Time for Board to enforce California Law 8762?
It sounds like California has legislated the local municipalities to perform a Board function to review every survey for compliance, and charging the surveyor/client for the police action. In the mandatory recording states I am familiar with, the surveyor takes the plat and/or surveyor's report to the Chancery Clerk's office, sometimes called the recorder's office, pays their $30 - $50 recording fee, and it is recorded before the following day's close of business.
In my humble opinion, if you eliminate the review of survey plats by the unlicensed bureaucrats, charge only your recording fees, and compliance by most survey practitioners should increase dramatically. This may be a cause your state society can champion and at least make a recommendation to change the legislation.
I would strongly support a change to "surveyor to recorder".
for one, it would greatly reduce the cost to the consumer, and the Enforcement of any violations would be for the Board of Registration (or the Local Agency for code violations).
County Surveyors and City Surveyors have enough on their plates already.
The bureaucracy is killing California.
@dave-karoly so then what would be your answer? I don't think that is an apt comparison, the speeding ticket example. I think an apt comparison would be something along the lines of MLB PED policy - in my opinion, it is pretty hefty for a player. They can lose a whole season - millions of dollars, if they do it. If you make the penalties meaningful, then it does deter people. For example - deeded lots automatically require a ROS, that's an easy one. If the board gets a complaint and sees an exhibit or PDF with a boundary line on it and there is no ROS - if they fined you a year's salary, let's say, every surveyor in town would take notice and there would be less willing to take the risk of being caught.
California law gives the County the authority to set the fee for reviewing and filing a Record of Survey. Have those exceeded reasonable expectations in terms of cost? Absolutely! What is the land surveying profession in California going to do about that? Who is better positioned to argue that the current statute is no longer working? If the land surveying community is not going to engage in a meaningful and effective approach to engage the state legislators in this regard and continue to complain only to themselves, what do you expect others to do for you?
I apologize to come across so blunt...but I literally hear about this every single day. Not enough complaints are submitted to the Board (see previous post from Ed Reading) and there are just as many land surveyors in California who refuse to comply with the filing requirement as there are that are responsible enough to file. Whether the language in the statutes re clear enough is subjective and can be argued. What cannot be argued is the severe lack of consistent practice and adherence to the requirements among the practicing land surveyors. If you want more compliance, then work within your professional community to increase consistent compliance. Obviously the Board is willing to work with the professional community as evidenced by the statewide seminars hosted by the Board (just prior to pandemic) and it is an entire myth there are insufficient funds or resources available for the Board to enforce the laws. Anyone saying this, on this forum or anywhere else, is entirely misinformed and does not take the responsibility to verify such information prior to expressing it.
@dave-karoly so then what would be your answer? I don't think that is an apt comparison, the speeding ticket example. I think an apt comparison would be something along the lines of MLB PED policy - in my opinion, it is pretty hefty for a player. They can lose a whole season - millions of dollars, if they do it. If you make the penalties meaningful, then it does deter people. For example - deeded lots automatically require a ROS, that's an easy one. If the board gets a complaint and sees an exhibit or PDF with a boundary line on it and there is no ROS - if they fined you a year's salary, let's say, every surveyor in town would take notice and there would be less willing to take the risk of being caught.
I don??t think you can enforce your way out of the problem.
What would work is redesigning the system to encourage compliance. I remember talking with a Sacramento County map checker about this over a decade ago. His attitude was it??s my client??s project so they should pay the costs. But my client didn??t care about filing the survey, they just wanted to build a fence and do it right. The Record of Survey is for the benefit of the public, not the client. That particular client could and did pay but for that 1 client there are 10 or more that will just skip the Survey because they don??t have thousands of dollars for Surveyors and county map checkers.
The County views everybody as a land developer so soak those people but they don??t see that some people are not land developers. True the Board of Soups doesn??t want to put another thing on the general fund.
Its a conundrum.
@ric-moore I agree with you 100%, and I'm on board to trying to make a change. I guess the answer from you, if I could sum up, would be a.) file complaints more and b.) get involved with trying to change the legislation or enforcement? Not sure how to go about doing b.), if that is what you are saying, but I would gladly help try to do that. I can definitely do a.) when it comes up. And I agree that complaining without making a change is worthless - just not sure how to even go about doing that (b.) to be honest.
