California Surveyors Forums

If I choose not to show ALL MONUMENTS FOUND on a record of survey or corner record, am I in violation of the law?

I've received a similar comment from two different county surveyors in the last two days pertaining to showing all found monuments.

These comments are in response to me choosing not to show certain monuments which I don't find directly relevant to my survey establishment.

Both comments were in regard to corner record review.

These are not PLSS surveys (Section 8773.1) BTW, both are 8765(d) corner records...

One surveyor quoted BPC 8764 (a) (1):

(a) The record of survey shall show the applicable provisions of the following consistent with the purpose of the survey:
(1) All monuments found, set, reset, replaced, or removed, describing their kind, size, and location, and giving other data relating thereto.

One surveyor quoted Board Rule 464:

464. Corner Record.
(a) The corner record provided for in Section 8773.1 of the Code shall contain the
following information consistent with each corner identified therein:
(1) The county and, if applicable, the city in which the corner is located.
(2) A brief legal description of the section, township, range, base, and meridian or
the Rancho in which the corner is located, if applicable.
(3) Identification of the corner type (e.g., government corner, control corner,
property corner, etc.).
(4) Identification of the reference of the related statute (i.e., Section 8765(d), Section
8771, Section 8773, or other relevant sections of the Code).
(5) Description of the physical condition of any monument(s) found, set, reset,
replaced, or removed.
(6) The date of the visit to the monument when the information for the corner record
was obtained.
(7) For corners for which the corner record is filed in accordance with Section
8765(d) of the Code, the corner record shall show the applicable provisions of the
following, consistent with the purpose of the survey:
(A) All monuments found, set, reset, replaced, or removed, describing their kind,
size, and location, and giving other data relating thereto.
(B) Bearing or witness monuments, basis of bearings, bearing and length of
lines, scale of map, and north arrow.
(C) The relationship to those portions of adjacent tracts, streets, or senior
conveyances which have common lines with the survey.
(D) Any other data necessary for the intelligent interpretation of the various
items and locations of the points, lines, and areas shown, or convenient for the
identification of the survey or the surveyor, as may be determined by the licensee
preparing the corner record.
(8) For corners for which the corner record is filed in accordance with any
subdivision of Section 8771 of the Code, the information shown on the corner record
shall also show the applicable provisions of Section 8771 of the Code......

BR 464(a)(7) is the pertinent section related to what you said and needs to be read together with 8765(d) since that is the reason for the filing.

You need to be able to satisfy "...consistent with the purpose of the survey" from 462(a)(7) and "...sufficient monumentation is found to establish the precise location..." from 8765(d)

Hope this helps
Ric

I see it as a violation. "All" has only one meaning to me. If the Legislature had intended it to be "all the monuments the surveyor chooses to show" it would have been easy enough to write as such. Why wouldn't you show all found monuments?

Although not in line with my plain language reading, I recall BPELSG offering a contrary opinion to my stated position. I wouldn't take my word for it though, better check for yourself.

Does "all" mean something different to you?

DWoolley

Q: Can you show them graphically without ties (assuming they are not needed)?

Well, when I go out in the field, or send my crew out, I have 1st, 2nd and sometimes 3rd priority search monuments. When you are planing how to survey a boundary, especially if it is somewhat complex, you plan for contingencies, and if there is sufficient time in the field, you locate some of the contingent monuments.
It is not until after you get your data back in the office and start digging deep into boundary analysis that you decide which monuments are relevant to your boundary, and which ones may be backup, or excess for contingencies which were not needed. let us operate under the assumption that such monuments were found in good shape and expected positions. At some point, surveyor needs to be allowed to intelligently decide what is needed for his survey, and have some latitude to control scope creep.


Most of us don't have the benefit of owning our own companies and having a latitude to spend extra $8000 to $10000 of work on every $40,000 project. People often get fired over losses of that magnitude.

Showing all monuments to me means, don't skip relevant monuments, and don't claim SFN on a monument which may skew the boundary away from how you want it to sit. Or, one of the 'bosses' recently asked a question "which solution will benefit our client more" (so I had to nicely tell him what laws governing our profession say about that).

