California Surveyors Forums

A recent post highlighted an issue that is probably in all of our minds. How does the value of a property relate to the standard of care? (<-and the fee? I'm reluctant to ask this question, but feel it is valid).
Should the standard of care be compromised for certain properties?
How low can we go?
Adversely-How high can we go? I once had a property owner tell me the grape clusters on his vines were $100 bills and he was willing to defend them with gunpowder!
I am hoping for good discussion.

There has long been a history of differing expectations for differing types of properties which has often been categorized as urban, suburban, and rural, but also breaks down to property values ($/unit area).

In urban areas, monumented points which can be used to identify controlling corners or other elements, tend to be much closer together, parcels generally quite a bit smaller, and the unit area value of properties much higher than in rural areas. Accordingly, the definition of what constitutes a discrepancy that is material is much different in magnitude between high-dollar, typically urban properties and lower-dollar, typically rural properties.

When talking about the standard of care to be exercised on each, you have to break the job, a boundary survey, into it's sub-tasks.

The measurement tolerances, and therefore perhaps the procedures used and the general level of care adhered to will likely be somewhat different. A client who hires a surveyor to survey a parcel worth $500/s.f. will expect that surveyor to be able to determine the boundary location to the tightest possible tolerances using standard survey-grade equipment, which, if the controlling monumentation is plentiful and pretty tight, might be +/- 0.02' relative error between any two adjacent corners.

Someone who owns 20 acres of mountain property that they plan to build a cabin on, may have recently paid under $100,000 (perhaps well under), or about $0.10/s.f. (or less). To attain that same +/-0.02' of relative error along any given line, the procedures you would need to employ would bring the cost of that survey up to 1/4 or more of the full property value. If that is explained to the landowner, I'm pretty certain most would be more than satisfied with methods that result in overall relative error of 1:5000, or about +/- 0.25' over 1320', or even a bit looser, if it brings the cost of a reasonably carefully performed field survey down into the 4-digit range. In my stomping grounds, and I'll bet most other mountain and rural foothill areas, if surveyors were to propose fees of $25,000 or more to survey a $100k parcel, there would be even more unlicensed people than we already have, all as busy as they want to be in those areas.

The improvements and potential encroachments that should be located may require considerable field time and a greater degree of care to notice/recognize those items for the urban property and may be non-existent or very minimal on the rural parcel. If there are fences on the rural parcel, it could take as much or more time, but then we also get back to the relative expectations of accuracy and precision on the urban parcel vs. the rural parcel, which would tend to mitigate the time needed to work around the larger rural parcel.

The level of care and knowledge required to perform a thorough title search will be far less for the rural property than for an urban one, both in terms of the types and number of items affecting title that the surveyor should be aware of and disclose, and in the number and types of sources that would need to be checked. Research for the rural property might take you less than an hour to gather all of the record info you will need, whereas it may take several days to complete adequate research for the urban parcel. That is a vast difference in the standard or care typically required for each job

The level of care needed to ensure a survey that will withstand a challenge in court might require one to not only locate block corners and other monumentation you might have some record of or just happen to see, but also require one to locate many or all front building corners, fence corners, driveway locations, street curbs, etc. That level of fieldwork is not required for all such urban surveys, but it occurs often enough to not be a rare requirement.

On the rural mountain parcel, the corollary would be not only locating the controlling PLSS corner monuments, but following each one of those lines (of the parcel and between controlling corners) for signs of remaining line trees, evidence of cut lines, record and non-record monumentation subsequent to the original GLO survey, locating any and all fences along or near those lines, locating any cabins or other buildings near any of those lines, locating any public or private roads which might follow on or near any of those lines, or any such roads which cross or come near your subject parcel, and to search for and locate any topographic feature which may have been called out in the original GLO notes or in subsequent surveys. All or most of these things would normally be considered to be not reasonably necessary for that mountain parcel survey.

The mapping for an urban parcel is likely to be, or at least should be typically much more detailed on a high-dollar urban parcel. As was pointed out in the other thread ("A Question of Conduct"), the possibility for litigation rises almost in proportion to the unit value of the parcel, so it protects the surveyor, and protects & informs the landowner - and perhaps more importantly, the informs adjacent landowners and their attorneys as to what you found, what you considered, your reasoning, and any facts that might muddy the waters with regard to boundary location or title issues.

For the rural aliquot part, the 4 lines of the parcel boundary and ties to the controlling GLO corners might be entirely sufficient to both explain the reasoning behind the surveyor's boundary determination and to show any other conditions which might have a potential effect on boundary location or title. If there are fences, you may need to show only a couple of tie distances per line from fence location to nearest boundary line, depending upon how straight they are. Often, there are no improvements whatsoever to show, and no narrative or extra notes to explain facts, your use of them, or your reasoning necessary.

