Surveying Newsletters 

September 2004

ALTA Surveys  - The “Rolls-Royce”

      I used to refer to ALTA Surveys as the “Cadillac” of surveys, but with the prices of things these days, I had to revise it upwards to a Rolls!

Who came up with this stuff?

        ALTA stands for “American Land Title Association.”  The ALTA standards were developed in a concerted effort by the American Land Title Association, American Congress on Surveying and Mapping and the National Society of Professional Surveyors.  The real live people who sat on the standards committee were title experts, land surveyors and attorneys.

When is an ALTA survey required?

      There is no rule of thumb or statutory requirement.  In the past, ALTA surveys were pretty much limited to commercial projects where lenders had big bucks on the line.  More recently, I’m seeing more and more of them on residential transactions, especially in the Sedona market.

What’s the difference between a standard boundary survey and an ALTA survey?

        From the perspective of boundary, absolutely nothing.  A surveyor is held to the same standards to properly locate a boundary whether it’s for a standard boundary survey or for an ALTA policy.  In the eyes of the law, a boundary is a boundary.  What the ALTA survey gets you in addition however, is the showing of all recorded easements that affect a parcel, both those that burden as well as benefit the property.

      The survey will also show all buildings, observable evidence of easements (overhead utility lines, sewer lines, etc.).  In some cases, water courses, ditches and drainage channels must be shown.  The character and nature of all walls, buildings, fences and other visible improvements with five feet of each side of the boundary lines shall be noted.  Driveways or alleys which cross the property must be shown.

      These are just some of the things that must be shown on the survey and this is also why they can get expensive.  Measuring all these features can be very time consuming.

What’s the big deal about an ALTA survey?

      From the perspective of insuring title, everything is a big deal.  If a title company is insuring title on a multi-million dollar project, they want to be absolutely sure there are no issues that could come back and haunt them later on down the road.  The same goes with a lender.  In today’s litigious society, everyone is ready to sue at the drop of a hat, and believe it or not, there are a few individuals out there who see suing a big-name company as a quick ride to easy street.  This is not to say that if an individual has been harmed, they should not seek recourse.  On the contrary, they should.  But this is why title companies and lenders are so careful and require ALTA surveys.

Who sets up the ALTA survey?

         I deal with ALTA surveys on almost a daily basis and it continually amazes me at how many people who are supposed to be knowledgeable don’t have the first clue about their responsibilities in ordering an ALTA survey.

      For example, the very first item in the standards states that, “The client shall request the survey or arrange for the survey to be requested and shall provide a written authorization to proceed with the survey from the person responsible for paying for the survey.”

      The standards further state that, “The request shall also designate which of the optional items listed in Table A are to be incorporated.”  How many people even know what Table A is?  From my dealings, not many.

Delayed closing?  Call the attorney.

      I have every respect for the legal profession.  There are three attorneys in my family and I love them to death.  I just don’t like dealing with attorneys when it comes to ALTA surveys. Why?  Because in about 99% of the ALTA surveys I’ve worked on, delays came at the eleventh hour because the batteries of attorneys for both the seller and buyer couldn’t agree to certain conditions of the survey.  Usually these conditions were things that would seem relatively minor to the normal person.

Davy Crockett said, “Make sure you’re right, then go ahead”

      I had one ALTA survey that was due to close on a commercial piece.  At the last minute, a conference call was scheduled with five different law firms that represented different interests of the buyer.  They insisted that I word my certification in such a manner that I felt was contrary to the ALTA standards.  I refused to do it and we had ourselves a very high-dollar stand-off for about fifteen minutes.  Finally, the attorneys backed down.  I knew what the ALTA standards said and the attorneys obviously didn’t.  I wasn’t about to do something that I felt could harm my client, the seller.

                                                                                 Patrick Naville, RLS

“Hey, Andy!”  “Hey, Gomer.”

“Hey, Barney!” “Hey, Gomer.”

“Hey, Aint Bee!”  “Hello, Gomah.” 

