Staking someone elses line...Legal? Ethical?

So we have a very good construction client with whom we have done A TON of work for over the years.  They are now working on a project where another surveyor did the base mapping (a very good and well respected surveyor).  We were given a CAD file of the plans for layout purposes which also shows the property lines.  We are being asked to stake one of the property lines with a couple of rebar, lath and paint so they know where their limits are.  We are already tied into the project through state plane and checked with building corners for the construction layout.

Is it legal or ethical to stake this line based on that CAD file if we specifically state that we are staking the line based on that map in the contract?

To be honest this is the first time we have been asked to do this...

If you do not have a copy of the signed and sealed survey, the deed of the adjacent property, and then tie into all the corners on both parcels you have assumed way too much risk.

Paul in PA

I'm like Paul in pa. It seems a little risky to me. I would want to conduct a boundary survey of the property because you are staking a boundary line. Even though this is construction related, if farmer Joe thinks the construction site encroached his property and has a survey done that proves so. Then I guess it would all fall on how well your client likes you, and in business I would think the thoughts would be " do I take the wrap for this and pay my fines or do I let my surveyors take the wrap?". I'm thinking you still set a boundary bases on another's work and if that was legal then why couldn't we just get away with staking any other deed in a boundary survey.... why even consider intent? I think I would recommend setting maybe a offset boundary ..... 10 feet offset from said boundary for construction purposes.

Tom,

I really do not think that it's a matter of ethics or legality.
It's an issue that a client desires to know the location of a line on the ground. Who better than you to locate the particular line.

The fact that you have the CAD file has nothing to with your ultimate obligation of knowing where to mark the lines. The fact of the matter is, the client has contracted with you to mark the lines and he will rely on you to show him those lines and he will trust that you have marked the lines accurately and properly.

Your obligation is to conduct enough research, field & control surveying to mark those lines in the proper location.

BTW- It's always been my opinion that a surveyor has much more exposure and liability in construction staking than in boundary determination.
A property corner being mislocated by 3 inches is a whole lot different than a building corner being off by 3 inches.

The fact of the matter is and always will be, if you rely upon someone else's corners, you are ultimately responsible if those corners are in fact wrong or erroneous.

"Is it legal or ethical to stake this line based on that CAD file if we specifically state that we are staking the line based on that map in the contract?"

Ron is correct. You must meet the due diligence requirement to defend any sort of boundary marked on the ground. If you stake it, you assume all of the liability for that boundary line.

Ethics vs. Morals
The ethical man knows it is wrong to lie, cheat and steal. The moral man simply doesn’t lie cheat or steal. Unknown
MLB

He would get stakes ONLY... if they want pins they also get a new plat and a hefty price tag, explain the reason for the plat and the additional fee.

Thanks!  This is the direction I was leaning and after a night of thought I decided it is the direction we are going to take for this. 

Pin Cushion:
He would get stakes ONLY... if they want pins they also get a new plat and a hefty price tag, explain the reason for the plat and the additional fee.

In CA there is little distinction.  The function of identifying and marking a property line is the same either way, as is the representation.  The difference is in the materials used to do it.

The surveyor has the obligation to have performed sufficient work to verify the boundary before identifying it for someone else no matter how it gets marked.  Additionally in CA, there is the requirement to set durable monuments when marking a boundary.


Reading the OP, it sounds like a good client who simply doesn't understand the liability that he would be asking Mr. Church to take on, thinking of it as a simple task of sticking wood in the ground as if for a construction stake.  Rather than taking umbrage and assuming the client is deliberately trying to get you to stick your neck out for some paltry fee, providing a reasonable explanation as to why the request is more than it might seem may lead the client to ask for something else which does not add to Mr. Church's liability, or he may authorize a reasonable fee and allow reasonable time to verify the boundary and set the monuments.

Educate before you castigate, you may end up with a better informed client.  Do it the other way around and you may end up with an ex-client who is no better informed than he was before the request in addition to being confused and angry about his ex-surveyor's unexplained hostile response to his last staking request.

I would want to conduct a boundary survey of the property because you are staking a boundary line.

