Especially when they blow in from out of state never planning to ever defend their work!
Current situation is as follows. State DOT builds a major highway crossing an older highway at a completely different location than any prior intersection. Extensive surveys are made to facilitate that construction. As this new intersection creates an opportunity for a new commercial center, a large subdivision is created around all sides of the intersection and then annexed into the adjacent city. The subdivision surveyor followed the prior work's basis of bearings and agreed very closely with that prior work.
Later, an out of state company is hired to develop a plan for a significant commercial development on a fraction of a 12-acre lot in a block of the subdivision. That surveyor changes the basis of bearings, then disagrees with the relative location of every corner of the lot. Measurements vary up to half a foot and relative angles vary significantly as well. The angle variations would not be caught by any casual observer due to the change in the basis of bearings. There is even a bend placed in the section line roughly 50 feet from the point of commencing.
Later, another out of state company is hired to survey and write a description for the lot fraction so that area can be leased to someone else while retaining full use of the remainder of the lot. They follow the work done for the commercial development. Obviously, no attempt was made to determine why that prior work was in such significant disagreement with the subdivision plat and highway plan data. Or maybe they didn't take time to notice. Or maybe they just didn't care about anything but getting a quick payment for not rocking the boat.
Now, the leased description is used for a land sale and we get hired to figure out where the deed says the boundaries are located, after the sale. Where the deed says and where the lot boundaries and highway rights-of-way are located are two very different things. The client cannot comprehend why we need to go "reinvent the wheel" instead of merely wandering from found marker to found marker.
Just got to love out-of-towners. Did they pin cushion the corners or just give bad calls to existing monuments?
They get what they pay for.
No pincushions. Most likely they found "disturbed" monuments damaged by site work and utility installations. The firm that laid out the subdivision normally does excellent work. I have to blame those who came along later and did not question what appears to be sloppiness, but is, most likely, a case of bars moved by others.
Find something. Shoot that something. Question nothing. Write a tight description with lots of wherefor's and whereas's and a different bearing basis. Deliver product. Collect check. Dance on way to bank.
Count your blessings!
Sometimes you just have to be thankful for the opportunities that come your way. If the out-of-towners had done it right to begin with, you would not have the project you describe.
I'm guessing not a mandatory recording state. Shouldn't matter where the firm is located, the laws and regulations for the locale in which the work is being performed needs to be adhered to.
This example in California would have required the later surveyor who disagreed, or discovered discrepancies, to file a record of their findings.
Culpability
Culpability generally implies that an act performed is wrong but does not involve any evil intent by the wrongdoer. The connotation of the term is fault rather than malice or a guilty purpose. In general, however, culpability has milder connotations. It is used to mean reprehensible rather than wantonly or grossly negligent behavior. Culpable conduct may be wrong but it is not necessarily criminal.
Culpable ignorance is the lack of knowledge or understanding that results from the omission of ordinary care to acquire such knowledge or understanding.
1. State DOT and the City Annexation process should have required a survey ‘reproducible bearing” as the basis of bearings for their surveys. This is pretty much of a common requirement for development and political annexation processes. If it wasn’t required than that is the root of the problem. The DOT and/or City created it.
I will assume that they did. If the surveys did not contain this information, then there is a negligence factor as to adhering to the scope of work or standards of care.
2. The utility and site clearing contractors should be held liable for the disturbance and/or destruction of the survey monuments. They should not get a free ride on their actions.
It was the responsibility of the land owner and/or developer to protect his monuments.
3 The out of state surveyors could have surveyed andreset the monuments if they had the original basis of bearing info that was reproducible. If they did have that info and performed a RTK sloppy erroneous survey, then they should have culpability.
I would think that in your state that a survey firm must have an office in the state with a surveyor with a KS stamp. That surveyor needs to be contacted. This finger pointing to out of state surveyors sounds too convenient. But I do not know the laws in your state. Can I hop on a bus and survey somewhere there next week? I do not think so. If your state is letting boundary surveyors storm into the state to perform boundary surveys, then your state surveyor association and politicians should be held culpable for your situation.
The finger pointing to the “expert measures” is too convenient also. If a surveyor established a sound basis of bearing that was reproducible then disturbed monuments or existing monuments could have been examined for location. But it is so easy to develop stereotypes of surveyors so that one can scorn someone these days.
It doesn't take an expert measurer to translate and rotate bearings/coordinates from known points.
> Now, the leased description is used for a land sale and we get hired to figure out where the deed says the boundaries are located, after the sale. Where the deed says and where the lot boundaries and highway rights-of-way are located are two very different things. The client cannot comprehend why we need to go "reinvent the wheel" instead of merely wandering from found marker to found marker.
It is too bad that some professional surveyor did not leave you some SPCs and reproducible bearings.
So, I hear you on the shoddy work; however, I don't necessarily agree with you on the basis of bearing thingy. Granted, it's probably ganked up, but most of my work now (and for some time now) is on the grid, and I don't rotate it back to the deed. I show the deed calls and founds (in grid) but I don't have a problem with a BOB changing, at all.
Yes. Both jobs performed by the out-of-state guys should have been recorded. At the very least, the first one should have. The second one could have claimed he didn't create a new description but was merely following the work of the immediate prior surveyor, who set the markers but did not prepare a description, apparently. The second surveyor noted on his description that it was prepared per Company A, Project #348899686.