 ~ Conversation from the front porch of Andy’s house on a Sunday
afternoon after church. ~

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August 2004

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

      Look up at the faces carved on Mt. Rushmore and you’ll see three surveyors.  George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.  I guess Teddy Roosevelt found more excitement in storming up San Juan Hill in Cuba during an uprising, and quite frankly, after being in surveying for 30 years myself, I think he may have been on to something!

      But, the famous presidents whose likenesses are carved on the mountain weren’t the only ones who had their roots in surveying and then later went on to achieve fame.

  Surveyor, Lawman – Legend!

   Probably the most famous lawman of the old west was Wyatt Earp.   He tamed many a western town with his no-nonsense approach to law enforcement.  The most significant of these towns is Tombstone.  There are few people, if any, who haven’t heard of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral that happened on October 26, 1881.  But what was old Wyatt, along with his brothers and another gentleman he hung around with by the name of Doc Holliday, doing prior to the big shootout?

   Eight months before that bloody day on the streets of Tombstone, these gentlemen were doing a survey on a mining claim, The Mountain Maid, in the hills around the town.
   I’m certain it wasn’t as exciting as being the Town Marshal, but on the survey crew, Wyatt worked as a “flagman.”

Fox in charge of the henhouse?

   In order to acquire the patent to a mining claim, the claimant had to show that they had done at least five hundred dollars worth of improvements.  Since many of the claims were in extremely remote areas, how was this proven?  The Surveyor General’s office didn’t have the means or personnel to go out and check each claim, so it was decided that an affidavit could be filed, by an uninterested party, attesting to the dollar value of the improvements.

    In the case of the Earp brothers mining claim, it’s interesting to note that one of the people who signed the affidavit was “J.H. Holliday.”  This was indeed, Doc Holliday.

 As part of the sworn statement, Doc had to attest that he was, “. . . acquainted with the work done” and further, that he “. . .  had no interest in said mine.”

   It’s interesting to note that Doc was a dentist by trade, not a builder or a miner.  Yet, he apparently knew enough about the trades to recognize the value of the improvements.

 Excuse me?

   Maybe I’m being a little naïve or skeptical here, but wouldn’t that be like doing the appraisal on your own home?  On the other side of the coin, who was going to question Doc Holliday or Wyatt Earp?  The Clantons and McClaury’s tried that day in Tombstone and it got them six feet of soil in Boot Hill!

   I have copies of the original government field notes on the survey of the mining claim if any one would like to see them.  Please call me.

 A little shameless self-promotion

     My first book, “Echo Whispers” was just published, if any one is interested in reading it.  The story is set in 1928, The Roaring Twenties.  Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid have returned to the states from where they’ve been in hiding in South America for the last twenty years letting the world believe that the two American outlaws who were gunned down by Federal troops were them.

   The two old outlaws have a run-in with Al Capone’s right-hand man, Frank Nitti, who’s earned the title of “The Enforcer.”  Nitti is a viscous, cold-blooded killer who’s white-hot temper is surpassed only by that of Capone’s himself.

   Follow the trail of Butch and Sundance from the steamy jungles of South America to the final, bloody conflict on the cold, wet streets of Capone’s Chicago.

   You can get a copy of the book at any local bookstore.  If they are out, they can order it for you.  You can also order your own copy from the Barnes & Noble or Amazon websites, or directly from the publisher at www.authorhouse.com.

   I hope you enjoy it!                                                                                 

                                                                                                                                    Patrick Naville, R.L.S.

 “Always grip a man’s hand firmly when you shake it; look him square in the eyes when you talk to him, and never hesitate to slap him upside the head with your pistol if he doesn’t answer you quick enough.”

                                                    Wyatt Earp (From “Echo Whispers”)

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July 2004

Good deal – Bad deal?

 What makes a deal good or bad?  I suppose it depends on which side of the fence you’re standing on at the time, or maybe how you feel about the deal after it’s consummated.  There have been some historic killer real estate deals, and I’m sure we all wish we could have had a piece of the action, in one form or another.

