Disclosure of Land Survey Records

[Bretyuin]

Recently I've been told by several land surveyors that if a client wants to have a survey of a property in Calif. performed by a licensed surveyor that the survey must be filed with the County Recorder and that survey then becomes public record. If that is correct, what happens under the following scenario:

Property Owner A puts a large piece of land on the market for sale; the land has never been surveyed. Company XYZ is interested in buying this land & in the course of their due diligence they get permission from Property Owner A to get the land surveyed. XYZ hires a land surveyor but wants keeps their business plans private and doesn't want to disclose their intentions to the marketplace (ie; XYZ doesn't want other market participants to know about their interest in this land so that the price of this land, or adjoining parcels for sale, get bid up). I realize if a land survey was filed with the County it wouldn't have the name of the client on the survey but given that a certain unique piece of land was being surveyed it could indicate interest by specific buyers.

Can a client hire a land surveyor in California and include a clause in the contract that the land survey can't be disclosed/filed with the County (or not disclosed for a certain period of time) for reasons described above? Are there California Business Codes and/or Land Surveyor Ethics Codes that deal with this specific situation?

[Jim Frame]

Can a client hire a land surveyor in California and include a clause in the contract that the land survey can't be disclosed/filed with the County (or not disclosed for a certain period of time) for reasons described above?

A licensed land surveyor in California can't contract away his legal responsibilities. But as has been noted on the parallel thread at RPLS Today, this is pretty much a non-problem.

[bruce hall]

that looks like trouble to me. secrets, secrets.

[T. S. Higgins]

One thing that could be included is a stipulation that the Surveyor not file with the County Surveyor until a later time (bearing in mind the 90 day limit), and there's the further possibility of issuing a letter to the County Surveyor for a time extension if reasonable. In most cases, the initial 90 days should provide plenty of time for things to be well underway after the completion of the field survey.

[subman]

If the survey was done for the purpose of "subdividing" the land, a ROS is not required to be filed by 90 days. So, pull a parcel map number for the land and take your time preparing a tentative parcel map. Just make sure you include contract language pertaining to the tentative map. Most areas still use a paper tracking system so the public will likely never be the wiser.

[E_Page]

For the reasons stated here and on the RPLSToday forum, I think this is a worry over an extremely remote risk. However, even if the buyer is footing the bill, he can work through a 3rd party agent, or better yet, the seller as the party requesting the survey.

If I were the surveyor in this position, I would feel more comfortable having my contract designate the seller or agent to the buyer as the requesting party than I would including some provision to play with the statutory submittal timeframes.