Surveying the Property:
Table A: Significant Optional Survey Requirements
An ALTA / ACSM Land Survey is usually required during real estate transactions or development to define and describe a property in detail. An ALTA survey shows the property’s legal description, improvements, easements, rights-of-way, and other elements impacting the ownership of land.
Based on the stakeholder, type of property and location of property (flood zone, environment, commercial) clients can pick and choose specific items to customize the survey to meet their specific needs. The list of options are found under Table A of the document found here. Smith-Roberts National Corporation describes a few of them below:
Option 3. Flood zone classification (with proper annotation based on federal Flood Insurance Rate Maps or the state or local equivalent) depicted by scaled map location and graphic plotting only.
Option 6a and 6b are related to zoning. Back in Jan 2011 – we first announced the significance of this change. 2011 ALTA Survey Requirements have placed the obligation of providing municipal zoning information for the local land surveyors use to the title insurer. The insurer must provide zoning report and zoning related documents to the surveyor.
Option 11: Utilities Shows location of utilities existing on or serving the surveyed property.
Option 19. Location of wetland areas as delineated by appropriate authorities. This is a new item – the surveyor needs to be provided with a wetland map of the property.
Option 20.
- Locate improvements within any offsite easements or servitudes benefiting the surveyed property that are disclosed in the Record Documents provided to the surveyor and that are observed in the process of conducting the survey (client to obtain necessary permissions).
- Monuments placed (or a reference monument or witness to the corner) at all major corners of any offsite easements or servitudes benefitting the surveyed property and disclosed in Record Documents provided to the surveyor (client to obtain necessary permissions).
For complete details and information on ALTA Survey and Table A items please call us.
