It’s always reassuring when lawyers acknowledge the value of the surveyor on the team. Our education and experience can help lawyers with their own work. The situations below are recent illustrations of how we provide more than just a signature and seal.
We Link What’s on Paper to What’s on the Ground
The legal team was trying to minimize the impact of a landowner’s demand to cross a former rail bed now in private ownership. This landowner’s property was split by a predecessor’s 1870s sale of a strip of land to the railroad without any reservation of rights to cross on, over, or under it. The area on the north side of the former rail bed was landlocked. The equitable thing to do was to agree to some kind of easement to cross (thus also avoiding litigation).
The difficult part is that the former rail bed is part of a public trail system. Cars and hikers don’t mix well. The legal team knew that the best solution was only a perpendicular crossing of the former rail bed, and they and I agreed on limiting an access easement to the landowner’s request of 30 feet in width. “But” I added, “be prepared for him to come back when he realizes that if he wants to build on that landlocked tract, the township will require an access way 50 feet wide, not just 30.”
Then I didn’t hear anything for months. Suddenly a nearly final contract appeared in my email for me to proofread. Beyond some typographical errors, the terms were disturbing. A 30-foot-wide gravel drive was allowed in the new 30-foot-wide easement. “Gravel doesn’t stay in one place, plus this is a steep site,” I protested. “This won’t work on the ground.” They hadn’t thought beyond capturing all the legal terms and conditions, and it was too late to renegotiate. Next time…
We Promote Clear Meaning
Working with another legal team on a boundary dispute, we were all on the same page by the time expert reports were completed. As expected, the plaintiff requested a summary judgment from the court. (That means the facts are not disputed and the court only rules on legal points.) We had plenty of reason to object, and the lawyers asked me to review the opposition paper they had prepared.
The facts were there, but some phrases could (and likely would) easily be twisted to be used against us. Precision in wording is always important, especially in court where “plain meaning” of terms is the rule. Don’t say “possession” (of which there are several variations) when “ownership” is meant. Statements that the plaintiff “cannot own” the disputed area also concerned me. Taken out of context, such lines could easily be turned and disputed. The facts presented can’t prove that the plaintiff owns that area, but the plaintiff can indeed own it in the future if successful in a quiet title action (which we would appeal) or in securing a deed. Nuances matter. Plain language instead of legalese also matters.
We Help Clarify What Lawyers Really Want and Need to Know
A law firm I didn’t know emailed me: would I be willing to meet (virtually) with a group of lawyers who were new to real estate transactions for a one-hour “high-level” basic session about surveys? Absolutely. We all win when the weakest link on a team is made stronger.
To prepare, I wanted to know what they did or did not already know. My questions revealed there was a lot on the “did not already know” side of the scale, and that the relationship between surveys and title was even more mysterious to them than Table A of the ALTA standards. Since they didn’t initially have enough background to frame their questions, clearly this would be a very “high level” overview. I admired this group for admitting that they needed to know what it was that they didn’t know.
After an overview of the varieties of information provided by different kinds of surveys, we talked about what services licensed professional surveyors can or cannot legally offer in different jurisdictions. We reviewed what happens during a boundary survey in general terms, from initial research through the steps resulting in a final plan, description, and report. But they were most interested in the relationship between title insurance, record searches, and surveys. They will be looking at their title commitments a little more carefully after seeing real-life examples of oversights and mistakes by title companies and finding out about limitations as to how far back title companies search public records.
Our one-hour session zoomed through a second with all the “what ifs,” “what abouts,” and extra explanations. I’m confident they will no longer ask for everything in Table A. But more importantly, they can now frame questions for both the surveyors and title companies they hire.