The case comes from the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine. The parties involved were David and Katherine Graves and S.E. Downey Registered Land Surveyor, P.A. S.E. Downey is owned by Stephen Downey, a registered land surveyor and shareholder of the company. His son, Patrick, is an employee who helped on the Graves’ home project, under the supervision of his father. There are many errors that can occur when surveying a piece of land. When calculating measurements, it is very unlikely that any two measurements will ever be the same. There will most likely always be a degree of variance no matter how many different methods and types of equipment are used. In order to reduce the variance, the discrepancies need to be reduced in order to be as accurate …show more content…
as possible and further reduce any complications that can occur in the long run. In the Graves vs.
S.E. Downey Registered Land Surveyor, P.A case, a surveying error was made by Patrick Downey where he measured too far into the Acadia National Park’s property line and as a result a $110,589 impact cost was charged to the Graves’ to move the construction of the home. The Graves family property is surrounded by the Acadia National Park on the North and East side. Their intentions were to divide their property into three lots and construct a house on the northern most part of the property. The contractor on the job recommended to use S.E. Downey to survey the land. The construction would include to install a septic system, drill a well, improve an existing road and provide power to the new home. Once construction had started on the Graves family property, a representative from the National Park Service informed the Graves family that the home was intruding into another property that the Acadia National Park had authority to prohibit construction in. As a result, the National Park Service informed the Graves’ that the potential home was north of their property line and needed to be relocated …show more content…
immediately. Because of the unexpected impact cost to the construction of the Graves’ home project, they filed a claim against S.E. Downey. Their reasoning was that S.E. Downey had breached their contract and therefore caused unnecessary costs towards the construction of the Graves’ home project. The Graves’ also asserted that S.E. Downey had shown a breach of duty of care between themselves and their client, the Graves’, otherwise called professional negligence. An expert was hired to determine whether the allegations towards S.E Downey were accurate based on the surveying work done on the jobsite. The expert concluded that it was quite obvious that the potential home was way over the property line. Evidence was also found that S.E. Downey was not practicing professionally as a surveying company should with the skill, attentiveness and responsibility required to complete the job correctly. The court also concluded, after examining the data and documents from the Downey survey, that there were many mistakes. Based on the Downey survey work performed by Patrick, the most noticeable error was the failure to acknowledge the northern boundary between the Graves and the National Park’s property. The results of the survey on the Graves’ property shows that S.E. Downey did not actually locate the boundary line. The documents show the survey to have followed an old metal fence that was on the property seen by a contractor. S.E. Downey should have not listened to the contractor and done the survey correctly. They also addressed the boundary lines for the Graves’ property based on a deed that belonged to another parcel and extended the boundaries from that document. As stated before, this just proves even with S.E. Downey’s documents they breached their contract by not complying with their duty to perform and providing quality work of a surveyor. S.E. Downey also failed where Stephen was said to have be monitoring Patrick’s work and therefore did not catch his mistakes. Patrick was not considered a reasonably competent surveyor. The court concluded that there was no need to follow the contractor’s suggestion of the existing metal fence. They also stated that the deed of the other parcel off the Graves’ property should not have been referenced to determine the boundary lines of the Graves’ family property. After all the evidence, the court concluded that S.E.
Downey did in fact falsely place the home on a piece of property that the Graves’ did not own. Their actions were a result of the Graves’ $110,589 damages. The Graves’ were given a full compensation of their damages plus interest and costs. After this conclusion was made, S.E. Downey appealed the decision and claimed there was not enough evidence to prove that the damages originated from negligence. They claimed that the Graves family did not provide enough information based on their property boundaries. S.E. Downey stated that the Graves’ failed to provide further information on the owners of their surrounding neighbors’ properties. They continued to exclaim that they were unaware that the Park owned the property where the home intruded on, and blamed the Graves’ for not providing them with the documents that the Park had authority to not allow construction on that piece of
land. The court’s evidence reaffirms that S.E. Downey did in fact breach the contract and professional negligence. The argument from S.E. Downey was not sufficient enough to prove they would not be guilty of their infringements. They were found guilty not because of their company practices and methods, but because S.E. Downey did not comply to their contractual agreements. This decision came about after the expert’s evidence was thoroughly analyzed. The evidence was indeed enough data to establish proof towards the negligence on the job and also the damages caused because of their lack of care. S.E. Downey’s claim about not being informed of the neighbor’s property lines and authority was not suffice. Their accusation was not necessary since the Park had informed the Graves’ family to move the home immediately. In other jurisdictions/states there are laws that pertain to these kinds of surveying cases. For example, some states take a surveyor accountable and are held to the standard of conduct in which a surveying company must conform to without acting negligent. Other states, for example, also follow the duty of care where the surveyor must perform their work skillfully under any ordinary circumstance. In this case, the court followed these rules similarly. A land surveyor is obligated to follow the duty of care and take into consideration the circumstances of their client. They are obligated by contract to provide that intensity of care and have a competent surveyor on site to do the job accordingly and accurate. In conclusion, I believe there could have been many ways to avoid the impacts and damages that were made to both parties. From the beginning, S.E. Downey should have had another representative on site such as another registered surveyor to show Patrick the proper was to survey a land. Also, it was S.E. Downey’s responsibility to check out the surrounding neighbors and their boundaries in correlation with the Graves’ property. Although they did in fact use the deed of the neighboring parcel, they should have researched for a closer land that showed the exact property lines. Also, an inspection was probably done before beginning construction so this mistake should have been caught early on. The Park is at fault in a minor way because they waited to inform the Graves family of their newly built home of the intrusion of property. They could have informed them much sooner and less damages would have been done. All in all, S.E. Downey did not follow their contractual obligations and acted negligent towards their clients. The Graves’ should have considered multiple surveying companies before agreeing to what the general contractor suggested.
