Get matched with top land surveyors in La Jolla, CA

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"Spring of 2015, I commissioned Sawyer Land Surveying Inc to survey my newly-purchased property, a single family home. The new survey monuments Matt Sawyer placed showed that part of a dilapidated block wall which was an architectural match to and had originally enclosed my home appeared to encroach on my neighbor's property by a few inches. I brought up this inconsistency to Matt, who dismissed my concerns. I relied on Matt's survey to make significant development improvements to the property, including replacing the dilapidated wall with a new one, within my property boundaries. My tearing down the old wall, which had been part of my property for eighty years, caused my next door neighbor to react violently: he threatened to kill me, threatened my contractors, one of whom quit as a result, harassed my family, abused his position at the City to interfere in the development of my property, and even sued me frivolously, an action he lost with prejudice, but I still had to waste my time and resources in litigation. The neighbor relied on Matt's survey to build himself a wood fence, and had the permit signed off by a City inspector friend of his who did not verify the fence was not encroaching on my property. Then, in 2019, while browsing the Survey Records System, I found another neighbor's survey subsequent to Matt's, by another surveyor, who identified a four inch error in Matt's calculations. I pointed this out to Matt, who admitted to his error, quickly refunded my fees, and tried to get me to sign a release so I would not take action against him, a release I refused to sign. After confirming that the neighbor's fence was now on my property by several inches, I asked Matt for his insurance information so I could file a claim, but he refused, clinging to the disingenuous argument that "a few inches is not an encroachment". My goal was for Matt to acknowledge that his error had consequences on my family and me but he refused. So I sued Matt in small claims court in the hope that he would take some measure of responsibility for the impact the erroneous survey had on my family. Too late to sue, said the judge, erroneously referring to the wrong statute of limitations. Courts don’t always get it right, but no matter…. Damage caused by Matt’s error was done, I will never get my time and energy back. Relationship with the neighbor is forever damaged. The goal of the lawsuit was not to get money from Matt. Indeed, prior to the hearing, Matt offered me $1K to avoid the lawsuit, but he missed the point of the whole thing; Take responsibilty, be accountable, acknowledge that errors have consequences. When we buy land survey services, we expect accuracy within established standards. Matt's survey of my property was off by a magnitude of five times those standards. It is possible, even probable that Matt Sawyer nowadays double-checks his work, but the reality is that the probability of anybody catching him on an error is low to none. What is certain, though, in my opinion, is that Matt Sawyer is unwilling, and unable to recognize that errors in his work have consequences. Not in his character."

"Professional, Honest and did the work on-time. High quality work done by professionals. We did hit an un-foreseen snag and we worked it out like adults. Eventually we paid a portion of the extra work needed before proceeding but the discussion was adult and professional. Overall, a great crew of guys who I felt safe having inside my home to do work."

"I hired Brian Thomas from February 2020 through March of 2020 and here are the reasons why I do not recommend using this company: 1. The contract I signed with them was for one year, 12 months, of SWPPP inspections, for which they quoted me $13,390. After less than 2 months worth of work, when I had to end the contract, they had already billed me $14,422.61. 2. Part of those charges included a $1,119.34 charge for “material markup”. They had stated that the materials they were going to provide, for erosion control, were going to be supplied at cost. When asked about this “markup” charge they stated “we charge a 15% mark up on materials”, because “ordering your materials puts a potential burden on the company”. So that is what this company means when they say “at cost”. 3. When Brian Thomas first came to my site to start the work he stated that he was there on his own dime “to help”. On his final bill he included two charges totaling $595 for such visits. When asked about these charges their response was: “[Brian] did not state that he was consulting free of charge” and “if you hadn’t removed us from the project after just a month of being on it, Brian may have been willing to remove those charges”. So that is what this company mean when they say “we are here to help on our own dime”. 4. When asked about the $5,000 worth of inspections they performed in just over a month their response was to send some documents so that I could “educate yourself on what is required per your SWPPP”. The company I was using to perform such inspections, and who I re-hired after I terminated Brian Thomas’ contract, charges me $1,000 to perform the same inspections. In other words Brian Thomas charged me 5 times more than an average company does. Brian Thomas will use their “knowledge” of the requirements for these inspections to charge you as much as they possibly can even though the State does not require that many inspections. 5. My relationship with Brian Thomas started to fall apart when they started to push additional services on me. I’ve had a grading company doing most of the work for my grading project for over a year (and I am about 2/3 done with the project). First Brian Thomas suggested they had a crew of people that could install BMPs, something my grading company was already doing, and then they even suggested that I should fire the grading company I was using (because they were incompetent). Having the same company that performs inspections also perform the work needed to pass those inspections is a conflict of interest: you are essentially creating work for yourself. But that is how Brian Thomas works. 6. When managing a grading project there are 2 main inspections you need to perform: a SWPPP inspection and a grading inspection. Brian Thomas can only perform one of them: the SWPPP inspection. If you are planning on doing a grading project I recommend getting a company that can perform both inspections, like the one I am using, and not a company that can only perform one of them, like Brian Thomas. This was my experience with Brian Thomas. If you chose to use them for your project may you have a better experience."