@dave-karoly so then what would be your answer? I don't think that is an apt comparison, the speeding ticket example. I think an apt comparison would be something along the lines of MLB PED policy - in my opinion, it is pretty hefty for a player. They can lose a whole season - millions of dollars, if they do it. If you make the penalties meaningful, then it does deter people. For example - deeded lots automatically require a ROS, that's an easy one. If the board gets a complaint and sees an exhibit or PDF with a boundary line on it and there is no ROS - if they fined you a year's salary, let's say, every surveyor in town would take notice and there would be less willing to take the risk of being caught.
California law gives the County the authority to set the fee for reviewing and filing a Record of Survey. Have those exceeded reasonable expectations in terms of cost? Absolutely! What is the land surveying profession in California going to do about that? Who is better positioned to argue that the current statute is no longer working? If the land surveying community is not going to engage in a meaningful and effective approach to engage the state legislators in this regard and continue to complain only to themselves, what do you expect others to do for you?
I apologize to come across so blunt...but I literally hear about this every single day. Not enough complaints are submitted to the Board (see previous post from Ed Reading) and there are just as many land surveyors in California who refuse to comply with the filing requirement as there are that are responsible enough to file. Whether the language in the statutes re clear enough is subjective and can be argued. What cannot be argued is the severe lack of consistent practice and adherence to the requirements among the practicing land surveyors. If you want more compliance, then work within your professional community to increase consistent compliance. Obviously the Board is willing to work with the professional community as evidenced by the statewide seminars hosted by the Board (just prior to pandemic) and it is an entire myth there are insufficient funds or resources available for the Board to enforce the laws. Anyone saying this, on this forum or anywhere else, is entirely misinformed and does not take the responsibility to verify such information prior to expressing it.
they are supposed to set a maximum fee, it??s not supposed to be an open checkbook
8766.5. Record of survey ?? examination fee
The county surveyor may charge a reasonable fee for examining a record of survey pursuant to Section 8766 which shall not exceed the cost of the service or one hundred dollars ($100), whichever is the lesser. However, this one hundred dollars ($100) maximum fee may be increased by the board of supervisors if such an increase is authorized by a duly adopted ordinance and the ordinance was adopted pursuant to a staff report demonstrating that the cost of providing the examination service actually exceeds one hundred dollars ($100) per record of survey.
@elzeballa Are you a member of CLSA? Is your company a member of ACEC-CA? Both of those organizations have very active legislative committees and are generally thought of as the leading voices representing the land surveying profession in California. Doesn't mean they are doing enough in this regard but I believe they are always open to improving what they do and additional volunteers.
8766.5. Record of survey ?? examination fee
The county surveyor may charge a reasonable fee for examining a record of survey pursuant to Section 8766 which shall not exceed the cost of the service or one hundred dollars ($100), whichever is the lesser. However, this one hundred dollars ($100) maximum fee may be increased by the board of supervisors if such an increase is authorized by a duly adopted ordinance and the ordinance was adopted pursuant to a staff report demonstrating that the cost of providing the examination service actually exceeds one hundred dollars ($100) per record of survey.
I agree with you Dave. This was never intended to be a revenue producing mechanism for the County. Multiple County Surveyors recognize this, but many are not in charge of the budgets/purse strings and its the administrators and Board of Supervisors which need to be reined in, so to speak. Not enough challenges to what they use to justify the costs in some cases (in my opinion). Something seriously needs to be done due to the rising costs and pricing models (e.g., deposit based is just wrong for an RS submittal). Again, who is going to engage in an effective challenge to what is occurring?
If you see a violation, and do not send in a complaint, what do you have to complain about?
BUT...I agree with the speeding violation thing. IMHO, the recording could be taken care of with a minimal fee and emailing in a pdf. If that was all it took, why not record a map? (WA is pretty much at $300 fee to record now.)
A $100 review sounds like they originally meant for it to be checking lot and parcel numbers, indexing, etc. If it take more than half an hour it is obviously exceeding the intended review.
AND...$5,000 for a survey, in a state where the median home price is over $800,000 is probably under priced. Raise your rates.
@dmyhill No one is saying not to send in a complaint...the question is if it will even change any thing. And the $5k, if you read what I wrote, was not intended to serve as benchmark for how much a survey should cost. It was to show the possible ranges of prices for a client, depending on if a ROS is required. So, whether its $5k or $10k, the point being that we aren't able to give fixed cost without a caveat that it may be significantly more IF a ROS is required. And right there, that is where some surveyors come in and say "you don't need to do that, I'll mark your corners for half the cost, and quicker". Property owners don't know the difference, or don't want to pay a guy 2x as much even if it is a recorded map. But yes, I agree that we should file a complaint.
