California Surveyors Forums

Today I got an email from a person who wanted a survey done. I did some research on it and found out a few things that would have made it a very interesting project...

However, escrow has not closed and I am going to advise him to do his shopping elsewhere, as far as this property goes.

The attached JPG is from the LA County GIS-NET site and the eastern line slices through a pool and decking, and who knows what else that under the canopy. The southeast line is too damn close to that building to make me feel warm and fuzzy.


Sometimes the best approach to a job is just not to do it. I sure hope this guy takes my advice and gets out of this buyers nightmare.

I might or might not have elected to undertake the survey, but I damn sure wouldn't have advised the buyer to back out of the deal, especially on the strength of a GIS image. Slander of title can get expensive fast.

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Tell you what Jim, you wash your car your way, and I'll wash my car my way.

Lots of hillside areas here are like that. Laguna Beach is horrible. I set a CL mon on a persons front porch once.

We use GIS quite a bit as a 'relative location' informational tool in the rural/urban interface of National Forests in NV and Eastern CA. Some times its okay accurate (in areas where local governments have dedicated GIS systems that are actually tied to County survey data), but I have seen way too many instances of it being 100's of feet off.

For boundary location, the GIS tool serves as a shock vehicle to the Forest Service non-survey masses that we need to expedite getting boots on the ground and determining the ACTUAL boundary location.

But it does have pretty pictures!!!

Since when do GIS maps influence surveyors? Shame. Those GIS parcel AP Map layers do not have any coordinate projection, they are a flat plane projected onto a curved surface. Kiddie stuff. Come on.

Looks like a great reason to have the property boundaries surveyed.

GIS is a marketing tool, not something to fear...

Jim, slander of title. Exactly.

I have a guy that has a property in the coastal mountains, my personal experience tells me the GIS APN lines are off by 150 feet, and I have two conflicting surveys that show a 180' discrepancy on a GLO line, one from which my clients deed was described. Sounds like land surveying to me...

Hey, maybe the GIS lines are spot on... Not.. Hope not...

I know the area very well. http://dpw.lacounty.gov/sur/nas/landrecords/survey/RS230/RS230-064.pdf

There is no slander of title involved with telling a person it's a bad investement.

FYI all you faint of heart, the guy is going to buy the property anyway. He said that the possible encroachments dont bother him..go figure

Point "A" on the following PDF falls about 6 feet into a pool deck.

http://dpw.lacounty.gov/sur/nas/landrecords/survey/RS195/RS195-065.pdf

I personally do not advise as to whether or not a real estate purchase may be a good or bad investment. There are plenty of other professionals and lay persons to do that.

Instead, I provide professional services such as providing a list of numerous considerations or factors that may influence a decision to purchase or sell real property.

Often times I discover something that might make him/her walk away after advising of the land use impacts, but I certainly do not advise on whether or not the transaction might be a good or bad Investment.

I find disclosures to be an interesting issue. Buyers don't have to disclose anything that I might discover. Owners do, and consequently informed owners do not want my services because their property values may be adversely impacted.