"An Act instructing the State Board of Registration for Architects, Engineers, and Land Surveyors to adopt minimum technical standards relating to the practice of surveying."

House Bill 148 directs the Commissioner of Natural Resources to adopt minimum technical standards for mortgage surveys. Currently in Alaska, there are no standards in state law. It is left to the individual surveyors to include however much information on their surveys as they choose. This lack of standards can lead to undesired results. For example, information that a surveyor in Fairbanks would include in a mortgage survey, a surveyor in Kenai might leave off.

The American Land Title Association/ American Congress on Surveying and Mapping has adopted comprehensive minimum standards, but it is not the intention of HB 148 to place these standards in statute. The purpose of this bill is to have the commissioner develop and adopt, in regulations minimum standards for mortgage surveys while consulting with the Alaska Society of Professional Land Surveyors.

It is my belief that a person who orders and pays for a mortgage survey should be able to expect the survey to provide certain pertinent information about the property's features. HB 148 will ensure the adoption of minimum standards so that every mortgage survey done in Alaska will include the same basic information.

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