveying or one of the adjoiners? Those two hundredths that you moved that corner from the found monument could really add up to a great deal of money one day on that future purchase.
Do I disagree that shoddy work is performed by license surveyors? I sure do. Do I believe that competent surveyors will put making the right decision in regards to protecting the public and adhering to fully stated rules above a profit or none at all? yes I do.
Probably easy to assume any reply to this thread is a de facto attempt to persuade Mr. McMillimeter of the absurd notion your position is valid when it is not in perfect alignment with His. I won't go there.
Forty plus years practice/records in a non recording state, and most everything I do is fixed fee because I refuse to devalue my records. Being in position to be able to do most jobs in less than half the time it takes others to produce the same product means I would be sacrificing financially if charging only for my time. Whenever I put together a "fixed fee" I estimate about how long it might take others (who will be lacking my records of old surveys) to provide the same product, and then I reduce the figure somewhat and that becomes my "fixed fee". Folks are free to take it or not. Completely their choice. Free country and all that. Some of the jobs I will do in half a day that others may spend 2 days or more to complete. Has absolutely nothing to do with taking unethical shortcuts or cutting corners.
In a non recording state where you have already surveyed out the area and have exclusive ownership of all the records, you have a tremendous competitive advantage. But, it's a free country (see above), and no one is keeping others from doing the same. The way I see it is that I can now sit back and benefit from all the long days and hours it took to build those records, and for quite a bit of that time I was not financially compensated. From day one, however, I operated with the long goal in mind that one day I would be able to benefit financially from those records, and so I began my career sometimes running out entire sections (Florida is PLSS) for the smallest of jobs (even then I used "fixed fees" because I was planning my long goal).
As others have noted upstream, it's also my experience the same people who are willing to produce shoddy work do so regardless if they get the work through fixed-fee, or via time/material. It's who they are. Interestingly, during my 54 year career some of my harshest criticism has been directed towards those who quote estimates to get the job, and then invoicing the actual (or padded) hours. Now a days whenever I lose a job it's mostly because of a competitor's survey "estimate". As an example, back in the 1990's I quoted a potential client a cost of $2300 for a boundary survey. However, another surveyor quoted $1800, and got the job. About a year later I was subpoenaed to testify in a suit where the client was contesting the bill. It seems the (ethical?) surveyor's invoice was for $3400, and the client thought the amount too high. I have no idea what value they thought my testimony might provide, but regardless the court ordered the client to pay the entire $3400 fee. By having access to my records I would have done the job in 2 days (and that is what I testified to in court), whereas the "ethical" surveyor ended up taking almost a week. I have no idea how the argument of "pressure" causing either of us to cut corners might apply, but I shall leave that to others (psychology is not my field) who are more learned and wiser than me.
The answer is simple... Fixed fee or hourly, always with a retainer and a contingency clause.
"Boundary determinations occasionally disclose unseen or unknown conflicts between the record documents and the location of physical improvements. Upon discovery of any latent or patent ambiguity, uncertainty, or dispute disclosed by the records or by placement of the boundaries on the ground, work on the boundary survey will be suspended and you will be immediately notified. CPLS will present alternatives for possible resolution and any additional work required to achieve resolution will be negotiated. If you should choose to forego resolution, all work completed to date will be invoiced for payment and the project file will be archived by CPLS for future resolution. If you choose resolution, CPLS will act as your mediator, consultant and expert until satisfactory resolution is achieved. Upon resolution, this initial agreement will be reinstated and completed in accordance with its initial terms subject to potential interim rate increases."
Of course, this won't work for Kent as there is no such thing as an "ambiguity" in his line of thinking.
JBStahl, post: 424752, member: 427 wrote: The answer is simple... Fixed fee or hourly, always with a retainer and a contingency clause.
