GIS fun
I need to submit consent letters to the government for approval. Basically, anyone connected to my client's project have to be sent consent letters and the government agency approves them. One nearby ranch has been split up into 4 pieces, two LLC's, a trust and the original deed. To get approval for the letters I have to send in a GIS type map, deeds and names and addresses of the people who will get the letters.
Since this ranch is in parts now and the descriptions are a bit difficult to read I tried to make it simple.
That didn't work, because the GIS has different legals attached to the properties.
The state can't make anything work as they cross-check my map to the GIS map.
The GIS map even has a neighbor owning one
of the parcels in question.
I tried to tell the state that the actual main ranch home is on the parcel in question and the owners live there and that's the address for them if you look up their address.
I also tried to explain that the older deed is the remaining parcel and all the rest land was broken out of the original, but still the same owners.
This keeps going on as I try to explain there is only one consent for the 4 parcels; it's all the same people.
To add to the confusion one of the tracts is in a Trust and there's no filing anywhere to figure out who the signatory name should be.
I can't hardly ask a landowner for their documents when this project isn't for them.
I finally had to "call the manager" and set up a meeting to get this moving.
It's exhausting. They used to always defer to us over this stuff, now they think the GIS is "official".
I'm still waiting on what GIS'ers call the Official PLS lines.
No one has ever explained that to me.
Oh, that has to be fun. Our GIS folks write descriptions that do not include the county road easements/right-of-ways and never come close to matching the true legal description. Some bearing less than 45 degrees from north, for example, will be changed to "northeasterly" or "northwesterly"
It's something to behold.
I had one project where an engineering company hired me to do some property lines. I gave the lines to them in SP as they requested. A few months later, they filed a document with the state showing a section line passing through a handful of properties and some actual homes. Because they can only use official PLS lines not mine.
I actually had to drag them to the field, stand next to a big lead cap and original stone 1/4 corner on a fence line they were showing 150' east of the real section line on their drawings. I explained that my section line passes through this cap and heads north along the fence line clearly missing all the houses. Then I took them 1/2 mile north to the section corner set by DOT and it lined up with the fence line and you could see it was all clear of the houses. I told them in no uncertain terms that now that they've actually seen the line; from that point forward they are committing slander of title on the people with the homes since they filed official documents placing a cloud on the title and I want my name never connected to those documents. Probably a bit of an overstatement, but they withdrew all the paperwork and refiled.
As much of the crazy hoops that I have to jump through for some projects, I don't have to deal with GIS nonsense but do have to provide state plane utility as-built locations.
The biggest struggle I face is batting down the PE who wants to play LS and those battles to take the hill are easily won by state statute.
