Had a call from an attorney last week to do a survey. I did not ask why he was involved. He told me to check with a specific real estate broker who had the listing for the property to get the specifics on how to lay out the exception to be retained by the owner. I've worked with both the attorney and real estate broker many times, so no big deal.
Today, at the real estate office, I get the page from the listing with the property description that currently applies. On the same page was the name of the two owners. One of the two sisters is married to an old buddy of mine. I also knew the sisters' father very well, which is why I knew they were sisters although I only know the one.
My comment was that the one sister's husband was a skilled, licensed land surveyor who could handle the job for them although he lives a couple hundred miles away these days. That's when I learned the sisters were no longer friendly toward each other, so that option was an absolute no go. I was sort of half kidding, anyway. This is a very high dollar property for the area and I know the buyer would not be one bit comfortable with a relative of the sellers conducting the survey. I'm already scheduled to do a survey for the buyer at a location several miles away.
Related story number one: There's a participant here who is related somehow to my clients.
Related story number two: The hubby with the license and I go back to college days and we worked together at two different employers. While married to his first wife he became a neighbor to my parents. When he and his first wife divorced I purchased part of their property. That, of course, required a survey. We brought in another surveyor who we both had gone to school with and worked with previously. He played instrument man while we (buyer and seller) swapped off holding the prism pole and driving bars for the 17-sided tract. Then we paid him a bit to create the plat and write the description. Three surveyors to get one job done.
Holy Cow, post: 417421, member: 50 wrote: Three surveyors to get one job done.
Holy Cow, post: 417421, member: 50 wrote: ...Three surveyors to get one job done.
I remember a time back in the mid '80s and business was bad at the firm I was at. Instead of the seven crews we previously had, we wound up with one...
All three of us were licensed surveyors. The two other guys were PEs and LSs. Guess who got to run the rod???
[USER=413]@RADAR[/USER]
You have no idea how many times I have used that very phrase in my life time. Many, many, many.
We did a boundary survey for a retired surveyor a few years back. He spent many years at the forest service and then state dot before he retired. He said he knew his place and surrounding area had some pretty sticky boundary issues and overlaps. Great client and Im sure he could have done it all himself but in his words he had the money and thought it was one way he could give back to the current surveying community.
last summer i did a title of the last remaining piece of the old homestead of local surveying royalty. the last name can be found in plats and field books and legals and city files over 100 years back. there is still one member of the family practicing, and he is not only about the nicest guy you could ever chat with, he's also a walking survey encyclopedia.
anyways, go out that first day to birddog boundary and am met by his cousin, who is fee owner. she was cranky as all hell, and came out to let us whippersnappers know a thing or two. but before she could get too fired up i let her know i was aware of exactly who and what the tract represented, and how it felt like, as a middling little business owner/party chief, like i'd been hired to shoot buckingham palace. that changed her tone quite a bit, and next thing you know she's leading us to corners, eyeballing easement lines for us, explaining what got severed off when...
other house on the 5 acres has a tenant- and while i never got quite clear on who he was, he was a relative too. and even crankier than the old lady. but DEAD ON THE MONEY when telling me i'd overpaced to a certain POC, and how far a certain pipe i found was offset from the actual corner.
it was pretty much the exact opposite of every other single interaction i've ever had with an occupier and/or neighbor who was gonna show me where things actually were. in hindsight, i could have gone out there with nothing more than a sharpshooter and an antenna; they basically led me to every last corner, and then some. on top of that, it was entertaining as can be to shoot in 8 or 10 corners of a 5 acre tract and have virtually every kind of corner you'd commonly find here included: there was a pipe, a couple rods, a wagon axle, an X in concrete, two old ford axles, a cotton spindle, and an 80D in an oak root.