 Probably the most significant real estate deal ever made, in terms of area acquired, was The Louisiana Purchase in 1803.  By a single stroke of the pen, the area of this country almost doubled.  We gained over 800,000 square miles, or 512,000,000 acres for a mere $15 million.  That equates to approximately $34 per acre.

Which side of the fence?

For us (U.S.), this was obviously a tremendous deal.  For France, probably not.  We just happened to be standing on the right side of the fence.  Maybe Thomas Jefferson had a premonition of France’s political leanings even way back then.  But, since  this is not a forum for political discussion, and given that half of my heritage is French, we won’t go there.

Big things – Small packages

 In terms of the biggest bang for the buck on a real estate deal, perhaps the largest return for the least amount of investment was when we purchased Manhattan Island in 1626 for the equivalent of $24.  Yes, that’s dollars!  Not much in terms of a real estate commission on that one, but wouldn’t you have loved to trade off an acre or so of land in exchange for the commission!

When is a corner not a corner?

 When it’s a monument!  What’s the difference?  Semantics, mainly.  The two terms are often used interchangeably, but only primarily by the survey community.  By strict interpretation, a corner is an imaginary point.  A monument is what is placed in the ground to represent the position of the corner.  Monuments can be classed as natural or artificial.  An example of a natural monument would be a river, a creek or even a tree.  Artificial monuments can be just about anything.  Typical examples are rebar, iron pipes, Brass Caps, stones, etc.

“We don’t need no stinking survey!”

 Okay, so you have a contract on a piece of property; you know (or suspect) that it’s been surveyed at some time in the past and you want to find the corner monuments.  You head out with your County GIS map and perhaps a legal description and proceed to walk the property looking for corner pins.  You find iron pipes at all the corners; they look pretty old so you feel good that you have located the boundary markers and in the process, saved your client the cost of a new survey.  You show your client what you found, he/she approves and the sale is made.

Ignorance is bliss . . . it can also cost you a lot of money!

 What you weren’t aware of when you accepted the pipes as the property corners is that, when the adjoining property was originally surveyed, a monument could not be set at one corner because a fence post occupied that position, so the surveyor set an “offset” monument one foot away.  The original owner knew about this, but has long since passed away.  The property has changed hands several times since then.  The fence and fence corner that had been there during the first survey were removed by the person who bought the property from the original owner.  So what you assumed was a property corner, and showed the buyer, was actually an offset monument lying one foot onto the neighbor’s property.

 I had the unfortunate task of pointing this out to a landowner.  He wanted to “shoot the messenger.”  He opted to go after his realtor instead.  Be aware!

On a lighter (or perhaps, morbid) note

  Not every survey job is a nightmare or troublesome.  Some are quite interesting.  A few years ago, we got a call from the Clarkdale police department.  It seems that some human remains were discovered scattered along an arroyo just outside of town.  We were hired to measure the precise locations of the bodyparts – a hand here, a foot there, in order to make a map that the detectives could use in their investigation.  The project was titled, “Bodyparts Survey.”  As it turned out, there wasn’t a chainsaw killer on the loose, but rather, it was death by natural causes.  Coyotes had carried off the bodyparts.

                                                                                                Patrick Naville, RLS

Did you know?

A cough releases an explosive charge of air that moves at speeds up to 60 mph.

A sneeze can exceed the speed of 100 mph.

The sound of a snore (up to 69 decibels) can be almost as loud as the noise of a pneumatic drill. 

“A pos“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.”

Herm Albright

 June 2004

I apologize for being a little late in getting this month’s newsletter out to you.  We’ve experienced such a tremendous increase in the volume of work that it seems there aren’t enough hours in the day to keep up with everything.  The real estate profession is responsible, for the most part, for the increased workload.  We gratefully express our appreciation.  May we all do well!  Now, on to some juicy stuff!

Same property – so why such large differences in survey prices?

Next to the question of “Why does my survey cost so much?” this is perhaps the next most frequently asked question.

