Sealing a Plat the Surveyor Never Controlled
A three-person surveying firm in western Kansas contracts a licensed land surveyor, R.S., to serve as its surveyor of record. R.S. lives 180 miles away, works about 60% time for the firm, and visits the office twice a month. Field work, deed and plat research, boundary analysis, and drafting are done by a technician with 14 years of experience who is not licensed. R.S. reviews finished plats by email, generally within a day, but has not visited any of the last 11 project sites, has not opened the field notes or the boundary evidence file, and has never met the clients. For Lot 7, Block 3 of a replat, the technician's plat shows a detached garage on the adjoining lot crossing the lot line by 0.9 ft, plus a note that a shed is "over the line by about 2 ft, not located." The seller's realtor asks R.S. to remove both the encroachment and the shed note so the closing can occur Friday, saying the title company "doesn't need that." R.S. is asked to sign and seal the plat Thursday.
1. Is R.S. in responsible charge of this survey? What must be true before he applies his seal?
Read the worked answer
The test. Responsible charge means direct control and personal supervision of the surveying work: the licensee must know the evidence relied on, the field methods, the computations, and the boundary decisions well enough to defend each of them to the board and in court. Being available by email, or holding the title "surveyor of record," does not satisfy it. Nothing in the rules forbids part-time or remote practice, but the control has to be real.
Apply it here. Eleven consecutive projects with no site visit, no review of raw field notes, and no review of the boundary evidence file is not supervision; it is seal-by-email. R.S. cannot honestly certify boundary determinations he has never examined.
Before sealing, at minimum: open and review the field notes, deed/plat research, and the boundary evidence file; verify monument identity and the basis of bearings; resolve the encroachment determination himself; either visit the site or give documented instructions to a qualified person and review the results; and keep a written review record in the project file. For this lot, the 0.9-ft crossing drives a boundary and improvement determination that R.S. personally has to own.
If he cannot or will not do that, he should decline the seal - the seal is his personal certification, not the firm's.
2. How should R.S. respond to the realtor's request to delete the encroachment and the shed note?
Read the worked answer
He must refuse the deletion. A boundary survey plat reports conditions found. A garage crossing the lot line by 0.9 ft is a real-property condition that a purchaser, lender, and title insurer rely on; the client's transaction timing does not make it optional. Removing a known encroachment at a seller's request converts an accurate survey into a misleading instrument, and the surveyor - not the realtor - owns the consequence.
What he can legitimately do. (a) Issue the plat with the encroachment shown and a clear, neutral note ("garage on Lot 6 extends 0.9 ft across the line onto Lot 7"). (b) If the client only wants improvements for a lender's purposes, discuss whether a different survey product with its own legend and limitations is appropriate - but a boundary survey that found an encroachment cannot suppress it. (c) Locate the shed and show it rather than leaving "not located" on the face of the plat, since the note itself concedes a possible crossing.
Documentation. Put the request and the refusal in writing in the file. A contemporaneous record that the surveyor was asked to omit a known condition and declined is exactly the evidence that protects him later.
3. What are the realistic consequences of sealing as requested, and how should the technician's role be documented?
Read the worked answer
Consequences. The board can investigate a complaint from the buyer, the adjoiner, or a lender and impose discipline ranging from a reprimand to suspension or revocation, plus civil penalties. Separately, the buyer and adjoiner have civil claims for the misrepresentation, and a title insurer that relied on the plat has its own theory. The technician is largely insulated because he is unlicensed, which concentrates the exposure on the person who sealed - precisely why the seal cannot be a formality.
Technician's role. The technician may do the fieldwork, research, computations, and drafting; that is normal and expected. What the record must show is R.S.'s supervision: what he assigned, what he reviewed, when, and what he changed. Note the technician as field/drafting staff and R.S. as surveyor in responsible charge, with a review log in the file.
Practical fix for the firm. If R.S.'s 60% remote arrangement cannot produce genuine control, the firm needs either more of his time on site and in the file, or a licensed surveyor who is actually present. A seal on 11 unreviewed plats is not a business risk; it is a licensure risk.