"Boundary determinations occasionally disclose unseen or unknown conflicts between the record documents and the location of physical improvements. Upon discovery of any latent or patent ambiguity, uncertainty, or dispute disclosed by the records or by placement of the boundaries on the ground, work on the boundary survey will be suspended and you will be immediately notified. CPLS will present alternatives for possible resolution and any additional work required to achieve resolution will be negotiated. If you should choose to forego resolution, all work completed to date will be invoiced for payment and the project file will be archived by CPLS for future resolution. If you choose resolution, CPLS will act as your mediator, consultant and expert until satisfactory resolution is achieved. Upon resolution, this initial agreement will be reinstated and completed in accordance with its initial terms subject to potential interim rate increases."
Of course, this won't work for Kent as there is no such thing as an "ambiguity" in his line of thinking.
Let me help Kent out here...but isn't the ultimate result of your agreement is that you have an inherent conflict of interest where you will always find a "conflict?" or something absurd like that.
Dave Karoly, post: 424754, member: 94 wrote: Let me help Kent out here...but isn't the ultimate result of your agreement is that you have an inherent conflict of interest where you will always find a "conflict?" or something absurd like that.
Unethical is as unethical does, I guess. ;);) While Kent may act with a presumption attributing a lack of ethics to every surveyor (except himself), the rest of us presumably act in an ethical fashion without regard to any board rule.
[INDENT]"Jurisprudence is the principal and most perfect branch of ethics.Û Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)[/INDENT]
JBStahl, post: 424752, member: 427 wrote: Of course, this won't work for Kent as there is no such thing as an "ambiguity" in his line of thinking.
You make a good point; but isn't Kent right?
There is no big ol' guity, or what ever you said; at least there wasn't until you showed up!
There's no such thing as a gap or an overlap; unless it was intentional. Surveyors create gaps and overlaps; it's up to them, to iron them out...
I worked for a company in Nebraska that did 99% of it's work on T&M. Every once and a while a client would be home. He'd ask, as soon as we got out of the truck, how long we thought it was going to take. Then follow us around asking "What are you doing that for?"
There is merit in each way to bill your client:
If I tell my client that I bill $200 an hour for my time and $75 an hour for an assistant, plus mileage and materials. Then that's what it's going to be. I have no idea what it's going to take (time) to resolve the boundary of a 10,000 acre Ranchero, but I do know that it's going to take a lot of research, searching the ground for evidence, more research, more searching the ground and eventually resolving the boundary based on best survey principles and unbiased opinion. The client should understand this and be prepared to pay the cost.
If my client wants a survey of their 1/4 acre, residential lot; in a platted subdivision; a lump sum is the way to go. That way he won't be following you around wondering why your milking his bill...
I. Ben Havin, post: 424749, member: 6834 wrote: Forty plus years practice/records in a non recording state, and most everything I do is fixed fee because I refuse to devalue my records. Being in position to be able to do most jobs in less than half the time it takes others to produce the same product means I would be sacrificing financially if charging only for my time.
So, you're reselling old work that you've done as new surveys for fixed fees instead of basing your update fees on time and expenses. In the situation where you've already surveyed the property once, you would be reasonably expected to know the amount of effort that it took to make the survey in the first place. So, it would seem to be very unlikely that you'd get hung with performing a service that would turn out to require considerably more work than your previous experience did.
That is a fundamentally different situation from one in which you did not know what the survey would require and had tendered a fixed price that might turn out to mean that you'd lose money on the project if the work were done properly.
The issue of the quality of an updated 40-year-old survey would remain, of course. Personally, I think that charging a base fee for records access and then performing all additional work necessary to verify its correctness on an hourly basis would cover all bases.
TXSurveyor, post: 424743, member: 6719 wrote: I never said you invented a rule, so try not to make stuff up in your rebuttal. The opinion that you have that fixed free pricing almost always results in unethical behavior, or shoddy work is laughable. If that was the case I think the board would have long since written a rule specifically prohibiting fixed fee pricing.
The Texas licensing board was created by an act of our legislature and owes its powers to that law. The legislators decided in their infinite used car dealer wisdom that cheap surveys were in the public interest and that to secure them limited the TBPLS's rulemaking authority as follows:
Sec. 1071.157. RULES RESTRICTING ADVERTISING OR COMPETITIVE BIDDING. (a) The board by rule shall prescribe standards for compliance with Subchapter A, Chapter 2254, Government Code.