In the other thread, you brought up the RS requirement conditions of material discrepancy (8762(b)(2)), and alternate locations (8762(b)(3)). (Side note: I'm curious why you would bring up these but not material evidence - 8764(b)(1)). David Kendall was entirely correct in his response to both of those. The surveyor who located the guard pipes and thought they were the survey monuments was mistaken in that identification. With the monuments actually still in existence and relatively easily found by the exercise of minimally adequate care, the guard pipes do not purport, nor can reasonably be interpreted to have been placed to mark the corners, therefore they cannot be part of the basis for a material discrepancy between measurements or locations. Since they cannot be reasonably interpreted as the monuments marking the properties, they cannot be part of the basis for an alternate location. The phrase "by reasonable interpretation" is directly in the subsection for alternate location.

If it were me in the position of the most recent surveyor on the scene, after notifying the mistaken surveyor and getting nowhere, if no other RS requirement triggers had been encountered, I would file a CR, noting the guard pipes and the other surveyor's mistaken identification of them. I would also forward the matter with all useful info to the local PPC. They may be able to educate the mistaken surveyor as to his statutory responsibilities - whether he fixes it on his own dime or the company he worked for at the time pays for the work is a separate matter between them. If he is educable, then it's a simple matter resolved locally that the Board doesn't need to deal with. Otherwise, the PPC can and probably will forward the matter to BPELSG.

Evan,

That was a great analysis and synopsis - I would suggest that you change your tag line to "A Certain Forum Essayist"!

Done as suggested.

The issue has been rendered somewhat moot over the years given the development of technological tools and increased quality due to better measuring equipment. Evan's comments are right on. I will tell you, you would have to be a fool not to consider the value of the land when doing a survey and a bigger fool if you do not price your services accordingly. I work on very high-end properties wherein I never talk to the property owner as they communicate through lawyers. In some cases, other surveyors monitor your work and are right behind you. There is a vast difference between surveying 40 acres in the hills and surveying a $10M home on the ocean or a highrise building in downtown San Francisco.

I have attached a story regarding defending a hundredth of a foot in a coastal neighborhood at a cost to my client of $15K. In another situation, I was personally sued for $2M for surveying an easement line. When you deal with expensive properties, they include a lot more headaches and exposure for the surveyor. I doubt anyone in the high mountains will argue over a hundredth of a foot.

http://www.amerisurv.com/PDF/TheAmerica ... l10No5.pdf

A few years ago there was a series of articles about surveying property lines in native villages in Alaska. lines and corners were mostly established by mutual agreement, I don't remember the figures but the final mapping was pretty loose.

Only rich people have earned the right to our best efforts?

Gary,

It's best to read the thread first to see if your comment has been answered before adding it to the thead.

I agree with Evan's comments above, and all things considered, on any retracement survey, local history and acceptable methods come into play. I just simply present the facts as they are and show what it is. Good stuff!

jonwheat wrote:Should the standard of care be compromised for certain properties?
How low can we go?
Adversely-How high can we go?.

Sometimes people are required by a permitting agency to have a line surveyed in order to further a construction project. I may attempt to do just enough to meet that goal.

Example 1: I am currently surveying a rural project next to a freeway where a client wants to build a garage and he needs to meet a setback requirement (say it's 5 feet from the line). It's a deed described line, never mapped and I spent half a day in the field and have collected enough evidence to determine that the fenceline is approximately representative of the property line but I don't really know well enough to monument the line (I'm sure +/- 2 feet). I'm going to suggest that if he can build the garage 10 or 15 feet off of the fenceline then he will meet the setback requirement. I am trying not to expose him to the mapping costs of establishing that line if he doesn't really need to know. This is as low as I can go with my standard of care in this instance.

Example 2: In another rural setting of higher value properties on a scenic hillside I am establishing a line for construction of a garage and have measured all adjoining lots of the subdivision, drawn a record of survey, spent 4 or 5 days in the field searching for old original non-record subdivision monuments and also a few days of research and transcribing old maps and deeds. This is a different ball game and the client has requested it to be that way. Also the value of the property justifies it. The survey and mapping cost for example 1 is currently around $2500 for partial boundary and topo for site plan. Record of Survey if needed may bring it up to $7500 including another field day for proper boundary determination. The project cost for example 2 is already around $25000 and we haven't done the topo yet.

The difference in land value is difficult to determine but example 2 property and improvements appears to be worth at least double or triple that of example 1. I may file a record on example 1 after all but the point is that I'm trying to give them as little work as possible to get the job done with confidence and efficiency. If I have to do more then I will but I feel that I am compromising my standard of care in example 1.

