Back to work

Well the enjoyable Christmas holiday is behind us and it's back to work for many of us.  This is typically a quieter time for our industry that doesn't mean that we're not busy.  For me its a chance to go through that collection of files on the corner of my desk and review each and everyone of them.  I know that many of them still require legal plans, but at the time we were working on them they weren't as urgent to complete.  So now is the time to finish off these files now that there is a chance!

Electronic Filing

Ok so this isn't really anything new.  The Land Title and Survey Authority of BC introduced the Electronic Filing System (EFS) a few years back, but I really do appreciate the system and how it has streamlined my work and made things in effect a lot easier.

 

It sure is simpler to prepare a survey plan and have all the interested parties sign off and email the forms back to me rather than have so many different signatures on the face of the plan.  Not only does this save time having to circulate the plan for signatures it makes things a lot simpler in the event that the plan needs a change made to it prior to registration.  Before EFS came into effect this meant that a new mylar plan would have to be printed and sent around to all of the owners, lenders, civic authorities, etc. to sign again.  I have seen in the past several changes and versions of mylars before the survey plan was finally ready for deposit at the Land Title Office.  It could be a tense and stressful situation as the plan made its way around for all of the different parties to sign.  Now I keep a copy of all of the signatures in my file and it keeps the face of the plan nice and clean.  It shows what's important - the survey of the land.  All the signatures are kept on the forms that we email to the concerned parties and when they come back we keep them in our file for that job.

 

So in a nutshell it makes things a lot simpler and isn't that what its about?  There are enough things to worry about when having to have a piece of property surveyed for whatever reason.  EFS saves us all time and effort.  Well except maybe the Land Surveyor!  Someone still needs to fill in all of the digital forms that go with the survey plan before it can be uploaded to Land Titles.  But I say bring it on.  I have a nice, warm cup of coffee on one side and my 'paperwork' on the other.  Bring it on...

I'm on Twitter!

Good morning, tweeps... if you're like me and are an avid Twitter user then look for me there as well:

 

@md_bcls

 

See you there!

Vancouver Building Grade Plans

Recently we heard of a pilot project that the City of Vancouver has started that in part will speed up the time it takes to get building grade applications approved.  The basic idea is that instead of the City doing the survey and plan preparation they will pass that onto a Land Surveyor.

 

At first the survey requirements and plan preparation seemed a little overwhelming, but thankfully a former colleague of mine is heading up the project at the City and he has really helped getting us out of the starting gate.  Our first building grade application survey was not really all that complicated, but it was an add-on to an existing topographic survey.  Dove-tailing the two surveys together was a little time consuming especially when we had to collect the relevant information for the building grade plan.

 

Preparation of the plan was fairly straight forward, but preparing the building grade plan in the exact format required by the City took a little longer than usual for similar plans, but that's expected for a first try!

 

So that's the first one under the belt.  It has been submitted to the City with the rest of the application package, so we'll find out how we did soon enough.  Thankfully the City is going to implement this new policy over the next year, so by January 1, 2014 we'll have to be able to do these surveys as if the City was still doing them in-house.

 

This new policy was a little unexpected, but I think its a great idea.  It speeds up the amount of time to have a permit and building grade plan issued (by up to half of the current time) and that is good news for everyone.  For me it's something new we can offer our clients.  Anytime I have the opportunity to try something new and offer that to our current range of professional services it's exciting.

 

So that's the latest!  Have a great day everyone!

 

MD