Could someone post a standard search agreement?

[MikeOregon]

Hey,

In other posts, I've seen people refer to a "search agreement" but I've never actually seen one. If anybody has one, could you post it so we all could see?

Thanks,

Mike

 

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[Las Vegas Bob]

Hey Mike..................I for one would never have any paper work drawn up or signed in regards to this so called "search agreement."

You are going to not only have to have someone sign the agreement. BUT (and yes that is a big but) in order to make it a binding agreement you are going to have to have the signature's notarized and the document scrutinized and sanitized to make sure that it will hold up in court in case the party of the first part tries to rip off the party of the second part or vice a versa. You are basically making a total stranger a partner.

We live in a extremely law suit happy and legalistic society. I would sooner leave the site untouched then to open that filthy bag of legal worms.

 

[MikeOregon]

Yeah,

It seems a sticky business.

Thanks, I'll switch this to a different heading and proceed from there on the "metal detecting" forum.

Mike

 

[Campy]

Hey Mike..................I for one would never have any paper work drawn up or signed in regards to this so called "search agreement."

What's to stop a property owner from laying claim to 100% of your finds? In Virginia, the property owner can make a legal claim to items recovered from his property. With an agreement that outlines how recovered items are to be dispursed, it protects you more than it protects him.

You are going to not only have to have someone sign the agreement. BUT (and yes that is a big but) in order to make it a binding agreement you are going to have to have the signature's notarized and the document scrutinized and sanitized to make sure that it will hold up in court in case the party of the first part tries to rip off the party of the second part or vice a versa.

I can't speak for Nevada or Oregon, but in the two states in which I've lived (NY & VA), an agreement does not need to be notorized to stand up to legal scrutiny. Did you have to have a credit card app notorized? How about the agreement you signed at the cell phone store, was that notorized? Neither were mine, but that doesn't free me from the terms and obligations of either agreement. Same thing goes here.

You are basically making a total stranger a partner.

I suppose that's one way of looking at it, but it is his land afterall, so it's not like the "total stranger" brings nothing of value to the agreement. Without him, you have nothing.

We live in a extremely law suit happy and legalistic society. I would sooner leave the site untouched then to open that filthy bag of legal worms.

Protecting yourself, in my opinion, isn't opening a "filthy bag of legal worms." NOT protecting yourself is.

Check your PM MikeOregon.

 

[jeff of pa]

Hey Mike..................I for one would never have any paper work drawn up or signed in regards to this so called "search agreement."

What's to stop a property owner from laying claim to 100% of your finds?? In Virginia, the property owner can make a legal claim to items recovered from his property. With an agreement that outlines how recovered items are to be dispursed, it protects you more than it protects him.? ?

You are going to not only have to have someone sign the agreement.? ?BUT (and yes that is a big but) in order to make it a binding agreement you are going to have to have the signature's notarized and the document scrutinized and sanitized to make sure that it will hold up in court in case the party of the first part tries to rip off the party of the second part or vice a versa.

I can't speak for Nevada or Oregon, but in the two states in which I've lived (NY & VA), an agreement does not need to be notorized to stand up to legal scrutiny.? Did you have to have a credit card app notorized?? How about the agreement you signed at the cell phone store, was that notorized?? Neither were mine, but that doesn't free me from the terms and obligations of either agreement.? Same thing goes here.

You are basically making a total stranger a partner.

I suppose that's one way of looking at it, but it is his land afterall, so it's not like the "total stranger" brings nothing of value to the agreement. Without him, you have nothing.

We live in a extremely law suit happy and legalistic society.? I would sooner leave the site untouched then to open that filthy? bag of legal worms.

Protecting yourself, in my opinion, isn't opening a "filthy bag of legal worms." NOT protecting yourself is.?

Check your PM MikeOregon.

I agree to a Point.
HOWEVER, In these days Of CON ARTISTS, How many Property owners are Going to Be willing to
Sign Anything Legal. From a Stranger.

