ALTA Surveys and Title Review in Commercial Real Estate

ALTA refers to the American Land Title Association. In current practice the drawing is usually an ALTA/NSPS land title survey, prepared to standards used by surveyors and title companies. The map locates the parcel boundaries and the improvements on them: buildings, pavement, utilities that were observed, and other features the scope includes.

Optional items are often chosen from a table attached to the standard. A lender, a buyer, or a title company may ask for some of them and ignore others. There is no single survey that fits every warehouse and every office building. The surveyor, the title company, the lender, and your attorney should agree on the scope before the fieldwork is treated as final.

A title commitment is the title company’s offer to issue a policy if stated requirements are met. Requirements are the items to clear before closing: releases, entity documents, a survey, or a deed from the right owner. Exceptions are the matters the policy will not cover unless they are removed or specifically insured. Read both lists. A clean-looking building can sit under an exception that limits a driveway, a parking area, or a future addition.

The policy comes later, after closing, if the requirements were satisfied. Buyers who only skim the first page miss the exceptions, which is where commercial problems usually live. Your attorney should explain what an exception means for this parcel. This article will not interpret one. Bryan can tell you whether an exception collides with the way you planned to use or sell the property. That is a commercial observation, not a legal opinion.

An easement is a right someone else may have to use part of the land, often for access or utilities. Plotting it on the survey shows whether it runs through a building, a truck court, or a parking row you counted on. An encroachment is an improvement that crosses a boundary or an easement: a fence, a canopy, a stoop, a neighbor’s pavement. Some are trivial. Some block a loan or a use. The surveyor identifies the location. The attorney and the title company speak to the consequence.

Access deserves its own pass. A curb cut you drove through may be a license, a shared drive, or a right that does not reach a public street on paper. If the business depends on trucks, walk the route a truck would actually use and compare it with the legal access the commitment will insure. Industrial buyers should do this before they fall in love with the door count.

The contract should say who orders the survey, who pays, and what form is required. Lenders often have their own survey standards. A buyer who orders a drawing the lender will not accept has paid once and will pay again. Ask the lender early which standard the loan requires.

Title is ordered through a title company, often the one that will close the sale. The commitment should be read against the survey, not in a separate pile. When the legal description, the drawing, and the contract describe three slightly different parcels, stop and reconcile them. That reconciliation is attorney and surveyor work. The buy page is where this fits the rest of the purchase.