 As I discussed in my first newsletter, there are many factors that drive the price of a survey.  When a call comes in for a survey estimate, I look at many things.  First, how is the legal description written?  This has a tremendous impact on the cost of a survey.  Who wrote the description can have quite an impact on the cost as well.  A well-written description with calls to monuments tells quite a different story than a “Do it yourself” description written by the property owner, an attorney or a title company.

Other factors

Have I done any work in the area?  How familiar, survey-wise, am I with the area?  What is the terrain/topography like?  Are there any old surveys in the area that I’m familiar with?  If there are, were they good surveys or poorly executed ones?  Have there been any recent surveys in the area that may be of use?  Are there known boundary conflict issues?

The cost of doing business

Overhead is an expense that we all deal with.  A surveyor who is a “One-man show,” so to speak, and operates out of his/her house will obviously have less overhead expense than a larger, multi-disciplined company.  It’s simple math.  They can charge less for their services because it doesn’t cost them as much to operate on a day-to-day basis.

Quality of the product

Look at the different types of survey drawings and you’ll see as many varieties as there are surveyors doing them.  Is the product (map) you receive a professional-looking document?  Does it contain all the information that it should?  Would it stand up in court should the survey ever be challenged?  Does it clearly show the boundary, or is it hard to read and/or decipher?  It’s true that you can’t judge a book by its cover, and the same holds true for a survey.  If a survey plat appears sloppy, how do you know that the surveyor didn’t do sloppy work in the field?  You don’t, but do you want to wait till you end up in court to find out?  You can drive a worn-out old car, or you can drive a dependable one.  They both will get you where you’re going (maybe), but do you want to risk a long-distance journey in the old one?  No one has regrets until something breaks down.

“But I don’t want a survey drawing!”

With the current Minimum Standards for Boundary Surveys that the Board of Technical Registration has adopted, virtually all surveys must be recorded.  Granted, there are a few isolated circumstances whereby, a survey plat would not be required to be recorded, but to encounter those circumstances, you would almost have to be surveying on the moon!  If you have a survey done – make sure it is recorded; you are legally entitled.

Please, a little courtesy.

Price-shopping to get the lowest price for a survey is not necessarily a bad thing.  It’s only natural to want to get the best deal.  We do it with almost everything we purchase.  Remember however, that price isn’t always what determines whether a deal was good or not.  If you buy an item at the 99-Cent store, don’t complain when it breaks soon after the purchase.  (Also, remember that low price when you end up in court for misrepresenting a boundary due to a poor survey!).

If you call for a survey quote, and already have one that’s lower than the one you receive, it’s not necessary to tell the surveyor, “The other surveyor said he will do it for half of what you just quoted.”  Be professional and thank the surveyor for his/her time.

Patrick Naville, RLS

Averages – Did you know . . .?

An average beaver can cut down two hundred trees a year.

An average pig squeals at a range from 100 to 115 decibels.

An ear of corn averages 800 kernels in 16 rows.

Average number of squirts from a cow's udder needed to yield a gallon of milk: 345.

On average women say 7,000 words per day. Men manage just over 2000.

 “I can win an argument on any topic, against any opponent. People know this,  and steer clear of me at parties. Often, as a sign of their great respect, they don't even invite me.”                                          Dave Barry

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May 2004

A Moment of Silence for the Dearly Departed

"Staking and Flagging"

I have been asked to address this topic, as there seems to be a lot of confusion over the term and what happened to it in the standard real estate contract.  (Actually, if it still shows on your contract, you are using an old form and need to update it!).

I’m not sure how this term came into vogue or who originally coined the phrase, but over the years, the implication was that a “Staking and Flagging” was something less than a survey and thus, should cost less.  And, from what I’ve been told, there were those among the surveyor’s ranks who provided this service.

 What does it mean?

As near as I can tell, a staking and flagging meant that a surveyor went on the site (usually a subdivision lot) found corner monuments, flagged them up and set wood stakes next to them without benefit of a full survey.  After all, if the monuments were in the ground, they must be at their original locations, right?  Since the people who performed these services did them quickly and without benefit of a full boundary survey, they could, and did, charge less for the service (I believe “disservice” is a more appropriate term).

