Todays meeting featured Surveyor/Engineer Jeff Steffan Jeff Steffan, 530-472-3487. He brought an interesting perspective to the group. And considering his job is to measure and identify the location of the very thing we all sell, his presentation was really extremely relevant. Land surveys are an extraordinarily complex subject. As a licensed professional, Jeff urges you to consider that you don’t always want the low bidder for a survey, a fact of life for real estate agents too. In a perfect world, every transaction would require a survey to completely satisfy a buyers need to know where the property lines really are. Too often, fences lie, and sometimes a fence is just a fence.

Jeff had several stories about property line conflicts. A few stories involved agents ostensibly telling a buyer where the lines were, only to be proven wrong. I wonder how often the agent actually made no such claim, but the buyer insists they did. Get those disclosures signed! Hmm. Among the more important ideas he brought to the presentation was that surveying is not always black and white. In many cases boundary issues can come down to such legal notions as Intent. A good surveyor has to consider how a legal interpretation of the documents and maps will play out in court, and not just where the lines and corners might be found. He acknowledged that there are unlicensed individuals who offer to identify corners, but from his perspective, those corners have little meaning if not related in a linear and systematic line to a recorded survey starting point. He noted there are well surveyed subdivisions around, but some are not well delineated, and so it pays to use a person with good local knowledge and experience. Hey, where have we heard that before? Oh yeah. We say that too. It was an especially relevant talk for the professionals assembled, most of whom make their living selling real estate measured and defined by folks like Jeff. It was another very informative session. Skip Murphy