Land Surveying Video Guides

The ALTA survey specification does not turn a boundary survey into what I call single number commodity so what does that mean single number commodity a single number commodity is a product or service you can select or choose by considering only one number the sale price okay so that's what a single number commodity is uh like maybe a box of cereal could be a single number commodity right all right so or a gallon Of gas could be a single single number commodity all right so you can't treat all the surveys like a single number commodity uh some people think that just because there's a specification that means all the surveys are the same and that you just go choose your Alta survey based on the lowest price that is a mistake I see it happen almost all the time so 98 of the time that's all people care about when they're getting an altar survey is the Price that's usually because the wrong person is buying the Alta survey usually it's the usually it's the buyer the buyer's agent and it needs to be the bank that's lending the money uh but that it is what it is okay so hopefully if you're watching this you're a banker and you're the person with the money on the line because then you'll understand why you can't treat altar surveys as a single a single number commodity so I'm going to illustrate it this way it'd be Like buying an Alta survey based only on the price would be like going to buy a car and oh and only looking at uh the price as long as it had four wheels and a gas cap right uh yeah you're gonna get some wildly different results there right like yeah four wheels and a gas cap that's a pretty broad range there bro you're going to get a broad range of product there right so if you don't if you don't understand a little bit more About what you're looking for as far as far as quality and type there right model um you're not you're not you're not going to get the kind of car you want right and so it's the same thing with the Ulta spec you know the Ulta spec is kind of like saying it's the bare minimum right it's like saying okay your survey has to have four wheels and a gas cap all right that's great is it an SUV or a go-kart You know is it a four-wheel drive or does it you know is it two doors or four doors is it a Ferrari or uh you know a Ford Bronco uh like yeah those are big huge differences right okay so why can't you treat an auto survey like a single number commodity well because there's a lot of things that the Ulta survey specification doesn't tell you as the client right or the buyer okay so what I'm going to give you an example what kind of things am I Talking about I'm gonna give you five things that the Ulta specification does not tell you okay now there's other things but I'm just going to give you my first five all right so here you go number one it doesn't tell you what table a items to check in fact the table a in the specification is blank okay so none of the boxes are checked all right and you don't want to just check all the boxes because then you're going to pay for a bunch of stuff that you don't need Okay so that's the first thing it doesn't tell you what table a items to check number two it doesn't tell you what the table a items mean the specification does not say that most of the table a items in the spec are one or two sentences right that's why I do a lot of videos here about what the table a items actually mean number three the specification does not tell you how much the table a item should cost back the specification Doesn't talk about costs at all so um you can't you can't properly weigh risk versus cost there right uh you need you need to talk to somebody about that you need to talk to a good surveyor about that number four it doesn't tell you what the base survey should cost right so it doesn't say if you're surveying this many acres or you're surveying this many linear feed of boundary the cost should be X that's because you can't price Surveys that way so um you know you need to talk to somebody about uh the cost versus quality trade-offs there right somebody you trust okay number five it doesn't tell you how to determine if the specification was met the spec doesn't say anything about that right so you want to work with the consultant you trust uh because you can get a garbage Ulta survey and never know right and uh that's gonna that's gonna cause problems Down the road potentially if there's if there's a boundary or land title issue so those are just five things that the specification doesn't tell you there are more things that the spec doesn't tell you you got to remember the specification is a bare minimum standard right it's like going to shop for a car and tell it's like hiring your brother-in-law to buy your car and then telling your Brother-in-law oh I want the cheapest car you can find that has four wheels and a gas cap right like yep that's not a good way to buy a car it's also not a good way to buy an Alta survey so if you care about the quality of the Ulta survey don't treat an altar survey like a single number commodity it is not a single number commodity you want to work with the land surveyor you can trust to provide answers that aren't in the specification right so I I you know I Would love it if a banker right called me up or if a buyer called me up and said Landon I need an Alta survey talk to me but here's what I'm trying to do I want to build a shopping center talk to me about what do I need based on based on what I'm trying to do in this particular parcel what table a items do I need tell me what that's going to cost tell me what the base survey is going to cost you know what can I do to change that price you know what if we include Or leave things in or out you know what can we do um I will have those conversations absolutely and I won't charge for them most of the time if you call me I I would love to have that conversation with you most of the time I get a form that says we need an Alta survey put your number at the bottom right that's not a good way to buy all the surveys that's the way most people buy all the surveys Um and a lot of times they get garbage right you might if you're going to do that you might as well not get an ALT survey right because what you're going to get is garbage you're going to get a go-kart and not a Ferrari right um and you may not need a Ferrari but if you want a Ford Bronco and you get a go-kart instead you're going to be disappointed right so don't buy the go-kart right have a com you know there's a reason why land surveyors are supposed to be