Be very careful how you convey the information of Example 1 to the landowner, his contractor, or anyone else who might be involved with designing or building the garage. Several years ago, I made the mistake of placing lath at the "approximate" corners for an engineer from our office (where I was then) who begged me to do it so she and the contractor could "get an idea" of how much area of sod they could remove to use on a project nearby.

I was confident within +/- 0.5' of the locations, but told her +/- 3' because I had a suspicion that she was lying to me or the contractor lying to her. Drove by a day later and they had stripped the sod right up to the lines between the lath.

Grass grows back in fairly short order. Not as easy to move a garage that ends up violating setback by a foot or two when they start building at 5' 0" from the existing fence that you think is +/- 2'. And they will.

In the eyes and mind of a homeowner, there is no such thing as an approximate corner. Once a surveyor makes a mark, it is gold!

Evan has some good advice. When in doubt, send a letter. Document everything.

To go one further with Michael's statement about homeowners. I have heard tell of a property owner following a surveyor who was doing a preliminary search for corners on the owners rural property. When the surveyor reported back that he found no corners and would have to expand his research and search for controlling monuments the homeowner paid him for his work and dismissed him. Then hired a fence contractor to fence the property from the center of the surveyors search location to search location. Interesting how original boundaries are established. :) . Good day! Jp

Yes, the public sees us as gods and we don't recognize that!

I had a request for a lot survey in a nearby beach city. The inspector said that the PL was needed to verify the 5ft setback for the proposed addition, fence line was not acceptable. The architect then cut 1 ft off the addition and now the addition being 6ft from pl a survey was not needed per the city inspector. Figure that one.

mpallamary wrote:In the eyes and mind of a homeowner, there is no such thing as an approximate corner. Once a surveyor makes a mark, it is gold!.

Are surveyors not allowed to offer any preliminary opinion about property boundaries without resolving the boundary to nothing? Along those same lines, wouldn't any property owner with average intelligence be able to grasp the concept and challenges of boundary resolution if explained thoroughly and clearly to them? If X amount of work could render an opinion about the boundary within 1/2 foot but 5X amount of work could produce an opinion to a few hundredths, aren't property owners allowed the right to have options in these situations considering they clearly understood and documentation was provided stating the situation.

E_Page wrote:Be very careful how you convey the information of Example 1 to the landowner, his contractor, or anyone else who might be involved with designing or building the garage. Several years ago, I made the mistake of placing lath at the "approximate" corners for an engineer from our office (where I was then) who begged me to do it so she and the contractor could "get an idea" of how much area of sod they could remove to use on a project nearby.

I was confident within +/- 0.5' of the locations, but told her +/- 3' because I had a suspicion that she was lying to me or the contractor lying to her. Drove by a day later and they had stripped the sod right up to the lines between the lath.

Grass grows back in fairly short order. Not as easy to move a garage that ends up violating setback by a foot or two when they start building at 5' 0" from the existing fence that you think is +/- 2'. And they will.

What if you were to have staked the worst case scenario allowing for error tolerance and informed the client of such. Would there be a problem with this approach? How about certifying that a building meets setback when a boundary is not resolved to nothing but there is enough clearance to allow for the error tolerance of the resolution? For example you are confident about the boundary to 1/2 foot and the building has 1 extra clearance to the minimum setback line.

I think it is like a surgeon - she removes only half the tumor. We are viewed with much greater respect than we, as a profession understand.

Yes but there are typically options. Is the entire tumor removed, is only a portion taken because it could damage a nearby organ, is chemo given, is it just actively monitored? Professionals provide guidance and options in challenging situations.

All is fine when you have billionaire clients, the rest of us are constrained by reality and do have the authority to provide creative practical solutions in certain situations. Would you waste 20k of your clients money chasing two tenths, or would you provide them with the option of just bringing in the house a little so they are well clear of setback?

And that, my friend, is why we are licensed!

In Mission Beach, the lots are 25 feet wide and the setbacks are three feet. Every architect designs the homes down there with zero setbacks. You can fit two condominiums on a lot. I just looked at some prices. One is for sale for $1,900,000 and another $1,500,000. Thus, one lot - built out is worth $3.5M. You throw in the neighbors and one lot engages $10.5M of real estate. Yikes.

How about this one:

http://www.amerisurv.com/PDF/TheAmerica ... ec2014.pdf

No doubt it's a serious business with a vast array of situations out there. I had a job having to do with a real estate transaction a couple years back and the results of my survey killed the 5 million dollar deal. After hiring every other consultant in the book, the buyer became concerned about an existing retaining wall and came to me. I made a determination that the wall was a 1/2 foot over the property line and the purchase fell apart. There had been an old wall that was right on the property line but it had been reinforced and expanded in more recent years without the benefit of survey. The night after I delivered the map I woke up thinking about it but reassured myself that I'd done a thorough job, had looked at it from every different angle and had it right.

Excellent! As I said, that is why we are licensed!