 Where did it go?

Through a joint effort by the State Department of Real Estate, representatives of the State Board of Technical Registration and members of the Arizona Professional Land Surveyors (APLS), the term “staking and flagging” was eliminated from the standard real estate contract, as there is no such thing. 

You either get a survey, or you don’t.  It’s like being pregnant.  Either you are, or you aren’t.  There is no in-between.  By definition, any time a land boundary is marked or verified, technically it’s a survey and as such, comes under the rules, regulations and statutory requirements that all surveyors must abide by.  Simply finding and flagging existing corners does not qualify.

 But, I found all the corners!

Did you, or did you simply find monuments at locations that look like original corners?  When I first moved here 26 years ago, Verde Village was relatively vacant.  Queen Creek, who was the developer, was installing utilities along the rear lot lines.  All lot corners were monumented with half-inch rebar.  One day, a backhoe operator who was doing the trenching laughed as he told me, “I just beat you out of a whole bunch of surveying.”

When I questioned how, he explained, “When I’m trenching along the rear lot lines, I use the rebar to keep myself on line.  After I finish filling the trench back in, I set the rebar back where it was.”

When I asked him how he knew he set the rebar back in its original location, he smiled, tapped a finger to his head and said, “I remember!”

(Maybe this guy had a gift and would have been better off counting cards at a poker table in Vegas.) 

Remember, what you see isn’t always what you get!

— Patrick Naville, R.L.S.

Useless, but Interesting (or not) facts:

Dueling is legal in Paraguay as long as both parties are registered blood donors.

Mexico City is sinking at a rate of 6 to 8 inches a year because it's built on top of an underground reservoir. Wells are drawing out more and more water for the city's growing population of more than 15 million people.

Most landfilled trash retains its original weight, volume, and form for 40 years.

The Hollywood sign was first erected in 1923. Conceived as a real estate ad, it originally read Hollywoodland. The sign stands 50 feet tall, stretches 450 feet across, and weighs 450,000 pounds.

A typical lightning bolt is two to four inches wide and two miles long.
(The Verde Valley Fair must sit in the middle of Hurricane Alley.)

A wind with a speed of 74 miles or more is designated a hurricane.

Any month that starts on a Sunday will have a Friday the 13th in it.

If the sun stopped shining suddenly, it would take eight minutes for people on earth to be aware of the fact.

More than 99.9% of all the animal species that have ever lived on earth were extinct before the coming of man.

Nearly 50% of all bank robberies take place on Friday.

When the National Highway Commission was trying to come up for a name for the famous Route 66, many options were considered - The Inter-Continent Roadway; Highway 1 and various other names.  They finally settled on “Route 66” because it rhymed with the line, “Get your kicks . . .”

 “I was so naive as a kid I used to sneak behind the barn and do nothing.”

Johnny Carson
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April 2004

Why Does My Survey Cost So Much?

This seems to be the question we hear more often than not.

What happens between the time you call for a survey and the day you go out in the field to see stakes and flags on the property?  It probably doesn’t seem like much.  You call for a survey one day, then a week or so later you get the call that it’s done.  In most cases, even before you hire the surveyor, the work has begun. 

The Clock is Ticking...

The first thing a surveyor generally does after getting a call for a survey or an estimate, is to research the records to see; 1) How is the legal description written?  2) How are the adjoining property owner’s descriptions written?  Do common lines match up, i.e., are the bearings and distances the same?  Do they all start from the same common point? (Section or Quarter Section Corner)  3) Are there any previous surveys on the property or on adjoining properties?  4) Does the legal description “close?”  (I’ll address closure in another newsletter).

