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Well, maybe you should spend 4 years in college to get a degree in surveying, spend 4-6 years working under a licensed surveyor to get enough experience to qualify to take the licensing exam, pay $10-15k/year in errors-and-omissions insurance to avoid a lawsuit due to an employee's error, and buy $20k worth of digital surveying equipment and $5k worth of software to save yourself that "ripoff".
In order to do your survey, they need to spend time finding the local points of reference to establish your property boundaries from- both via public records and then in the field. A two-man crew is then going to spend several hours at your property to survey it (or one guy with a $40-50k data-collecting GPS system), and then someone has to draft up the actual survey, prepare a written meets-and-bond description, and deliver it all to you. $650 sounds like a good deal to me for almost an acre of property. Getting a legitimate company to do virtually anything for less than $500-600 is becoming more difficult every day when you factor in the true costs of operating a business.
Bob
Bob
Bob,
LOOK, Until you have relied on a surveyor and built a structure worth 250,000.00 dollars or more, and find you have built it in the wrong location, you have not lived.
That is the whole game, that survey must be accurate because it effects peoples lives for years to come. So many people are effected by the location of a building. So, I frankly do not care how much training has to be completed and it is such a simple operation that I do not see the justification of 500.00 dollars without any stakes...that is the truth of it.
The value is in locating the boundaries, which takes very little effort, the down side is the liability if the surveyor is wrong. so in your logic a surveyor does not want to pay for a potential mistake and their track record to date. That being said with GPS now their should not be very many mistakes and accordingly surveyor services should also go down, but you and I know that it does not work that way. People find reasons to charge more irreguardless of the actual value of their services.
The origional purpose for surveying land was in fact to prevent other parties from entering the property as it was marked as privatly owned. So the service is of a purely legal activity.
I just had a land survey done (no markers placed) in Montvale, NJ on a property of about 13,000 sq. ft., with a fence, deck, and shed in addition to the house. Cost was $500 and it was a thorough survey.
Dear JoJoLopes,
Did you sign a waiver according to NJ.A.C. 13:40-5.2? Was it witnessed? P.T. Barnum is smiling. New Jersey recognizes the importance of monumentation to the stability of property and keeping the peace. The surveyor is liable to fine of $2,500 for each violation. If you property has only 4 corners then the fine is 20 times higher than what you claimed to have paid.
Even if you signed a waiver, it did nothing for you and only served to protect the surveyor for selling sub-standard work. You should ask for your money back. You got ripped off. Thorough it was not.
A boundary survey with no markers is not a survey. The legal purpose of the survey is to leave easily followed evidence of the boundary location. In fact in almost every state the surveyor (he was a surveyor wasn't he?) would be in jeopardy of losing his license to practice!
Your signing such a waiver in order to get "cheap" survey guaranteed that is what you received; not unlike doing business with an ambulance chasing ("won't cost you anything unless we collect") lawyer or the El-Cheapo Weight-Loss pill purveyor.
$500 for a Survey is TOO MUCH
Average 1 hour County research, 4-10 field hours and 2 - 10 office hours drafting
A survey takes a Licensed Professional (10 years in CO to qualify)
A surveyor is liable for accuracy up to 10 years.
a home inspection takes a Tech not a professional.
YOU CAN QUIT YOUR JOB AND INSPECT HOMES NEXT YEAR.
You can quit your job and be a licensed surveyor in 2021. (unless you get layed off or tick off an old boss)
Statute Survey requirements are the reason for high cost and hard to explain to clients.
This is the difference between Profession and Trade.
P.S. I know 0 rich surveyors
Last edited by cecsurveyor; 09-23-2010 at 07:27 AM..
Reason: text issue
a home inspection takes a Tech not a professional.
YOU CAN QUIT YOUR JOB AND INSPECT HOMES NEXT YEAR.
Even though NJ has statutes outlining the qualifications, way too many Home Inspectors aren't capable of working at the localing dock at Lowes. I've seen them miss such obvious faults that they must be idiots. You get what you pay for in this life.
Quote:
I'm grateful to make $15,000 a year.
Then maybe some education and a useful trade is in order.
Surveying has become one of those professions where the powers that be have designed a system to keep other people out. The education requirements, internship, and insurance fees and other costs assure the profession that new people will look twice before entering the field.
Its become all too commonplace and as a result, every service one requires now needs a bank loan.
Surveying has become one of those professions where the powers that be have designed a system to keep other people out.
The problem is, your reference is toward the small residential lot that is the typical 50 x 100. What happens when you have a 200 million dollar highway project? Think maybe being ten of fifteen feet off isn't a problem when you are dealing with 20, 30, 50 property owners who could be affected. Even when dealing with small residential lots, a foot or so can matter.
Once again an effort is made to dumb down a profession. No wonder some trades can't get a line straight.
If you work daily, you make about $150,000 a year. I'm grateful to make $15,000 a year. So stop whining.
If he works daily his company makes $150,000 a year, big difference.
By the way I just found a mechanic to rebuild my transmission for $75. Everyone else wanted way more than that but I figured quality wasn't important. Why go to a mechanic with tools and experience?!
I think the real problem is that the average Joe has very little understanding of the way property is subdivided and the work goes in to 'proving' a boundary line. Most people think that a 2200 square foot home in a brand new subdivision sitting on a [80' x125'] lot requires the same amount of work to survey as a fractional piece of land [North 1/2 of the SW 1/4 of the SW 1/4 of the SW 1/4 of the SW 1/4 of Section 6] or a 60 year old metes and bounds description of a similar piece. Too often the damage caused is noticed years or decades later when a homeonwer has to move a 300' long stone wall and they find out that their surveyor is out of business or didn't carry liability insurance.
When a surveyor is hired for a title transaction, you are actually hiring him/her to find something that would make you not want to buy the home or property (encroachments, encumberances, overlapping deeds, etc.). Price should come in to play though, more money doesn't mean a better survey. If I were looking for a surveyor (assuming I wasn't one) I would get multiple (4-5) prices, ask them for: a sample of what a similar survey would look like (trust me any good surveyor takes pride in their surveys and will gladly show you a similar property), their limits of liability and types (E/O, General, Workers Comp.), and find out how long they've been in business. Compare Apples to Apples and get the best value for your money not the CHEAPEST product.
Our firm reviews and resurveys properties that are involved in litigation as expert witnesses so I've seen my fair share of bogus surveys passed off to unsuspecting customers. Our firm actually gets paid to do the job correctly because it is known that the survey is going to court and the attornies want the BEST survey they can buy not the cheapest.
If you think that surveying is a profession where people get rich you are sadly mistaken. Well..... unless they are conducting a survey to fix what the last guy messed up.
Indeed, a degree is now required. Bob's initial assertion was correct: nowadays, surveying has progressed beyond the 'old days' because instead of using tripods and theodolites, you are now being asked to master GPS equipment
Did you get your Ph.D. in order to "master" your car's GPS?
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