Sumary of state-wide RS fees?

[mbstanton]

Does anyone have a spreadsheet of the various RS fees charged for each county?

County of Santa Barbara is proposing to increase the RS checking fee up to $3800 to ensure "full cost recovery". They spent an average of 20 hours per map check for records of survey. They are also proposing to charge about $800 to review a corner record (regardless of state mandate).

It would be interesting to see how these proposed fees compare to other counties in the state.

Thanks
Mike Stanton, PLS5702

[btaylor]

Insanity. And a 20 hour average to check ROS maps? So 2 maps per work week. Are they checking these in house or contracting them out?

[mpallamary]

That is ridiculous! Here in San Diego, it is not uncommon for the city to charge twice the cost to prepare a document as to check it. A survey or engineering plan that might cost $2000.00 to prepare can cost $4000.00 to check!

[Peter Ehlert]

Surveyor to Recorder
Is it time yet for some of you to revise your responses?
http://clsaforum.californiasurveyors.or ... f=6&t=7856

[Edward M Reading]

Check your email Mike.

[Elias French]

City and County of San Francisco
ROS $713, CR $25

[Warren Smith]

Tuolumne County

RS $462.25
CR $15

[Ian Wilson]

Alameda County
RS $500/sheet
CR $18

San Mateo County
RS $400/$100 per subsequent sheets $100 per review after 2nd review.
CR $10

edited to add information.

[mpallamary]

San Diego County:

Record of Survey

• $523 first sheet + $71 each additional sheet*

Corner Records

• No Charge.

REMEMBER IN ALL COUNTIES There is an additional $75.00 fee to subsidize housing.

[Ian Wilson]

Michael, that fee is charged by the Recorder. There is also a recording fee and postage if you mail hardcopy to the CS.

[mpallamary]

Yes, there are a number of add-on fees for sure!

[mbstanton]

They are checking all the maps "in-house". They have 5 employees now. They do have difficulty hiring people to check maps in that county since the cost of living is so high. They are going to hire a UCSB graduate (in hydrology) to check maps. She has no direct experience in surveying, however, the County Surveyor has assured us that "she is taking on-line classes now" and will obtain her LSIT within a year. I can't wait for those map checks to come back. They average about 4 checks for each map submitted and each submittal can take any where from 1-4 months to get back. They spend 20 hours checking a map that takes me 4 hours to draft.

[PLS7393]

San Mateo County
RS $400

$400 for the first page, and a reduced $200 for any additional pages with technical data.

In 2008 when RS maps were only $200 and the county was loosing lots of $$$. I was responsible to analyze the data and suggest RS review fees to cover the costs so the County could revise the fee schedule ordinance. $400 was the average cost to cover time to process and technically check a map, as we all know subsequent sheets shouldn't take as long to review technical data.

Note: I believe there is still a 50 pg RS never filed for the BART extension to SFO because the agreed $500 review fee ran out of money years before I was at SMC. The $500 only covered the time to check the 5/6 pages of deed references, so the map has sat for years and I bet no one there now even knows about it, lol. I attempted to get this filed to document points set, but ran into too many challenges from County Management. I could only clean up soo many items before I knew it was time to move on.

Santa Clara Co.
RS $600 (for sheets with technical data)
CR $15

Contra Costa Co.
RS $500 deposit (I've never had to pay more)
CR $14

As for Santa Barbara, this proposal could take 20 hours if the submitting surveyor doesn't submit all supporting documents, and every hand employed in the county needs to touch and pass the map to the next person, and the submitted map is missing technical data, but then the county is at fault for accepting sub-standard maps, IMO. Now who is truly protecting the public if this is the new norm? Simply crazy!!!

Furthermore there is definitely an art to map checking to be technically correct and time efficient.
I have 15 1/2 years of map checking at City of Hayward, San Mateo County, and private consultants.

[MikeT]

$3800 to check an RS map!? That's insane! Is that for a one sheeter? I think most experienced surveyors could prepare a simple one sheet RS in way less than 20 hours. If something like that gets approved, you will probably see a major increase in unrecorded surveys.

[hellsangle]

Or Mike . . .

As Peter mentioned . . . create and support legislation, (like other states), for Surveyor to Recorder. I'm sure County Surveyor's would love to get out of the business of "policing".

As Peter wrote make your common-sense-thoughts known: viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7856

Surveyor-to-Recorder- Phil Sonoma

[dedkad]

My favorite part was when he said they are going to try to get the cities to help close the gap by charging the cities for any RS's the County reviews for property located in a City. Good luck with that.

[E_Page]

Does anyone have a spreadsheet of the various RS fees charged for each county?

El Dorado: RS - $135 up to 2 sheets + $25/sheet after 2nd. CR - $15

County of Santa Barbara is proposing to increase the RS checking fee up to $3800 to ensure "full cost recovery". They spent an average of 20 hours per map check for records of survey. They are also proposing to charge about $800 to review a corner record (regardless of state mandate).

That's outrageous for a flat fee! A fee like that for an RS in many, if not most parts of the state would 1) encourage clients to look for the lowballers who have always been willing to cut corners in order to provide cut-rate services, or worse, seek out unlicensed for any services not requiring a LS stamp to get a building permit or file a subdivision; and as a result of #1, 2) encourage non-filing by otherwise conscientious surveyors of otherwise competently performed surveys or cede the boundary & topo markets to the unlicensed and other incompetents.

If fees like that begin to be the norm, the average landowner will get priced out, overall quality of the boundary infrastructure will begin to degrade significantly and surveyors, particularly smaller practices that rely heavily on boundary as a business line, will find it much more difficult if not impossible to remain in business or find a job.

It would be enough to make me change my vote on Phil's poll just before I move to a different and freer state.

I understand the need for cost recovery, but there are better ways to structure a fee schedule such as 1) a per-page fee and 2) additional fees when additional review is needed due to excessive mistakes and an excessive number of submittals required to get a map to a recordable state. At 20 hrs, Santa Barbara Co either has an extraordinarily high number of complicated, multi-sheet maps, or an extraordinarily high percentage of incompetent surveyors. Or it may be that they also need to look at their own efficiency in performing an appropriate level of review.

[Scott]

Stanislaus County:
RS - Checking: $700 for the first 4 sheets + $100/sheet over 4
Recording: $9 for first page + $3 each subsequent page + $3 Fraud fee for maps + $75 SB2 fee
= $787 to check and record a one page RS

The Clerk/Recorder wiaves all fees if RS is for a government agency.
The County Surveyor's Office does not waive fees for RS done for Cities (I know), but does waive for Caltrans (I think). Is that even right?

CR - No Checking Fee and CRs are not recorded.

That $3,800 fee could probably prompt more action on Surveyor-to-Recorder...

[David Kendall]

Sonoma County RS review $702
Humboldt County RS review $533
Marin County RS review $664

The fees are definitely becoming a hindrance to prudent and efficient filing. I'm personally aware of about 10 very nicely drafted plats of surveys which are ready to be filed but are waiting indefinitely for the review fees to become magically available. If only I had $6000 to donate....

Marin is a great case study for the long-term financial damage done by systemic discouragement of filing survey maps. Simple boundary projects there cost $25000 to complete (mostly due to research and head-scratching expense) and the county now maintains a huge public library of unfiled surveys.

If only they knew then what we know now!