Hypothetically, consider a gold mine in section 6 of a township and range that the original surveyor labelled "Unsurveyable"
I'm just saying "Hypothetically"

What if we hit this horse with a different kind of stick... would that bring it back to life.

Less sarcastically, you are confusing precision of measurements with the overall standard of care. Go back to my first reply to this thread, the answer is the same. You can change basic hypothetical facts, but the bottom line answer is that you must consider how all the pertinent known facts affects each aspect of the project: research, field work (which might further be broken down to field search and measurements), analysis, drafting and other deliverables.

Part of the standard of care that is easily overlooked is being efficient with the fees paid to us by our clients. We can measure that section 6 in rough mountain country such that every point and line is accurate to 0.1' or better at the 3 sigma confidence level, if we use appropriate equipment and with enough redundancies in our measurements. Depending upon the expected richness of the veins, their proximity to the surface, proposed surface use of the property (and ignoring a whole body of title and mining law issues that we would need to factor in to a mine survey), the present and proposed uses of adjacent lands and the general land values, perhaps that mine owner is willing to spend the money to cover the 3 to 5 times budget to cover the additional fieldwork and calculations to have you achieve that level of positional confidence. Or maybe the owner will have the needs met with survey measurements which are more typical for lands in the vicinity which might have an overall +/- 1' to 1.5' across the whole section and +/- 0.2' to 0.3' between any adjacent points and along any dimensioned lines at a 2 sigma confidence level.

Take the rare what-if's out so that we have a horse instead of a zebra (that is a reasonably common situation rather than the rare circumstance) and trying to achieve the balance between cost efficiency for the client and precision & accuracy, and the reasons it must be done should be more clear.

Bottom line, assess your client's needs, determine the service required to meet those needs, and plan your work to meet that service.

If you needed a new vehicle, went to the dealership having in mind that a $40,000 Ram would do exactly what you need it to do, how would you feel about a salesman who refused to sell you anything less than a $120,000 Viper, or if willing to at least stay with the same type of vehicle, wouldn't show you anything other than a top end trim package Ram diesel crew cab at $80,000?

If you are struggling with it as a relative level of effort issue - that we are willing to provide the effort necessary to attain sub-tenth results in an urban setting as standard, but not in a rugged mountain setting, you need to realize that you would work much, much harder for a far longer period to attain the lower typically lesser accuracy and precision for that mountain survey than you will for that urban survey.

If it still bothers you, perhaps you can start and run your business on a model of taking that typical standard of precision and accuracy (or more commonly, precision regardless of accuracy) commonly provided with urban surveys and providing it to rural customers. Be aware that due to terrain, scale, and most often, proximity to reliable control, you will need to factor in 5 to 10 times the actual effort per land area unit as you would in urban or suburban settings, and you need to consider that you will need to sell the idea that a survey fee equal to or greater than the land value is a good deal for many of your prospective clients. Let us know how it works out after you've done it a while. [Straying back into sarcasm... sorry]

Meanwhile, ponder how providing a level of precision or accuracy & precision which requires fees equal to or greater than the land values of many of these rural lands serves the public at large, and more particularly, the owners of such lands.

I contend that it doesn't. If you want to provide a service that goes beyond the typical standard of care for these properties and their owners, you would do that more effectively with additional research and additional field evidence search (along with training to increase your knowledge and skills in each). When I work on surveys in almost any setting and find some of the previous surveys deficient, it is almost always in those aspects. When I find a previous survey to be unreasonably deficient in the accuracy or precision of reported dimensions, those deficiencies are almost always accompanied by deficiencies in research and evidence search and/or evidence recognition.



One last thing: Understand that you can perform an accurate survey by being diligent in your research, field evidence search, and analysis, resulting in properly identifying the true boundaries while not being very precise with your measurements and reported dimensions.

You can also perform a survey which is very precise and reports very accurate coordinates, but still be quite inaccurate by identifying the boundaries to be in locations where they have never existed and were never intended to exist. Shooting a small group is of little value if you completely miss the target.

Between the two, the former is of some use to the landowner in that they can walk to their boundaries and recognize them in their true locations. The latter is worse than useless because it is more likely to induce a landowner to place improvements in erroneous locations, make claims to lands without sufficient title or legal basis, and cause needless conflicts between neighbors which may lead to costly and unnecessary legal action or worse.

Wherever the parcel, whatever the value, whatever the existing or proposed use, we try to provide the best of both those described efforts to best meet the needs of the client. The reality is that cost (and/or time) can be a limiting factor. When it is, it is better to compromise in the quality of measurement than it is in the quality of evidence. It is far better to be imprecisely correct than it is to be precisely wrong. (paraphrasing Mulford).

What is your definition of Standard of Care?

Silly me for trying to read this forum, goodbye!