Culpability
1. State DOT and the City Annexation process should have required a survey ‘reproducible bearing” as the basis of bearings for their surveys. This is pretty much of a common requirement for development and political annexation processes. If it wasn’t required than that is the root of the problem. The DOT and/or City created it.I will assume that they did. If the surveys did not contain this information, then there is a negligence factor as to adhering to the scope of work or standards of care.
Response: The State DOT work was reported as being based on the appropriate state plane information. The surveyor preparing the subdivision agreed with those bearings. At that point everything was hunkydory. The construction related surveyor who more or less created the fraction of a lot for development claimed his bearings were also based on the same state plane information. If this were true, his bearings should have been virtually identical to those of the subdivision and the rights-of-way. They are not even close and the differences are nowhere close to consistent.
2. The utility and site clearing contractors should be held liable for the disturbance and/or destruction of the survey monuments. They should not get a free ride on their actions.
It was the responsibility of the land owner and/or developer to protect his monuments.
Response: That would be wonderful. It didn't happen and it's not going to happen now. Still, it would be wonderful.
3 The out of state surveyors could have surveyed andreset the monuments if they had the original basis of bearing info that was reproducible. If they did have that info and performed a RTK sloppy erroneous survey, then they should have culpability.
I would think that in your state that a survey firm must have an office in the state with a surveyor with a KS stamp. That surveyor needs to be contacted. This finger pointing to out of state surveyors sounds too convenient. But I do not know the laws in your state. Can I hop on a bus and survey somewhere there next week? I do not think so. If your state is letting boundary surveyors storm into the state to perform boundary surveys, then your state surveyor association and politicians should be held culpable for your situation.
The finger pointing to the “expert measures” is too convenient also. If a surveyor established a sound basis of bearing that was reproducible then disturbed monuments or existing monuments could have been examined for location. But it is so easy to develop stereotypes of surveyors so that one can scorn someone these days.
It doesn't take an expert measurer to translate and rotate bearings/coordinates from known points.
Response: To the best of my knowledge, anyone with a Kansas license can enter the State and perform a survey. The problem is that there is nothing close to agreement between the surveys despite claims that they are all based on the same basis of bearings, which clearly they are not. The distances between monuments found and the relative bearings are very tight to the what was last reported. The problem is that the monuments found that claim to be on the section line and rights-of-way lines must not be the same monuments (or at least not the original monument locations) as were shown on the subdivision plat which followed the highway project. As mentioned previously, the deed description commences at a quarter corner, then follows the section line 50-some feet on a certain bearing to a found monument, then continues on a different bearing along the same section line for over 300 feet before turning to a point on the south right-of-way line of a city street. Amazingly, that right-of-way line which was to run parallel with the section line has a listed bearing that is not in agreement with either of the two bearings listed for that section line.
Culpability
> Response: The State DOT work was reported as being based on the appropriate state plane information. The surveyor preparing the subdivision agreed with those bearings. At that point everything was hunkydory. The construction related surveyor who more or less created the fraction of a lot for development claimed his bearings were also based on the same state plane information. If this were true, his bearings should have been virtually identical to those of the subdivision and the rights-of-way. They are not even close and the differences are nowhere close to consistent.
I thought that the GIS conscious DOT would have the surveys to be on a SPC system. The County/City and/or Planning dept. should have followed their lead.
> Response: That would be wonderful. It didn't happen and it's not going to happen now. Still, it would be wonderful.
I did a survey where the homeowner went after Ma Bell after the form staking was delayed because the utility contractor destroyed front irons that was important to the slab layout. Big house on a small lakeside lot. He did get a payment for the re-stake but not for the aggravation.
>
Response: To the best of my knowledge, anyone with a Kansas license can enter the State and perform a survey. The problem is that there is nothing close to agreement between the surveys despite claims that they are all based on the same basis of bearings, which clearly they are not. The distances between monuments found and the relative bearings are very tight to the what was last reported. The problem is that the monuments found that claim to be on the section line and rights-of-way lines must not be the same monuments (or at least not the original monument locations) as were shown on the subdivision plat which followed the highway project. As mentioned previously, the deed description commences at a quarter corner, then follows the section line 50-some feet on a certain bearing to a found monument, then continues on a different bearing along the same section line for over 300 feet before turning to a point on the south right-of-way line of a city street. Amazingly, that right-of-way line which was to run parallel with the section line has a listed bearing that is not in agreement with either of the two bearings listed for that section line.
Thanks for the info.
Once again, I think you need to contact the surveyor. You really can't attribute the problem to any field method errors by the 'construction' surveyors even though that is a possibility.
Again, placing stereotypes like Construction surveyors, Expert measurers, Deed Stakers, Out of State surveyors et al do nothing but denote that there was some lack of skills to do the boundary correctly and in harmony with the initial surveys when this may not be the case. These surveyors may work with another dynamic but that does not necessarily mean that they performed bad surveys.
Without having your info and more info, another scenario would be to look at an office screw up. Maybe and this is an assumption. The out of state firm did a proper boundary survey/analysis based on the initial surveys but some cadd/office tech screwed it up and then provided a stake-out for the field crew and that is the problem. Something looked correct or pretty to them on the screen in the office but in the field it isn't. They might have forgot to make a crucial click.
