Relating to liability for land surveying services in or in connection with certain construction or services contracts.

Contracts

Critical Action: You must overhaul your Standard Professional Services Agreements and MSAs for survey work.

• Indemnification: Remove clauses requiring the surveyor to indemnify you for *your* negligence. Limit indemnity strictly to the surveyor’s own negligence or breach.
• Duty to Defend: Delete requirements for the surveyor to "defend" you (pay legal fees upfront). Replace with a clause requiring reimbursement of attorney’s fees only after liability is adjudicated and only in proportion to the surveyor's percentage of fault.
• Standard of Care: Remove any language requiring "highest professional standards," "best practices," or "trust and confidence." Revert to the statutory standard: "ordinary professional skill and care."

Hiring/Training

• Procurement Teams: Train purchasing agents and project managers that they cannot force surveyors to sign old templates. Attempting to enforce a void clause is a waste of legal spend.
• Insurance Verification: Since you lose the "duty to defend," you must rely more heavily on insurance. Mandate that surveyors name your entity as an Additional Insured on their General Liability policies. This is your primary shield now.

Reporting & Record-Keeping

• Contract Segregation: Update your document management system to flag contracts based on the September 1, 2025, cutoff. In the event of a claim, your legal team needs to know instantly which liability regime applies.

Fees & Costs

• Legal Spend: Budget for immediate outside counsel fees to redline standard contract templates.
• Litigation Cash Flow: Owners and GCs must budget to front their own defense costs in disputes involving surveyors. You will no longer be able to tender the defense to the surveyor immediately; you must fund the defense and seek reimbursement later.