I sent a client a bill for some services that weren't your ordinary research tasks. This was in connection with a survey that I made last July and on which I had a couple of thousand in time that I hadn't invoiced because the trial had been postponed and I got distracted with other things. Anyway, I checked in with the client today to see how things stood, sent the invoice, and marvelled at the descriptions of services it presented, including among other things:
a) visiting the grave of a former county surveyor and his wife who'd died before him (before he married her sister),
b) getting the death certificate of a former county surveyor who'd died in 1940,
c) checking the Probate Records to see whether his will had been entered for probate,
d) researching the census records available on line to see what had happened to his heirs,
e) calling a couple of my former clients who, it turned out, were friends of the family,
f) calling a couple of abstract companies to see whether either had bought the records,
g) calling the nearest surveyors, all of whom were at least one county away, to see whether any of them had ever seen the records,
h) calling the county surveyor's grandson to learn that he had some of the former county surveyor's "land papers" and had in 1940 inherited his grandfather's 1927 touring car that he used as a survey vehicle,
i) calling one surveyor a couple of counties away to learn that he had the records of another LSLS who had done some work related to the dispute in the 1950's.
I guess if you define land surveying sufficiently broadly as "telling people things about their land that they do not know", or "asking people things about their land that no one else would know to ask" it all falls under the umbrella. I thought it was an odd potpourri of services, while of course, acknowledging that a land surveyor is really the only person to have done it since the ultimate purpose was to find material actually relevant to the matters in dispute.
It's always nice when you can marvel at yourself. I don't get the chance that often but I do enjoy it. 😉 Look at me, I used a smiley, are you proud?
> It's always nice when you can marvel at yourself.
Well, the marvel there is how far afield land surveying research can get. While preparing abstracts of title is one specialty, open-ended research work is another.
These sorts of projects don't come along that frequently, but they do occasionally. I got hired to research a land title question along a river in a big city Southwest of Austin a few years ago. It was an open-ended "see what you can find" type assignment. After looking through enough archives, I finally discovered in the personal papers of a former City Attorney, held in a library collection, the information that the exact same question then in dispute had been raised in 1886 and that the city's position had been then considered so weak that they had declined to pursue it. 120 years later, the exact same issue was being raised again by the a later generation of officials of the same city, no facts or case law on the issue having significantly changed the legal terrain in the meantime.
I usually tell those kind of folks/clients, and you're correct, there aren't that many of them, that they probably can't afford my fee for such a project, and they usually can't, they REALLY don't have a problem, and they most usually don't, and that usually satisfies them. Mmmmmm, maybe I'm beating myself out of the 'big bucks'.
Oh well, I still feel good about it all.
Take care,
Ed
> I usually tell those kind of folks/clients, and you're correct, there aren't that many of them, that they probably can't afford my fee for such a project ...
Well, the key element is that there be litigation going on. If the lawsuit meter is running, you can be assured that both sides will be running up legal bills in excess of $30,000 and possibly more than $100,000, depending upon the issue. That fact puts the cost of surveying services into its proper, highly economical, perspective.
> > I usually tell those kind of folks/clients, and you're correct, there aren't that many of them, that they probably can't afford my fee for such a project ...
>
> Well, the key element is that there be litigation going on. If the lawsuit meter is running, you can be assured that both sides will be running up legal bills in excess of $30,000 and possibly more than $100,000, depending upon the issue. That fact puts the cost of surveying services into its proper, highly economical perspective.
Agreed. It all has to come together. We're all probally a lot poorer around these parts, though. Not unheard of, however. I've had a couple like that. I just try to first dissuade them if possible. Go figure.
Take care,
Ed
> We're all probally a lot poorer around these parts, though. Not unheard of, however. I've had a couple like that. I just try to first dissuade them if possible. Go figure.
Ed, the smarter practice is to focus on big-ticket disputes that are already under way. These are the sort of things for which you'd know that you'd be wasting your breath to suggest that some amicable solution ought to be considered. The matter at issue isn't going to be settled amicably. It will only get settled, if it does, once both sides have had a chance to put their cards together, see what the other appears to have, and some attorneys and consultants have been paid good sums of money.
I seem to recall you posting some of the details of this search previously. My question would be, did you find anything pertinent?
"This was in connection with a survey that I made last July and on which I had a couple of thousand in time that I hadn't invoiced because the trial had been postponed and I got distracted with other things."
Hi Kent,
a couple thousand in time? meaning a couple thousand dollars invoiced?
> a couple thousand in time? meaning a couple thousand dollars invoiced?
Yes, not a couple of thousand hours. :>
> My question would be, did you find anything pertinent?
After tracking down the records, I got word from my clients' attorney that they thought they might be able to settle with the other side, a settlement that sounds as if it may amount to buying his ranch. That would, in fact, settle the dispute about the boundary between it and theirs. :> In the meantime, I'm waiting to hear whether they'll want me to actually go spend a couple of thousand more going through the records that I located but haven't examined yet.
Personally, I think I'd rather survey the few thousand acres that they may be buying from the adjoining owner, although not during white tail season, I don't think.
Kent-
If the adjacent owner buys the parcel adjacent, will not the parcels "merge on title" and the opportunity for a more flexible 'inventory' of parcels vanish ?
YOS
DGG
(with a Planner's hat on)
> If the adjacent owner buys the parcel adjacent, will not the parcels "merge on title" and the opportunity for a more flexible 'inventory' of parcels vanish ?
Derek, that would actually not be a problem in that rural Texas county. Even in an urban county, the separate original land grants of 320 ac. and 640 ac., nominal size, are nearly invariably treated as separate tracts for tax purposes as well as by the nazis in the land planning department.
Hey Kent..is your favorite song in church..
How great I am ?
Hey Kent.
Paul, you are obviously easily impressed. :>
Hey Kent.
> Paul, you are obviously easily impressed. :>
HAHAH.. Yea, I am 🙂
Hey Kent..is your favorite song in church..
😉
...
When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze...
😉