If a schematic needs to be from a licensed professional, the burden is to demonstrate that it is.
Sometimes it is appropriate to require a license professional to certify something, other times it is not
If it does not have the official stamp and signature, it is NOT a certified/stamped/approved drawing. End of story.
Perhaps it works differently in different states, but this has been the routine in every state in which I've lived.
the bottom line is that the presumption is that it is NOT an engineering drawing NOR is it certified, unless the certification/stamp/signature is explicit.
Also, thinking about it a second, the stamp/certification/signature is literally the engineer putting their reputation, license, and career on the line over the accuracy of the drawing. No engineer is going to want that to happen as a default operation — it must be explicit.
I would go so far as to say that it would be unconstitutional (first amendment; free speech) to restrict the act of "making a map" (although restricting the use of an official seal would be fine).
Excellent point — go file an Amicus brief!
It is not a big ask, and it would not interfere in any way with any of the reasonable uses that are being suggested here.
I suspect there is something of a Chesterton's fence here, dating back to a time when the use of false documents in swindling people were not uncommon. Many comments here are premised on the assumption that the acquirers of such maps should be under no illusion as to their legal status, but that does not necessarily extend to those to whom the acquirers might present these documents. The average HN reader may not be fooled, but they may have elderly relatives who might be.
While I have no reason to believe the person here is in any way abetting any such scheme, a simple disclaimer on the maps themselves might offer a reasonable compromise between disparate concerns.
I don't. As someone who has actually worked in compliance and accreditation, fakes and frauds happen constantly, and regular laypeople have no reasonable way to know whether they're being defrauded over this or not. Web startups that claim to offer "Guaranteed Acceptance" (like his does) without having actually done any of the compliance work to earn that acceptance, are common -- the field is ripe with abuse.
"Absense of certification" is how you end up with food that's poisoned (it didn't promise not to be poisoned) or products that electrocute you (it didn't promise not to zap you) or fake land surveys (it didn't promise not to hold up in court)
You shouldn't have to be an expert in every single field on the entire planet, to not get scammed 24/7/365. It's one major reason why we require licensed professionals in the first place. A regular person might only see a land survey once or twice in their entire life, they can't be expected to know that these random website ones are fakes.
This person is selling drawings he knows are commonly used in place of land surveys, that are fake -- he's not a land surveyor, he's not licensed to sell these. (He could just get licensed, it's not that hard, every other surveyor in my state has done so, there's no cap or limit on licensing of these, it's not difficult to perform them legally).
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His argument is no different than a fellow selling fake Drivers Licenses trying to get out of their consequences by claiming the board wants to "make printing photographs illegal"
> Sometimes it is appropriate to require a license professional to certify something, other times it is not
Sure, but property lines are a pretty clear place where a licensed professional needs to certify it. If you let laypeople do it without knowledge, then property rights start to lose the ability to get enforced fairly.
I mean, if he were to obtain the relevant credentials, but did not change a single thing about what he's selling or how they're produced, would that mean the things he's selling are no longer fake?
Here, the fake claim isn't the brand name, it's the product itself. He's selling a thing that looks exactly like a land survey, that's being used as if it's a land survey, but actually isn't. His measurements may be right (they probably aren't, this guy is mostly just scraping and reselling Google Maps, including literal screenshots from his browser, I sure hope he's paying the licensing fees to do that legally). But even if his measurements were per-millimeter accurate, it wouldn't change the problem. He's selling things that are intended to be used like land surveys, but aren't.
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If I bought a printer, and I printed off some money, and it's a perfect reproduction (identical size, identical weight, identical materials, identical to any other dollar), is it a fake dollar? If I put on my website that these fake dollars are "not intended to replace real US currency", but don't actually mark that anywhere on the dollars themselves, am I good to go?
If I actually want to be in the "fake money" business ethically (say as a prop for plays and movies, or as a toy for kids), would it not be reasonable to require me to declare it as such? (Like fake money usually does, right on each bill? See https://propmoviemoney.com/collections/full-print-prop-money - 'Motion Picture Use Only' - as an example)
No, because the watches don't claim to be an rolex, even if they tell time and the ID doesn't claim to be legal and state issued.
In this case, unofficial maps are a preexisting good already distinct from a certified land survey.
Governments accept unofficial maps for some uses, and require a certified survey for others. Governments are clear on when one is required but not the other. Governments even provide citizens instructions for how to make their own uncertified maps.
Official land surveys are easily distinguished from unofficial maps by the lack of a surveyors stamp/certification. Governments have experience processing official and unofficial documents, and know to look for the stamp, so the risk of confusion is low.
The site also makes it clear to the purchaser that they are unofficial.
I don't think the presence or absence of a seal will change this. If the fraud already happens constantly and this board is in place, then this would be an argument for replacing them, yes?
> ripe with abuse.
rife* with abuse
Right in the middle of the landing page, the site also states 'Our Site Plans are Non-Certified (Read More)' in the same list as their selling points. And their explanation of what this means is simple and to the point: https://www.mysiteplan.com/pages/certified-site-plans
Users of the site are very plainly advised. And if they submit those plans to local authorities or whoever, the people who evaluate them are competent to notice whether or not the plans are signed by a licensed surveyor. I'm not sure who you think is at risk of harm here.
A reasonable person could confuse the plans produced by the website and legitimate plans produced by a professional surveyor, though.
More to the point, the author of the website seems to disagree with you, since he already includes a disclaimer on the website. The issue raised is that he does not include that same disclaimer on the plans.
GP's phrasing of 'everyone who will ever handle' the plans is the correct phrasing: those are the people that must be considered. That group includes all people whose work and interests require knowing where property boundaries and physical structures are, now, and in the future.
The professional engineering and survey boards have a duty to the protect the public, and a duty to regulate the practice of land surveying and civil engineering. If someone's behavior interferes with that practice, then they have a legitimate cause to prevent that behavior.
The disclaimer on the website is so buyers know what they're getting and don't waste money on something that isn't adequate for their legal/planning needs.
Your interpretation of the disclaimer may be correct, but the phrasing "This is not a Legal Survey, nor is it intended to be or replace a Legal Survey." is excessive for that purpose and makes more sense if it's meant to head off complaints from the engineer's association.
A drawing of your property boundary so you can know where to mow the lawn to or find a plot of acreage granny left you isn't an engineering or legal document and shouldn't be treated as one.
however, there are plenty of things in civil and structural engineering that carry a huge amount of liability, and do in fact need to be done by a licensed/insured professional. for example, where electrical wiring or sewage pipes are buried. getting a property line wrong, in some cases can be a big problem.
Unless the only context in which anyone will ever view those plans is on that website, I don't see how this is relevant.
The site itself includes a disclaimer (“THIS IS NOT A LEGAL SURVEY, NOR IS IT INTENDED TO BE OR REPLACE ONE.” ).
However, at least on the sample plans the site shows[1][2], there does not seem to be any disclaimer. A reasonable person may be mislead into thinking that the plans produced by that website are legal surveys - they have the appearance of a typical surveyor/engineer produced CAD drawing.
In all the engineering drawings I've seen, the title block is essentially your only way of ensuring contextual information is always associated with the drawing. Including relevant disclaimers in the title block is critical.
If the sample drawings shown are representative of the output of the site, they could do a better job by including reasonable disclaimers on each drawing.
[1] https://www.mysiteplan.com/en-ca/products/simple-plot-plan?v...
[2] https://www.mysiteplan.com/products/plot-plan-showing-struct...