This is in Washington State...a recording state.
15 years ago a survey was performed for someone who has now contacted me. The survey was done, a plotted (not hand drawn or annotated), signed, and stamped map of the survey was created, and was given to the client, but never recorded with the county. As far as the survey work, it looks great. (And it found and tied and held the called for bounds [stone and concrete monuments] from the legal, which is unique in that bounds are rarely called out in legals around here, it seems.)
In your opinion:
- Does the unrecorded nature of the survey have any bearing on its validity, usefulness, etc.?
- Does the fact that it does not come from the vault of the surveyor, but from the property owner's records have any bearing?
- In theory, the owners could take it down and have it recorded today. (I think they could, it might require a form and fee for a non-standard recording, since there are some overwrite issues.) If they did so, would that change the answers to any of the above?
Note:
It is not uncommon for a surveyor to attempt to avoid dealing with the costs and billing and trips to the county by giving the customer a signed, ready to record map (called a plat in some areas). The idea is that the customer will take it down and have it recorded. (Yes, there are all sorts of reasons that this may not be a good idea. This is not my method.)
The surveyor in question is deceased, BTW.
Good as gold, in my book. Especially if those impacted by it have not disagreed with it to date.
I run into those in Idaho and Washington. Some didn't meet the triggers in place at the time. I would Judge the survey on its merits. Without evidence leaning to intentional departure from sound practice it's probably as good as anything recorded.
It is simply documentation of a surveying opinion and recovered evidence. Whether it is un-recorded or recorded the question is not one of validity but rather one of how it can withstand the litmus tests of boundary retracement principles.
Obviously it was not me. It could have been my partner who passed earlier this spring but not likely, and if it was let me know.
This has happened to me and I find there is nothing wrong with citing your source, the surveyor, date and any other pertinent information on your map just like you would with any other of-record map. If you have an image of the survey, you could should transmit it to the PLSO/DNR for inclusion into their database.
I have not done it but have seen where an image of what you describe is included within a record of survey.
To answer your questions: No, No and No.
I am not sure how this would work there but in Arkansas a state where recording is required, in the past I have had some problems with the Circuit Clerks not wanting to record a survey plat that was from some other surveyor that was dead or unavailable. The client still had a copy so they did an affidavit to the public, made the plat an attachment and recorded it in the real property records so that I was able to reference the Volume and Page in my survey.