Doris Reed bought a house for $76,000.00 from Robert King. Mr. King and his real estate agent failed to disclose to Mrs. Reed that a murder had taken place in the home ten years ago. Neighbors told Mrs. Reed about the murders and the stigma associated with the house after she moved in. The property appraised in the amount of $65,000.00 with reference to the history of the house. Reed sued King on allegations of misrepresentation for the purchase of the home seeking rescission and damages to terminate the contact.
The public area noted was an abandoned school called Adelante high school. The parking lot was in disrepair leaving mostly broken concrete and stone. Black Hills is home to two different parks Coit and Kensington Parks which both looked overgrown and do not seem to be used much. Neither park had equipment for children to play on or trails to walk/ ride on. The picnic tables did not look like they should be in use. The neighborhood had a community garden that was neglected. The sign for the garden had graffiti on it and was falling apart. Thick shrubs and trash were scattered all over the fenced in space of the garden. The observations show the neighborhood is in a state of
The first step to development is to survey the property in order to document and draw the bounds and land surface shapes. The property will be represented by various geometry elements such as points, lines, arcs, circles, and other defined geometry shapes. Surveyors use scope on tripods witch use projection of line Referenced point on a stick in order to measure the variations of the heights on the ground. This tool uses various angel theorems and postulates to find location of property boundaries, property corners, utilities and building layouts on the property. The surveyor uses the data collected to draw the property layout on a 36”x 24”sheet of paper.
I wonder if it’s an old foundation of a farmhouse or something, Brett thought to himself, but nothing before was ever said about any other buildings existing on their land. Deciding to have a closer look, he dismounted his horse and grabbed an army entrenching tool that he kept tied to the saddle. He went and cleared a path so he could have a closer look. He was surprised to find what looked like an old, flat grave marker. As he cleared away more of the tumbleweeds, he was surprised to discover several other grave markers arranged in two rows. It looked like a small graveyard. Brett brushed away some of the mud and sand that had caked onto one of the grave markers. He noticed that the lettering was shallow but still legible.
This issue of money all began when Mr. Jennings, being the gullible person he was, hired a land surveyor, not a lawyer to write his will. The sneaky land developer intentionally made John’s grandfathers’ will to be extremely vague and ill written. Mr. Jennings real wishes were obscured and open to interpretation.
With a stick he fashioned into a staff, he probed the ground for any remnant of a burial site. But an hour into the search and he had uncovered nothing. Anything that looked like a vine covered fence, or a grave marker, erect or fallen, he investigated. From where he stood above and away from the creek, he could see that the land flowing beneath the canopy of trees. In the groves of maples, oaks, and evergreens, a carpet of leaves and fallen branches littered the ground. The thinning undergrowth made him think it would be a better choice for a search, but he would have to find another way to keep his bearing. The trees would probably muffle the sound of running water.
Here, the McDowell’s performed an adequate physical inspection of the property and necessary due diligence as required by New York under the doctrine of caveat emptor. In Daly, the buyers similarly performed a physical inspection of the property, but differed in that they failed to perform due diligence regarding the discovery of material fact from the inspection. In Daly, the buyer had a physical inspection performed on the property, it was discovered that there was evidence of previous water intrusion and the buyers were recommended to consult with neighbors and local authorities about the defect. This is distinguishable from the McDowell’s case because they hired a surveyor and inspector to examine the property. The surveyor found that the
I was at my grandmother’s lake property on Strawberry Lake. For the past few years, I had spent a majority of my summer vacation at this property with my grandmother. When she first bought the property years prior, it consisted of a barebones trailer
These results could be inaccurate and be caused by other issues such as the imperfectness of the
When recording a measurement it is important to remember that every measurement is a comparison or estimate to a standard. Therefore, the measurement will always possess some type of random error.
After many curse words and getting lost several times following all the detour signs, Casey Culpepper had arrived. The car idled at the beginning of the gravel road leading to her mother’s family home. This property had passed from one heir to another for over a century and a half, and it became her responsibility the night her parents died, along with a sizable trust fund.
Surveying is the technique and science of accurately determining the terrestrial or three-dimensional space position of points and the distances and angles between them. These points are usually, but not exclusively, associated with positions on the surface of the Earth, and are often used to establish land maps and boundaries for ownership or governmental purposes. In order to accomplish their objective, surveyors use elements of geometry, engineering, trigonometry, mathematics, physics, and law.
Of course like all measuring techniques the sensor needs to be precise, accurate and repeatable so that the measurements are reliable and fit for purpose. One more major factor is time, response and recovery times of the sensor are issues that are looking at to be improved with the hope of having devices with immediate response times and a very low recovery time.
The findings include that prior to 1968 there was nothing developed or constructed on this land. According to 1968 aerial view, there was an electrical shop on this site which did not affect the site by any means. The current occupant Minto built this building around 20 years ago in 1994.
The first seven steps are expensive only in time but they are equally important. Failure to plan properly is the doom of a restoration project. Attention to due diligence and detail are of more value than money, yet money is important. The potential for monetary gain is high, but not certain. What is certain is that this is more than a simple land buy, it is the fulfillment of the American dream: achieving success and then sharing it.