Council approved sending a second iteration of a “correcting historical surveys” code of conduct to the membership for comment.

The first iteration of the code of conduct received strong feedback on both sides of the topic. Practitioners had raised concerns about the liability and taking responsibility for survey products that had been authored by former surveyor’s corporations.

In this iteration of the document, the intent is that an Alberta Land Surveyor must notify another Alberta Land Surveyor of the potential error so that it avoids the situation of a landowner claiming, without justification or support, there is an error on a plan.

“Appropriate corrective action” is used because it is sufficiently vague and allows the practitioner to exercise their professional judgement.

Unlike the previous iteration, the draft code of conduct does not address whether a firm bought only the assets of a firm or the corporation as a whole. Instead, the intent is to look at whether the survey product was done under the same permit number or not.

Council encourages practitioners to read the draft code of conduct and provide their comments to Council no later than October 31. The draft code is available here.


Posted September 20, 2024