(b) Except as provided by Subsection (a), the board may not adopt rules restricting advertising or competitive bidding by a person regulated by the board except to prohibit false, misleading, or deceptive practices by that person.
In other words, as far as the legislature is concerned, offering to survey anything, anywhere for $100 would be perfectly fine. However, when one claims that the service rendered under those terms meets the minimum standards that the TBPLS was authorized to adopt, that opens the door to ethical violations and a claim of false, misleading or deceptive practices.
The strict rules about conflicts of interest are so widespread among the ethical professions that I'm surprised to hear so much resistance to the idea and such naivete about what factors can impair a professional's judgment to a client's detriment.
Price of service has nothing to do with meeting minimum standards. I can charge $1 for every survey I do and spend 1000 hours on it to make sure ive done my job properly and met the standards.
I will agree that sometimes cheap means poor quality but not always.
If you have such a problem with how others choose to run their business, and how they charge accordingly maybe a little less time on this site and more time bugging the daylights out of the legislature would get you some where.
BTW you would've made one heck of an ambulance chasing attorney, too bad you stumbled onto surveying.
TXSurveyor, post: 424797, member: 6719 wrote: Price of service has nothing to do with meeting minimum standards. I can charge $1 for every survey I do and spend 1000 hours on it to make sure ive done my job properly and met the standards.
You're welcome to say that, but this isn't my first rodeo. I see the contrary evidence with such regularity that it is virtually a Law of the Universe that unless a surveyor charges a sufficient fee, lots of bad stuff happens.
I. Ben Havin, post: 424749, member: 6834 wrote: Probably easy to assume any reply to this thread is a de facto attempt to persuade Mr. McMillimeter of the absurd notion your position is valid when it is not in perfect alignment with His. I won't go there.
Forty plus years practice/records in a non recording state, and most everything I do is fixed fee because I refuse to devalue my records. Being in position to be able to do most jobs in less than half the time it takes others to produce the same product means I would be sacrificing financially if charging only for my time. Whenever I put together a "fixed fee" I estimate about how long it might take others (who will be lacking my records of old surveys) to provide the same product, and then I reduce the figure somewhat and that becomes my "fixed fee". Folks are free to take it or not. Completely their choice. Free country and all that. Some of the jobs I will do in half a day that others may spend 2 days or more to complete. Has absolutely nothing to do with taking unethical shortcuts or cutting corners.
In a non recording state where you have already surveyed out the area and have exclusive ownership of all the records, you have a tremendous competitive advantage. But, it's a free country (see above), and no one is keeping others from doing the same. The way I see it is that I can now sit back and benefit from all the long days and hours it took to build those records, and for quite a bit of that time I was not financially compensated. From day one, however, I operated with the long goal in mind that one day I would be able to benefit financially from those records, and so I began my career sometimes running out entire sections (Florida is PLSS) for the smallest of jobs (even then I used "fixed fees" because I was planning my long goal).
As others have noted upstream, it's also my experience the same people who are willing to produce shoddy work do so regardless if they get the work through fixed-fee, or via time/material. It's who they are. Interestingly, during my 54 year career some of my harshest criticism has been directed towards those who quote estimates to get the job, and then invoicing the actual (or padded) hours. Now a days whenever I lose a job it's mostly because of a competitor's survey "estimate". As an example, back in the 1990's I quoted a potential client a cost of $2300 for a boundary survey. However, another surveyor quoted $1800, and got the job. About a year later I was subpoenaed to testify in a suit where the client was contesting the bill. It seems the (ethical?) surveyor's invoice was for $3400, and the client thought the amount too high. I have no idea what value they thought my testimony might provide, but regardless the court ordered the client to pay the entire $3400 fee. By having access to my records I would have done the job in 2 days (and that is what I testified to in court), whereas the "ethical" surveyor ended up taking almost a week. I have no idea how the argument of "pressure" causing either of us to cut corners might apply, but I shall leave that to others (psychology is not my field) who are more learned and wiser than me.
Very good points about the value of your own records and experience. I'd also add the liability issue. Are we taking on half the liability if we can do a job in half the time because of valuable records? Of course the answer is no.