What if I am doing a survey on a phased boundary where phases are independent of one another? Do I need to show all the phases on each map, just because they contain the monumentation I surveyed that week? Some companies have projects and client relationships that last a decade or two at the time, and cover few thousand acres. Let's say I had to do a lot line adjustment followed by an RS to show it monumented in a recently recorded tract and went out to monument it. What constitutes all monuments found in this case? I have records of over 1500 to 2000 monuments in the vicinity of this 900 lot subdivision (if you count cl ties too), all part of the same project. Only about 6 or 8 of those are relevant to the LLA.

Nefarious and profession damaging reasons are not the only times when one would choose to not show 'all the monumentation' found.

DWoolley wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 1:25 pm Why wouldn't you show all found monuments?

Fair question.

Corner records are supposed to be simple. I tend to tie out everything I see and boil it down later to a concise sketch which fits my methodology and reasoning.

I've actually been requested by a (different than the OP) county surveyor to remove monuments from my corner record which he did not find meaningful. This becomes very confusing, especially working in different counties with different reviewing personalities.

I was also unaware of these rules prior to this.

I like the caveat of "consistent with the purpose of the survey". If it complicates matters then why show it? I like to show very old monuments for preservation purposes but if it is maybe not actually a survey monument or causes confusion to the record then I might leave it off.

If the measurement doesn't fit my nice, neat concise survey sketch or support my boundary resolution then I might leave it off as well in order to avoid a costly conflict with the reviewer. This is not my common practice but it could happen

The one yesterday I had actually shown it and the County Surveyor assistant called me with the claim that the closure error greater than 1:5000 constitutes a material discrepancy and this corner record should be a record of survey instead. My response was that I will remove the offending monument from the record but I was not happy about it. This was a 100 foot line that I measured 99.86. The resultant doscrepancy (accounting for the direction) was 0.25 feet. 3 inches may be material in some circumstances but not many. I strongly disagree that a mathematical closure is a valid determination of any material discrepancy in the position of points or lines shown on a map. Maybe an indicator but not a rule. I believe we worked this one out where the monument will be shown but the CS will place a comment on the corner record to document his dissenting opinion.

"All monuments" to me means all monuments that are germane to the survey at hand.

Yesterday I went out to look for monuments. To start my search, I used two easily accessible monuments that were far from my property, but were used so that I could then stake out all of the monuments I was actually looking for. I then proceeded to find all of the other monuments I searched for that will be used for the boundary determination. The original two monuments I started with will NOT be shown on my ROS. They have nothing to do with the boundary survey I have completed. But I did find them.

Now if people are eliminating found monuments for nefarious reasons, that is just wrong. But at some point, reason has to prevail.

If you stick with the plain language of what is written, then you could be on the hook to show monuments that you just happened to see while driving to the survey. Because you saw them, so now they're FOUND.

I'm with the "all relevant monuments" opinion.

I have a CR in for checking right now for which my job was to reset a nail & tag in a short cul-de-sac that was taken out by sidewalk construction (and not tied out prior to demo). I set up on the radius point in the street (a well monument) and located 3 original nails & tags, two on one side of my site and one on the other side of it. I also tied the PI monument at the intersection of the cul-de-sac and the street it feeds into. The nails & tags all fit together within a couple of hundredths, the PI monument not so much. I set a new monument based on the found nails & tags, and didn't show the PI monument on the CR.

The discrepancy at the PI monument isn't material in my opinion, but I didn't want to get into that discussion with the County Surveyor. In my opinion, the PI monument isn't relevant to the survey, and needn't be shown.

If someone wants to pay me to resurvey the whole subdivision I'll be happy to tie all the monuments in the place and file a Record of Survey. But I'm not filing a ROS because a monument not germane to my survey and not shown on my CR doesn't fit the record.

P.S. Yolo County just upped the ROS checking fee to $1070 for the first sheet and $783 for each additional sheet, plus a 6% "technology fee." You get 2 checks for that, additional checks are extra at the discretion of Public Works staff.

