Can unlicensed gas company employees prepare easement descriptions?

[Lee Hixson]

I've run across a really bad legal description for an unrecorded gas pipeline easement that was executed last month. It is an affront to those who know better, and/or are licensed. Are gas companies exempted from the LS Act?

Here's the description:

"All that portion of APN _____ in Sutter County, California and more particularly described as a strip of land twenty feet in width as depicted on the plat attached hereto as Exhibit "A" (the "Easement Property").

The "Exhibit Drawing," if you can call it that, is attached. No dimensions, no widths, no bearings, no nothing. Just a terribly vague drawing whipped out by someone with a cheap CAD program.

Comments:

--the pipeline is in place
--the gas company did not do any field surveying
--no one knows where the north P/L is (well I do, as I recently completed my survey, but this is in a region of the county that has almost no modern surveys, and very little land net monuments)
--the presumption is that the 20' strip runs along the north P/L; would that they included specific language to that effect (a surveyor would have)
--or, they could have specified that the 20' strip was to be centered on the pipeline, as installed, but no, once again the writer is ignorant of such a possibility
--the "plat" could be interpreted either way: 1) as being a strip close to the north P/L, centered on the as-built pipeline; or 2) the fat line labeled "easement" could be the south boundary of the 20' strip
--ambiguous, vague, indefinite, possibly completely defective?

Your thoughts?

[Ric7308]

Lee, this may be the section you are referring to and it does involve conditions for this exemption to be considered valid:

8730. Exemption to licensure
The following persons are not required to be licensed under this chapter:
(a) Officers and employees of the United States of America, practicing solely as those officers or employees, except when surveying the exterior boundaries of federal lands in this state.
(b) Insofar as he or she acts in the following capacity:
2010 Professional 8 Land Surveyors’ Act
(1) Any state, county, city, city and county, or district employee directly responsible to a licensed land surveyor or registered civil engineer.
(2) Any subordinate to a land surveyor or civil engineer licensed or registered as required by the laws of this state insofar as he or she acts as a subordinate.
(c) Any officer or employee of an electric, gas, or telephone corporation, as defined in Sections 218, 222, and 234, respectively, of the Public Utilities Code, with annual revenues of twenty-five million dollars ($25,000,000) or more, whenever he or she prepares a legal description of an easement for utility distribution lines and service facilities, provided the following conditions are met:
(1) Each description identifies the corporation that prepared the description and states that it was prepared pursuant to this exemption.
(2) Each corporation has in its employ, or on contract, an individual authorized to practice land surveying who shall be responsible for establishing criteria for determining the qualifications of technical specialists preparing those legal descriptions, specifying the format and information to be shown on maps or documents containing those descriptions, and capable of answering questions regarding the preparation of those descriptions.
(d) Any state, county, city, or city and county public safety employee investigating any crime or infraction for the purpose of determining or prosecuting a crime or infraction. This exemption shall not permit a public safety employee to offer or perform land surveying as defined in Section 8726 for any purpose other than determining or prosecuting a crime or infraction.

[E_Page]

Looks like that person described in §8730(c)(2) needs to tune up the criteria used in preparing those descriptions and/or review the qualifications of the preparer.

Try to find that person and put him or her in the hot seat of having to answer some questions about this description.

Lacking any other info, the presumption would be 20' wide centered over the actual pipeline. Unless they also have a similar easement with the adjoiner to the North, the easement would be less than 20' in width where the pipeline is closer than 10' to the PL. Otherwise, it has no relationship to the North line of the property.

[Lee Hixson]

Well, based on section (c) (2), it would appear that either they do not have a licensed person on staff; they do, but they are incompetent; or they do, but they are not properly supervising those working under them.

I will attempt to make contact and ask for clarification.

[Gromatici]

SCE has some real good ones out there too. I've never been a fan of this exception, but when you have lobbying power, you get your way. I'm not sure just how much money they are saving by having this exception in the LS Act anyway.

The problem I have with many of these utility company easements is they put the burden of proof of the location on the land owner. If the land owner is a developer, with deep pockets, then they can move the easement, and pay the surveyor to do it right. But if they are someone just trying to build an addition, or subdivide to give to their kids, it can become an unexpected expense.

I would be nice if we had someone held responsible for these poor descriptions. I can't tell where it goes, except by using a scale (and that's only going to be so good).