Digging Deeper

Depending on what the surveyor finds, the research portion can be a simple task or can turn into a nightmare.  In Yavapai County, thanks to their GIS Website, a great deal of research can now be done in-house over the internet.  If discrepancies are found between adjoining legal descriptions, the surveyor may have to pay a visit to the Recorder’s Office in Prescott to dig into older records.  In the event that a property line abuts National Forest or State Trust Lands, the surveyor may have to conduct research in the State or Federal Offices in Phoenix.  All of this happens before the surveyor even walks out on the site to be surveyed.

Armed with the research materials and calculations, the survey crew heads out in the field.  They are initially searching for any and all control monuments they can locate which will assist in the survey.  Control monuments can be anything from a Bureau of Land Management (BLM) “Brass Cap” a mile or more away from the site, to a pipe or rebar at an apparent property corner on the site itself.

What’s That ‘Thingy’ You Look Through?

Once the control monuments are found, the survey is commenced.  This is where the field crew measures the precise locations of all found monuments.  In a best-case scenario, everything found checks with the recorded legal description; stakes and flags are set at the property corners and the fieldwork is completed.  More often than not, this is not the case.  Once everything is measured, the field data must be studied and analyzed in the office; computations are made to determine the correctness of the data and locations of property corners that may have to be set.  After the office computations have been made, the survey crew heads back out in the field to set the property corners.

What can compound things in the field?  Perhaps there are existing improvements along an apparent property line – fences, masonry walls, etc., but when the measurements are made the improvements don’t line up.  So now there’s the problem of title lines not matching the lines of occupation.  A surveyor does not have the legal authority to determine where the legal location of a property line is; they can only render an opinion.  Often, in disputed cases, this opinion is given a great weight of authority and may prevail, but not always.

What Does It Say?

What else can drive the costs of a survey up?  The language in a legal description can create a tremendous amount of fieldwork for what sometimes seems like a small parcel.  As an example, suppose your legal description says,  “A 1.25 acre parcel being the S½ SW¼ NE¼ SE¼ SW¼ of Section 20.”

In an ideal world, the dimensions of this parcel are 165’ x 330’.  From the surveyor’s perspective, it is a fractional piece of the entire section.  To properly survey this parcel, a surveyor may have to measure out the boundary of the entire section, a one-mile square, in order to properly determine where the fractional lines are located.

Another example would be the legal description that calls for lines being parallel to a section line.  “A 100’ x 100’ parcel lying in Section 9, the north, south, east and west lines of said parcel are parallel with the lines of the section.”

This seems fairly simple on the surface, a 100’ x 100’ square, right?  Wrong!  Again, in order to properly survey the boundary of this parcel, a surveyor would have to measure the entire one mile square section in order to determine how to run the property lines parallel.

Apples For Apples

These are just a few examples of how the price of surveys can go so high, when in the end, all you see are four stakes with flags.  Throw in a “Results of Survey” plat, and you’ve added yet more cost.  The Arizona State Board of Technical Registration adopted a set of minimum standards approximately two years ago.  Those standards, which every licensed surveyor must abide by, practically mandate that a plat will be recorded on every survey performed.  This additional requirement is often looked upon as an unnecessary financial burden.  The truth of the matter is, it’s cheap insurance.  While a recorded Results of Survey plat is no guarantee that a boundary dispute will never happen, it goes a long way in showing the next surveyor how boundary line locations were derived.   Often, if one surveyor can see how another surveyor came up with boundary line locations, it often eliminates questions or interpretations and thus, disputes.

Please remember that it takes a considerable amount of time to prepare a survey estimate.  Whomever you choose to do your survey, make sure that you are getting everything you pay for, and are legally entitled to.

Patrick Naville, R.L.S.

"Always do right.  This will gratify some people and astonish the rest."                                                                                                  Mark Twain

Newsletter Archives:

September 2004 Issue-
ALTA Surveys - The "Rolls-Royce"
Adobe Format
Text Format

August 2004 Issue -
League of Extraordinary Gentlemen
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Text Format

July 2004 Issue -
Good deal - Bad deal?
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Text Format

June 2004 Issue -
Why such large differences in survey prices?

May 2004 Issue -
Staking and Flagging

April 2004 Issue -
Why Does My Survey Cost So Much?

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