> What happens if the reviewer decides your boundary determination is wrong? Can they make you change it?
Not in California. If there's a legitimate difference of opinion, the County Surveyor can require that a note be added explaining the disagreement, and the verbiage of the note is subject to negotiation. If agreement on the wording can't be accomplished, then both the submitting surveyor and the County Surveyor add a note. I've only had to add a note once in 20+ years.
If the County Surveyor believes that the disagreement is more serious than a legitimate difference of opinion and he isn't able to convince the submitting surveyor to change the survey, his only recourse is to file a complaint with the Board.
At least nobody is 'checking' them so the lowballers can do as crappy a job as they want. Same way up here. I've seen ALTAs without the description, etc
Does every county in California have a county surveyor (office)? Is the county surveyor review a county thing or does the state law require it everywhere? Many counties in Utah (including mine) do everything they can to wipe out the county surveyor's office to save money. If Utah passed a law requiring Record of Survey review, they'd water it down and say it's OK for the county recorder to do it. Some of the county recorders (Terminus) wouldn't have any problem telling a surveyor they couldn't find a boundary line or the survey is just wrong. Been doing it for a century or so.
MT I was an Examining Land Surveyor for several years. Each county can decide if they need one and set fees. When I put my name and license on the line every time I signed one I made damn sure at least the mathematics closed and all laws pertaining to recording were followed. One of my reviews took 3 weeks of CAD time just to verify mathematics of a 12 page 24x36 Subdivision Plat (the review fee was $4000). Some counties choose not to have an ELS and I have found surveys in those counties with so many math blunders and outright non-compliance with state statutes, I wonder how some "Professional Surveyors" can call themselves that:-S. ALTA'S locally are up to the surveyor's professional judgement whether or not to record a Certificate of Survey is warranted, and will be required. ALTA's are never recorded publicly, that I have seen.
Here surveys don't really get reviewed or recorded. Subdivisions do, but that is often done by an engineer :pinch: I think I'd rather nobody review those either....
It is a standard requirement to provide map check calculations with the first submittal.
The map checker shouldn't have to do his own calculations.
"The map checker shouldn't have to do his own calculations."
I must be missing something...
> It is a standard requirement to provide map check calculations with the first submittal.
>
> The map checker shouldn't have to do his own calculations.
Things may have changed but but one California County I know of did (does?) not require mapchecks if the ROS is prepared by a State Agency. Supposedly out of "professional courtesy."
There were some "Surveyors" that couldn't have their drafting and/or legal description match their own map checks to save their soulo.O , so I made a point of checking everything
I reviewed a number of maps on the provided link. I find it surprising to see so many found monuments that do not have tags or caps with licensee numbers. Also surprising is the number of monuments with no record reference.
In California, when the surveyor finds a monument that does not have a reference the surveyor is required to file a record (Ref. CA Bus. & Prof. Code 8762 and 8765). Looking at the filed records provided in Sacramento County a surveyor could not set up and instrument without being required to file either a record of survey or a corner record. Using this same logic applied to the records filed, it would appear as though very few surveys actually occur, on an annual basis, in Sacramento County.
As stated previously, the law (enacted in 1891) in California never singularly stated that setting a monument was the only trigger to filing a record of survey. In fact, until 1939 all surveys performed were required to be filed as a record of survey.
Oftentimes, I'll hear a surveyor say he didn't file a record of survey because "I didn't set monuments". The complete sentence is actually a thought "I didn't set monuments, therefore nobody will ever know I was here".
It is a phenomenon I call "Surveyors refusing to survey".
DWoolley