I love you dearly, Jim . . .

But . . .

Let's say . . . no, let's ASSUME - an "engineer-type/slap the math on the ground" see's the PI monument and off he/she goes . . . willy-nilly screwing up another neighborhood! Remember these people are about bottom line - not doing the proper vetting like you did. Get in. Get out. Fuggettaboudit.

We all know some do not take the great care you did. Shouldn't the survey community be put on notice of your exemplary findings? "HEY! THIS PI MON IS SUSPECT!"

See . . . if Surveyor to Recorder was common - you'd take it to the recorder. In this case, not much more effort than a Corner Record.

Crazy Phil again . . . Surveyor to Recorder

Jim Frame wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 8:28 pm Yolo County just upped the ROS checking fee to $1070 for the first sheet and $783 for each additional sheet, plus a 6% "technology fee." You get 2 checks for that, additional checks are extra at the discretion of Public Works staff.

hellsangle wrote: Thu Jan 27, 2022 11:17 am if Surveyor to Recorder was common - you'd take it to the recorder. In this case, not much more effort than a Corner Record.

Phil, it sounds as if you are saying that onerous review and filing costs have potential to harm the public due to the incidental costs limiting survey information that could easily be made readily available.

On the other hand, a few people have expressed that they don't want to see a bunch of useless information cluttering up the public record.

I suppose this is a topic for a different thread....

That horse has been beaten to death already, Dave . . .

All monuments found? How hard did one look? What was the intent of the mapping development? Sufficient monumentation . . . is defined . . . where? What was the contract scope of work? These all play a part in surveying, and they leave a lot of open ended interpretation, because surveying is not always black and white as some think it is.

DWoolley wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 1:25 pm
Although not in line with my plain language reading, I recall BPELSG offering a contrary opinion to my stated position. I wouldn't take my word for it though, better check for yourself.

Does anyone have a copy of this board opinion they can post ? I don't see a repository of board opinions anywhere on the CLSA site. It would be great to have them compiled somewhere.

balfourvanvleck wrote: Wed Feb 02, 2022 4:05 pm

DWoolley wrote: Wed Jan 26, 2022 1:25 pm Although not in line with my plain language reading, I recall BPELSG offering a contrary opinion to my stated position. I wouldn't take my word for it though, better check for yourself.

Does anyone have a copy of this board opinion they can post ? I don't see a repository of board opinions anywhere on the CLSA site. It would be great to have them compiled somewhere.

I might have upwards of 30 to 40 letters/opinions dating back to 1969-70 - it might be a good idea to publish them somewhere. The Board issued policy resolutions in '95-'98 that were rescinded. The resolutions provide insight into how the enforcement unit is likely to look at a given fact set. One good source of information is the old CalSurveyor newsletters and magazines (available on this website). On point, I do not think the board issued a formal letter on their definition of "all", but their position was the same as stated by Ric7308 above.

Another source of information is to read complaints filed against licensees. The complaints best detail the board staff's disposition on various fact sets. If you want to see more complaints, file more complaints. Fair warning, the board staff will wash approximately 65% of the complaints received, leaving 35% to result in some, usually benign, course of action i.e. compliance achieved letter or similar. I estimate less than 10% end up at the AG's office - where the complaint will languish for next 3-8 years, mileage may vary. I will attach a gold nugget of a complaint in which the surveyor didn't bother finding monuments. I have seen surveyors lose their license for fighting such allegations i.e. arguing their two monuments are sufficient to establish a boundary.

It has been my experience, although we have a differing opinion as to the word "all", the board staff and assigned experts clearly recognize not looking for and locating monuments as negligence. Circa 2012-13 there was an article published in the CalSurveyor by Ric Moore and Ray Mathe explaining a two monument tango does not float. The article included other examples with diagrams.

As a map checker, we will occasionally go out and find the monuments we suspect exist - it is almost unfair, fish in a barrel. We should probably turn in more of these folks, but less than 50% rate a complaint.

DWoolley