Who says a boundary survey is NOT a one line SURVEY???... and since we can just pull out state rules as we see fit. The Florida rule is if you do a boundary survey (even mark one line) you MUST provide a survey plat, map, or report. Every state has there on take on what is surveying and what is not... they are all a little different.

Is it ethical to use another Surveyors drawing to mark and/or establish the boundary line???  Is it not essential that you use someone's older survey, and if that survey is original and you have recovered the original called for monuments; then is it not fundamental land surveying to mark this line as the boundary?... it is, and you can say I told you so. ;)

I guess the best advice I CA give you Tomchurch is just do what you feel comfortable to go to court with. No matter what any of us tell you, your the one that could possibly go before a judge and prove your survey. A bunch if he said she said isn't gonna cut it. I've always said do it like you have to go to court and defend it because you never know.

As a licensed land surveyor New Jersey my primary business is construction layout of mall sites and industrial parks. it is very common for the client to provide me with CADi files for the purpose of establishing construction layout. I will tie into the boundary as provided to me by a signed  and sealed survey. I have never nor will I stake a property line of a boundary I have not surveyed.
If your client requests this from you is your obligation to inform him to contact the surveyor of record of that property to stake it out. If you choose to stake it then you take on the liability and responsibility of that boundary.
With regard to it being legal if you are licensed land surveyor you have every legal right to stake a boundary line.
With regard to being ethical as previously stated you are going to assume liability and that is a decision you must make.

Well said landsurveyor411, I totally agree.

landsurveyor411:
As a licensed land surveyor New Jersey my primary business is construction layout of mall sites and industrial parks. it is very common for the client to provide me with CADi files for the purpose of establishing construction layout. I will tie into the boundary as provided to me by a signed  and sealed survey. I have never nor will I stake a property line of a boundary I have not surveyed.
If your client requests this from you is your obligation to inform him to contact the surveyor of record of that property to stake it out. If you choose to stake it then you take on the liability and responsibility of that boundary.
With regard to it being legal if you are licensed land surveyor you have every legal right to stake a boundary line.
With regard to being ethical as previously stated you are going to assume liability and that is a decision you must make.ls

LS411
I'm wondering

Say you have a design that places the edge of the building 0.0' to a setback line and you tie into the previous surveyors' monuments for control and then you stake the corners for construction. Then later (post construction) it is found that the other surveyor's pins are erroneous and are out of correct placement by 2ft. Who's responsible?

So here's what ended up happening.  We spoke to our client and exlained the situation and they were understanding.  During that conversation we discussed exactly what they need a bit more.  The property was along an abandoned rail line and they only needed that line marked only for planning purposes (how far into a hill they might be able to cut).  Both the subject deed and railroad maps called for a distance off the tracks.  Quick field trip and comp and we had the line pretty well tied in.  We ended up only hanging ribbon and put a couple of paint dots on the ground for them. 

Thanks!
Tom

I have been following this thread with interest & in the end it appears as though most on here agree that you must do your own survey and analysis to stake a line.  Will; after all your research,and field work and calcs you set pins in the same place as the prior Surveyor?  Hopefully within reason, but how often have you disagreed?  Bottom line is we stake it, we own it.  If the other guy made a mistake, or was  just a lousy Surveyor you're the one on the hook.

I don't understand Pin Cushions approach about just setting stakes.  Is the owner going to rely upon them less because they are not granite bounds? And if something goes awry are we less liable because they are stakes?  We all know, or should know that a plan of record does not convey title, only a deed can; so without doing deed research and Survey to the "accepted" level of care for your area & or project you cannot be certain as to weather the plan, no matter how good it looks really reflects the intended title to be transferred.

Just food for thought.

Tom,

Check your State Law, but I suspect that you have an obligation to do a boundary survey in this situation whether your client is willing to pay for it or not.  Do what's right or pass on the work unless you are willing to do what's right for the compensation that is offered.  I'm surprised that you need to ask the survey community to comment.

Steve Kersey, PLS

I don't understand Pin Cushions approach about just setting stakes.