I can Guarantee you, IF someone approached me at home, Asked me for Permission to do something on
my property, & then asked me to ""SIGN HERE on the DOTTED LINE" I'd laugh them all the way OFF
my Property.

HOWEVER, IF the Property owner, Brought up that they want some type of Guarantee.

I'v only had this Happen with Extremely BIG property owners, 10's of thousands, of acers.who's land is used for
Business Purposes and / or Recreation, and then only for excusing the owner from any Liability.

 

[Born2Dtect]

I have a permission to hunt form and a separate release of liability form. As to date I have not used either one. Remember to offer these forms if the landowner is hesitant. They may make the difference in getting permission or not. My permission form does not mention who gets what. I rely on people to be honest and fair with me. Also I consider any item (cache ) buried on puspose to be almost totally the owners and any lost item I consider mine when found. Lets face it we don,t often find anything worth selling so we can give the landowner a bit and not be too depressed.

Ed Donovan

 

[jeff of pa]

I have a permission to hunt form and a separate release of liability form. As to date I have not used either one. Remember to offer these forms if the landowner is hesitant. They may make the difference in getting permission or not. My permission form does not mention who gets what. I rely on people to be honest and fair with me. Also I consider any item? (cache ) buried on puspose to be almost totally the owners and any lost item I consider mine when found. Lets face it we don,t often find anything worth selling so we can give the landowner a bit and not be too depressed.

Ed Donovan

VERY WELL PUT ED.

 

[Las Vegas Bob]

You are going to not only have to have someone sign the agreement.? ?BUT (and yes that is a big but) in order to make it a binding agreement you are going to have to have the signature's notarized and the document scrutinized and sanitized to make sure that it will hold up in court in case the party of the first part tries to rip off the party of the second part or vice a versa.

I can't speak for Nevada or Oregon, but in the two states in which I've lived (NY & VA), an agreement does not need to be notorized to stand up to legal scrutiny.? Did you have to have a credit card app notorized?? How about the agreement you signed at the cell phone store, was that notorized?? Neither were mine, but that doesn't free me from the terms and obligations of either agreement.? Same thing goes here.

Of course you don't have a credit card app. or a cell phone agreement notorized.? BUT you not dealing with a perfect stranger in that case are you?? Your dealing with a company that has it's name and reputation on the line if anything goes afoul.

You are basically making a total stranger a partner.

I suppose that's one way of looking at it, but it is his land afterall, so it's not like the "total stranger" brings nothing of value to the agreement. Without him, you have nothing.

And if he is not who he says he is what have you got?

A have a couple of friends that think like you.? They? bought a mining claim once.? From a total stranger.? With $15,000.00? out of pocket and a quickly drawn up piece of paper, witnessed by a few locals.? With this fine looking piece of paper in their hand they started mining.

One month later the real owners of the mine showed up and all of the money invested in the operation was lost.?

So if you think checking things to make sure everyone is who they say they are to make make sure your dealing with the real owner of said land is a waste of time then I have a bridge to sell you in New York City.? The same thing can happen in a case of a search agreement.?

You have to know if you are in fact dealing with the true owner of the land don't you?? In the aforementioned incident the people that sold the mine used the real owners name in conversation, however when they signed the alleged deed you could not read the signture and with out a notory involved there was no way of knowing if this person was who he claimed to be. Hell I have even had people try to sell my placer claim out from me on several occasions. I even found my property advertised for sale in one of the Gold Prospectors magazines once.

We live in a extremely law suit happy and legalistic society.? I would sooner leave the site untouched then to open that filthy? bag of legal worms.

Protecting yourself, in my opinion, isn't opening a "filthy bag of legal worms." NOT protecting yourself is.?

Oh and walking in to a local bar and drawing an up a search agreement on a bar napkin is?

If you claim you don't need complete and legally binding agreement with all the facts as to how the findings are going to be divided and? a way to know that you are in fact dealing with the properties rightful owner then the aformentioned? bar napkin is all your agreement is worth.

