When Should You Contact a Professional Land Surveyor?
There are a variety of circumstances when you should contact a licensed land surveyor. The conveyance of property, construction of improvements, and boundary disputes are three prominent reasons to seek out surveying services. Although real estate professionals are familiar with the uses of surveying, many homeowners may learn that surveying services are required from their attorney, their architect, engineer, landscaper, contractor, or a complaining neighbor.
Real property is "Land and anything growing on, attached to, or erected on it, excluding anything that may be severed without injury to the land." Everything else is personal property. Each time real property (any lot, parcel or tract of vacant land, or with buildings and improvements) is sold from one party to another, a deed is drafted, delivered and records should be made at the appropriate land evidence offices. Most banks, mortgagers or other lenders will require a title examination, title report or abstract to be prepared to document a clear chain of title. That is, that the party selling the real property is actually the owner and that they acquired the land from the party who owned it before them. Title insurance may be required and purchased to protect against any question or clouds upon the quality of title that may be revealed by research that was incomplete, inaccurate or obscured. It is critical for land buyers to understand that a clear quality of title is not the same as a clear location of title.
The quality of title is the expertise of the title attorney. The location of title is the expertise of the registered professional land surveyor. Title Insurance will almost never help with claims related to matters of an unclear location of title. Extensive confusion, expense, and disappointment could frequently be avoided if a thorough, accurate boundary survey were conducted at the time of the title report, home inspection, tax exam, appraisal, and mortgage inspection plot plan. Easements, rights of way, and leases are some other land evidence instruments that your surveyor may be able to help interpret.
Property improvements including new construction, an addition, septic upgrade or design, a deck, new driveway paving, fencing, landscaping, a shed, or swimming pool are some occasions when surveying services are required. The location, scope of the improvements, and the state and local regulations will determine which surveying services may be required. Frequently, your registered land surveyor is an excellent resource for advice on what regulations may apply and for which improvements various permits may be required. Surveying services may vary from a partial lot stakeout for a privacy fence to survey plans and drawings suitable for a subdivision, building permit or zoning variance. Larger projects may also require drawings and designs by an architect, a landscape architect, or professional engineer. If the project is large enough to require these design services for the proposed activity, a survey is almost certainly prudent.
Boundary disputes usually erupt because one or more of the neighbors didn’t make it a priority to know the location of the real property they purchased. Perhaps the expense didn’t seem necessary. Perhaps they thought the neighbor's fence was the line. Perhaps they believed the realtor when they walked them around and pointed to a telephone pole, a mailbox or a hydrant. Perhaps they thought the parcel lines on the GIS was accurate and put in their improvements with a tape measure. Somehow, there is usually one neighbor on each block who thinks they know all about the property lines. This may be the same neighbor who may also think they are an expert on medical and legal matters. Only a licensed professional surveyor can give an expert opinion on the location of real property title. Once the boundary is known on the ground, the status of fences, structures, and other features can be determined. Features that extend over the property line are encroachments. Features that are too close to the boundary may be in violation of zoning.
When a licensed surveyor is contacted to determine a dividing line between two neighbors, one or both of them is frequently surprised by the result. When the research and field evidence are clear, the neighbors frequently realize that another survey opinion probably won't yield a substantially different result. In some cases, the field and research data may be ambiguous. A second opinion may shed additional light on an ambiguous boundary. Although the surveyor does not have a personal stake in the result, neighbors who are unhappily surprised may prefer to have the work checked by another professional. In the case of ambiguous data, SurveySearch.net may help land owners find a surveyor with prior experience in a specific area. Access to older survey data may reduce or eliminate the ambiguity if subsequent activity obliterated or obscured prior field evidence.
