Surveyor Blamed

That's a very fine publication

That is a great publication. My congratulations to the editorial staff.

The story is prepared quite nicely as well. It tells us quite a bit more than we have seen earlier. This is a classic case of everyone wanting to be able to point to someone else as the primary source of the problem. In a nutshell, the permitting and construction process should not have been allowed to proceed beyond basic planning without a full survey having been completed.

That's a very fine publication

I agree.

The project making its way through the application project is good example of "Power of the Title Block".

I've seen some real trash make it through the local constabulatory's scrutiny just because the firm that produced it was, well, you know...connected.

Sh*t Happens, but it's not the surveyor's fault.

That was a good review of what was discussed previously on this forum.
I do think upon initial reading here that the design firm should be held accountable in some way.. I went to Carrigan's website when this was first posted here and they do have a survey division. I can't think of a reason why that you would not send out your own crew to verify design plans. Not being billable is not an excuse. I would think that owner of both the property and engineering firm would be in agreement now.

It like our survey friend Derek the TNAI always says " Cadastre In, Cadastre Out"

This has to be the quote of the year: The buyers described the investment in the survey as the best money they ever spent on nothing.

> This has to be the quote of the year: The buyers described the investment in the survey as the best money they ever spent on nothing.

I agree. I saw quote that in the original post in the newspaper article that was linked and I thought it was very astute.

Just imagine the pit this buyer would have fallen in if he did not order a survey of the property.

I like the idea of having different classes of surveys that are well defined. Jp

Excellent website

I bookmarked the associations website. The June newsletter has a good article about the problems with the SVN 64 a few months ago.

May has a good article about survey equipment theft in south Florida.

James

It sounds like a Class III boundary survey in Rhode Island isn't a boundary survey at all. I can see why that would confuse people. Oh yeah, we got a survey. See the note there...:'(

Excellent website

CALS is a great group.

I respectfully disagree. It only allows ambiguity to creep in. Developers will use it to slide out of getting a survey. It is quite obvious they are just trying to cut corners.

Having a tiered bureaucracy built into the system is confusing. ALL future development should have a basic recent survey, especially now that development costs have sky-rocketed, prior to development. IMO.

> ... the investment in the survey as the best money they ever spent on nothing.

Almost sounds like something Yogi Barra would have said. 😉

Excellent website

One of the engineers here in the office sent me the original article a couple of weeks ago and implied that surveyors screwed up another. I told him that there was nothing in the article about a surveyor and it looked to me like an engineer screwed up another one. 🙂

It's nice to see some additional information on the situation. Thanks for the post. B-)

One question that I have yet to see answered...Who staked out the house for construction?

I think the firm who did the development plan is partially responsible. Did they topo the lot for the plan? If so, how did they determine the topo locations in relation to the property line?

As the article said, an asbuilt foundation survey should have caught this. We do those here most and I emphasize most, of the time.

> As the article said, an asbuilt foundation survey should have caught this. We do those here most and I emphasize most, of the time.

Everywhere I've worked the construction lender won't issue a second loan draw to start framing without a survey in hand showing the foundation in compliance with the zoning setbacks.

Mapman, The problem already exists. Architects boundary, Civil engineers boundary, Designers boundary, surveyors boundary based on record data and not surveyed, any one that can run cad boundary.... At least they define those different types of boundaries so the user can make an informed decision. In many cases all the boundaries I listed above all look and functioned as a boundary to the developer, laymen or tradesman but if the boundary class definition was on the face of the drawing, then an educated decision could be made and the consequences stay with the party who made the bad decision such as in this case. And it sounds like the fact that the developer chose to use one of those lower classed boundaries was part final decision. My 2 cents, Jp

What a great write up that actually gets to the truth, instead of blaming a surveyor. The only surveyor involved in this actually did his job right, discovered the problem, and prevented his clients from making a huge mistake. The surveyor involvement should be viewed with a positive light, rather than being made a scapegoat for the engineer and developer who failed to actually get a survey.

I'd just point out that a third "innocent" mistake was made by the city review official who was required to have a boundary survey -- prepared by a licensed surveyor -- in hand before granting the permit. Apparently, he/she accepted the engineer's site plan as the boundary survey. The reviewer was quoting in an earlier story as saying something like (and I paraphrase), "We had a drawing that looked like a survey, and was prepared by a licensed design professional", which is of course, not the same thing as having an actual boundary survey prepared by a land surveyor, as was apparently required...

Thanks for getting the story right. Unfortunately, the rest of the media has already run with "It's the surveyor's fault" and probably has no interest in revisiting this story to get it right ...

Sure I suppose anyone can put a boundary on a plat. Just so long as in bold letters somewhere it states "The boundary shown hereon is representative of recorded documentation and does NOT constitute a field survey of the property by a licensed Land Surveyor." Or something to the effect. Then I would have not real issue with any developer taking on the risk of building million dollar homes on million dollar property. Have at it.

As you stated, the problem already exists. However, placing a proper statement on the plat is not being done and we are being used like scapegoats as the article initially pointed out. Perhaps the tiered boundary classes will get the blame where it needs to go. I believe it would have been avoided altogether if it were required to have a proper field survey prior to ANY development.

That's a very fine publication

Kathy does a fine job for CALS!

I like his quote as well, however he didn't spend the money on nothing. He spend the money to protect his 1.9 million dollar investment. Which as he found out was built on the wrong tract.