I have encountered a situation where a court ordered a surveyor to prepare and record documents detailing a change in a property boundary line as a result of a lawsuit. The surveyor apparently prepared the documents but never recorded them. Does the court ruling prevail even though the documents were never recorded? Or does the line remain where it was prior to the court ruling?
IANAL, but I think it took effect as soon as the judges ruling was made known to all affected parties.?ÿ Recording would just be cleaning up loose ends, and providing an explanation to later buyers.
Is the surveyor still around to be leaned on to finish the job?
I would think that the court judgment likely fixed the boundary line, and would hold whether or not the surveyor recorded the result.
I have had to order copies of decisions before to get additional details, but the records of survey always refer to the lines/tracts as being shown "per superior court case XXXX".
Seriously, the surveyor was ordered to record a survey by a court, and just....ignored it?
Have encountered instances where land owners thought giving the documents to the court fulfilled the order. Surveyor, client and attorney all thought one of the others recorded the required documents. Court did not check that recording had been completed and property owner thought once documents were in the courthouse recording was up to the court.
In one case three generations had assumed probate of will was all that was required.?ÿ Property records showed different family name. His great granddaughter had married prior to her father's death and probate of will.?ÿ Company trying to get a lease signed needed to clean up the mess before they could close the deal.
Did you check into the court records of the case. There may be a copy of the survey filed with the case documents.
A court order is a recording.
We introduced legislation to require the courts to record all their land dispute resolutions and decrees in their respective county real estate records. this was approximately 15 years ago. PLSC had to lobby for it. I believe the courts may make any ruling they wish - they are not under the same jurisdiction as developers recording subdivisions - but my impression as that the courts have no problem doing this if required specifically by statute.
I got a call as a county surveyor one day from a landowner that met me on her property and explained a very complicated dispute she was having - and opened her brief case that appeared to have about 10 court rulings in it - none of them recorded. they were all signed by the judge - and it was at least HER understanding that when a judge signs it, it is so.
That might have been me. The defendant was suppose to pay me for the survey. His Lawyer was a real butthead and kept wanting to change wording and other stupid things. For some reason I held onto the completed Certificate of Survey and didn't file it. I never got paid hence I never filed the survey. I felt the defendant should have been in contempt of court, but nobody else seemed to think that. I never got paid and the Survey never got filed.
Well, that's a really good point.?ÿ Court ordered it, but if the client doesn't pay, it shouldn't have any bearing on the surveyor for recording it, or even finishing it, as far as I'm concerned.
If the client was ordered to get some surveyor to do the job, you may be right.?ÿ IANAL. Do the board rules also agree?
If the surveyor was ordered by the court to do the job and file, then refusing to file would be contempt. The payment issue would have to be dealt with by going back to the court.
For clarification:
1.The surveyor was injured in an accident and is out of action, at least temporarily, possibly permanently.
2. Yes, the surveyor did not record the documents. I do not think that he provided them to the court.
3. The documents were prepared after the case was closed and are not a part of the court record.
Also, did the court actually order the surveyor directly to prepare the plan, or were the land owners ordered to have it done??ÿ Seems odd if the surveyor was ordered.
@bill93Fortunately the Judge ruled the defendant had to pay for the survey and the Plaintiff got to pick the Surveyor. The Plaintiff's lawyer had no time for me to chase a nonpayer. He represented the Plaintiff not me. The bill was not big enough to warrant going after them in Court.
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@jphIt probably was the owner. The Judge doesn't probably know who the Surveyor was unless he testified. In my case the defendant was required to get the survey.
I believe that the Court ordered the Surveyor, who was an expert witness in the case, to prepare and record the documents.?ÿ
@jim-in-azThen whose going to pay the Surveying bill?
@jphi would think payment would be on who the Judge ordered to do the survey, unless he stated otherwise.
Contempt of Court is serious business. You can do some behind bars time.
I get that.?ÿ Just saying, I'd expect that the responsibility to have a plan recorded would be on the parties involved, to hire the surveyor to prepare the plan and record it.?ÿ Not for it to be on the expert witness/surveyor and whether he gets paid or not.