Define a sufficient fee. That's in the eye of the beholder. You simply can't fathom that someone can provide a price prior to starting a project and still perform it adequately.
I don't disagree that surveying is looked at as a commodity by the public and it shouldn't be, but that path was set when you still had a milk mustache.
Kent McMillan, post: 424820, member: 3 wrote: You're welcome to say that, but this isn't my first rodeo. I see the contrary evidence with such regularity that it is virtually a Law of the Universe that unless a surveyor charges a sufficient fee, lots of bad stuff happens.
I'm amazed that no one has mentioned the glaring truth that professionals functioning under an open ended hourly rate outside of oversight by the client have a whopping tendency to "milk" a project. A Harvard study in 2014 indicates that 1 in 3 professionals burn as much as 40% of their time in a day with non-productivity. While most ( 3 in 5) kept their client gouging to around 20%.
Open ended hourly contracts obviously seem to teem and fester with the clients being regularly overcharged for substandard work that could have completed in a lot less time. Some folks are probably so bold they prowl the local flea markets...some are more discreet and spend time photographing the local flora and fauna...
...or an occasional windmill. 😉
paden cash, post: 424829, member: 20 wrote: I'm amazed that no one has mentioned the glaring truth that professionals functioning under an open ended hourly rate outside of oversight by the client have a whopping tendency to "milk" a project.
The obvious problem is that after a sufficient time in the fixed-fee surveying barrel, even meeting the minimum standards will be described as "milking" a project by the folks who tailor their services to some pre-ordained fee.
TXSurveyor, post: 424825, member: 6719 wrote: Define a sufficient fee. That's in the eye of the beholder. You simply can't fathom that someone can provide a price prior to starting a project and still perform it adequately.
I don't disagree that surveying is looked at as a commodity by the public and it shouldn't be, but that path was set when you still had a milk mustache.
A sufficient fee is one that covers all of the time that a surveyor requires to provide a service in a manner that he would want for himself were he the client who knew otherwise nothing about surveying.
paden cash, post: 424829, member: 20 wrote: I'm amazed that no one has mentioned the glaring truth that professionals functioning under an open ended hourly rate outside of oversight by the client have a whopping tendency to "milk" a project. A Harvard study in 2014 indicates that 1 in 3 professionals burn as much as 40% of their time in a day with non-productivity. While most ( 3 in 5) kept their client gouging to around 20%.
Open ended hourly contracts obviously seem to teem and fester with the clients being regularly overcharged for substandard work that could have completed in a lot less time. Some folks are probably so bold they prowl the local flea markets...some are more discreet and spend time photographing the local flora and fauna...
...or an occasional windmill. 😉
Well said. Exactly why in a past life where I hired surveying firms, i went from big freaking guess on the what the price will be to a estimate on price to fixed price
Kent McMillan, post: 424833, member: 3 wrote: A sufficient fee is one that covers all of the time that a surveyor requires to provide a service in a manner that he would want for himself were he the client who knew otherwise nothing about surveying.
So your definition is based upon the surveyors opinion on what is an acceptable price. Thank you for agreeing with me
Kent McMillan, post: 424832, member: 3 wrote: The obvious problem is that after a sufficient time in the fixed-fee surveying barrel, even meeting the minimum standards will be described as "milking" a project by the folks who tailor their services to some pre-ordained fee.
It's reasonable to assume that those that only feel comfortable being compensated for their time are unsure of their ability to provide even rudimentary results in any given situation. And of course if the client gets impatient with results, one can always simply say "I need more time".
Nice gig. Hardly ethical, but easy money. 😉
TXSurveyor, post: 424840, member: 6719 wrote: So your definition is based upon the surveyors opinion on what is an acceptable price.
No, my opinion is based upon what constitutes an acceptable SERVICE as judged by a sophisticated client. Major difference.
Obviously all of the pirate ships captained by surveyors bearing Letters of Marque issued by some sovereign and plying the sea lanes between Clientstown and Closingsville will have quite remarkable ideas about why their fees are "acceptable".