If Pin Cushion set "pins / irons" then they will be tagged, their locations recorded by way of map, plat, or report. I don't want to put random irons in the ground for people to scratch their heads over 50 years from now... after I die and the office burns down.

Steve Kersey:
Tom,

Check your State Law, but I suspect that you have an obligation to do a boundary survey in this situation whether your client is willing to pay for it or not.  Do what's right or pass on the work unless you are willing to do what's right for the compensation that is offered.  I'm surprised that you need to ask the survey community to comment.

Steve Kersey, PLS

I worked as a NYC DEP surveyor for a bunch of years and this is all we did.  Contract surveyors would survey the watershed properties but we were responsible for going out and staking the lines that were missed (or additional points wanted) and then flagging/re-stake them every few years.  We never did a proper boundary survey ourselves, that was all done by the contractor.  We would just pull everything from their maps.  

When we had to stake the old lines we would pull out the 150 year old archive maps and get what we could.  Usually we'd hold the ends of city walls (hold more weight than a normal stone wall in the watershed) and stake between them.  The properties were many thousands of acres and we did not have the time or budget to do full surveys.  We actually did a survey on about 3/4 of one of them...took almost 2 years to do.  I know you are supposed to survey the entire property and not just one line but that was just not an option when working for them.  If your're surveing along the railroad you don't survey the enire line...

I guess I would be very clear about which plan(s) I based even a couple of paint marks on.  Even if they're just going to use them to do some earth work, you never know how that might propagate, even in your own mind.  So if you are typically producing plans for them, depicting the stakeouts you do, maybe you want to produce a plan showing the paint marks set, and then a big 'ol note on the plan saying these paint marks were set holding such-and-such a record survey.  If you don't produce stakeout plans like that, I'd compose a letter with essentially the same note, and send it to the client,  or something like that.

There are times when I might set building corners from another surveyor's plan or even design plan if the building was a substantial distance from the property line, no offsets shown to it, and some clear control shown for the building.  For example, if offsets are shown to an existing building, and you can calculate locations from that for the new construction.

Any case where offsets are shown or to a property line, or even if the property line is within fifty feet or so of the proposed construction, I think you'd want to do your own boundary work.

Just my two bits.

I see a way around having to perform a boundary survey (if you want to, I'd much prefer performing a dependent re-survey, myself). If you state clearly in your contract (you will have a contract?) that you will locate the line as depicted on said drawing xxx-xx as prepared by Mr. Smith, PLS # xxxx, dated xx/xx/20xx,  I think you would not be assuming liability for actually staking the boundary line. Then you are only responsible for correctly marking the line he determined in that drawing. Just my $0.02 worth....

Jack:

I would tend to disagree with you about not being liable for staking "some one else's" line.  We have a trust to uphold with the public that they rely upon our professional expertise.  You might try explaining away your liability (even in writing) but I doubt that a judge would agree with your approach should something go wrong.

We are all liable to apply the standard of care and practice that is utilized in our area.  Anyone can calculate coordinates and state a point; no need to be licensed to do that; it's simple cogo.

I say you price the job to do it the right way; or recommend to the client that they use the previous Surveyor.  Tough times and lack of work are no excuse for taking short cuts; no matter how much it hurts.

Jack

you are absolutely right in that you would not "assume" liability.

Generally, NOBODY "assumes" liability and I would think that any attorney would tell his client NOT to "assume" liability.

If you want to assume liability, that's a personal choice.

Now whether or not you will be liable . . . in the case of where you will not "assume" liability, then someone will have to determine if you are, in fact liable.

I might add, that you probably have an obligation to mark a line correctly, or indicate if the line(you marked), is in disagreement with records or a previous survey.  In which case, on your certified map you could indicate the location of the line as staked(per the previous surveyor's data).

I seriously doubt you'd get away with simply staking the line and not surveying(to whatever needed care), or actually verifying the line to see if it is correct.

If the first surveyor made an error, you'd probably only succeeded(by not verifying), in adding your name to the likely lawsuit involving the first surveyor.

It's not a good, responsible tradeoff.

John Francis