Thanks for your reply Campy........

Check your PM MikeOregon.

 

[Campy]

The folly of your friends dropping 15K on a mine without making a trip to the county courthouse and asking for ID is something of a straw man when compared with MD'ing private property, don'tcha think?

We can agree to disagree, that's cool. At the same time, I fail to see the danger in having an agreement ready to go. The original poster (MikeOregon) did not specify why he wanted one, perhaps a promising piece of real estate's owner has requested to have an agreement drawn up - who knows?

 

[jeff of pa]

I have a few on hand also, Just in case.

? ?But so far Nobody I asked? has brought it up.

UNFORTUNATELY, I don't have a scanner to Put one up for him

 

[PBK]

You might want to check these out:

http://www.phantomranch.net/prospect/search_agreement_formal.htm

http://www.protecthehobbynow.com/search and salvage agreement.htm

www.eurekathc.com/salvage.pdf

 

[Las Vegas Bob]

The folly of your friends dropping 15K on a mine without making a trip to the county courthouse and asking for ID is something of a straw man when compared with MD'ing private property, don'tcha think?

We can agree to disagree, that's cool.? At the same time, I fail to see the danger in having an agreement ready to go.? The original poster (MikeOregon) did not specify why he wanted one, perhaps a promising piece of real estate's owner has requested to have an agreement drawn up - who knows?

The comparison of the mining claim folly as you gibbly put it and dealing with a total stranger who you are willing to give a share of your findings too is exactly the same. And that is why I mentioned it here.

On one hand you are telling Mikeoregon that it is ok to just sign an agreement with a total stranger without the option of having their ID verified and now you say that my friends folly, as you put it, was caused by their lack of ID verification.

There are people out there that will misrepresent themselves in a heart beat. Either as a claim or property owner.

Sure my poorer then poor friends should have checked this guy out. That is why I am telling anyone that wants to seek out and have someone sign a search agreement to make sure the person signing the agreement with you is in fact the property owner and not a nosey next door neighbor who knows the real property owner lives in europe and that they will never know that his or her property is being searched and that you have shared your findings with the wrong person.

I see nothing wrong with getting an agreement either. In my inital post that you had so much fun dissecting I was merely pointing out that to me it is not worth the effort to pursue finding the owner of a piece of property just to MD on it.

It was obvious to me that the original poster got the idea of the necessity of a search agreement because it was mentioned on another forum here. I was merely telling this lad that if he wanted a search aggrement make it bulletproof.

You can disagree with that all you want, but the days of the trustworthy hand shake are long gone.

 

[Campy]

I wasn't being glib about your friends being bilked out of money. The harsh reality is that it does take more than a small amount of folly to be seperated from $15,000 the way they were. In fact, I thought I was being diplomatic by using the word "folly."

fol?ly n. pl. fol?lies
1. A lack of good sense, understanding, or foresight.
2.
a. An act or instance of foolishness: regretted the follies of his youth.
b. A costly undertaking having an absurd or ruinous outcome.

I just don't see where having written permission to swing a coil over someone's property and being scammed out of a large sum of money in the manner in which your friends were are anywhere close to being the same. It doesn't mean that one of us is right and the other wrong, it just means we have differing opinions on the relevance of the example you used, which in the larger scheme of things, is a fairly minor disagreement.

What I must protest is your erroneous claim that I advised the original poster that he should not check or verify the land owner's identity. I never advised him of any such thing. What I did offer was that securing notorized signatures is not necessary to form a binding agreement.

Take it for what it's worth. Or don't. Frankly, after practicing law for twenty-some years, one begins to lack the patience to debate legal matters with laymen.

 

[Born2Dtect]

True, I know of no state law (Maryland) requiring written permission to metal detect. So a name, phone number, and cell phone should serve to persuade any questioning authorities. Just as a point of reference Maryland does require written permission to hunt (regular hunting involving guns and bows).

Happy Hunting (Metal Detecting! that is!)

Ed Donovan