When is an ALTA Survey needed?

Title companies require an up-to-date (usually no older than six months) survey to be completed before they will issue title insurance on a commercial, industrial or multi-family residential parcel of land. This protects the buyer (and by extension the insurer) by ensuring that he/she is getting what he/she is paying for.

Surveys are performed to determine the following elements:

• To verify legal description(s) and ensure that they are mathematically sound; to check for gaps and overlaps with descriptions of neighbors.
• To remove any exceptions from a title commitment.
• To show interested parties the risks and benefits of owning this property.
• To make the buyer aware of any potential claims or losses that may affect the land, such as boundary line conflicts, encroachments, easements, contiguity between parcels, access to highways, zoning issues. All of these could lead to litigation if a dispute arises.
• To verify actual matters as they existed during the survey should a buyer enter litigation on claims brought to them after the purchase.
• To determine if there are flood zone issues or non-conformance with zoning ordinance.