This article is about land surveying and problems that can arise from human error. The title is from a carpenter’s proverb (not in a biblical sense), and refers to the fact that in the world of  surveying, accuracy is critical to prevent costly problems.

The Value of Land Surveying

Land surveying plays an important role in the commercial real estate industry.  Without it the size of the land, its improvements and the building size would be difficult to establish.  The ALTA land title survey is the key to verifying this and other information, such as the location of utilities, the property boundary and how it relates to title (see the full review checklist for ALTA surveys here). Similarly, a zoning report for undeveloped or developed properties can insure that there will be no impediments in this regard for the real estate transaction.  Land surveying also plays a critical role in new construction, as will be seen.

Ownership of property in the United States is confirmed by a “certificate of title” to protect owners or lenders against financial loss from defects in title or liens, the first land title insurance company, the Law Property and Trust Society, was formed in Pennsylvania in 1853. The American Land Title Association (ALTA) is a national non-profit trade association representing the interests of nearly 4,500 title insurance companies, title agents, independent abstracters, title searchers and attorneys across the United States founded in 1907,

ALTA has created standard forms of title insurance policies for Owners, Lenders and Construction Loan policies. Important for this story, the association also has created a standard ALTA Survey used as part of the title insurance confirmation process in commercial real estate transactions. Here are the actual current ALTA Survey standards (2011).

Accuracy in land surveying is critical, and minor errors in the survey can lead to major problems in the construction process.  The quality of a land survey depends on the surveyor’s professional experience and qualifications, the firm’s ability to efficiently coordinate a network of registered surveyors and obtain title policies on behalf of its clients on single or multi-site transactions, and the implementation of a thorough review and quality assurance process.

A story About What Can Go Wrong …
Earlier in my career, I worked with a client who was developing “spec industrial buildings” at two large parcels of land in the Chicago far suburbs. They had purchased the land and their surveyor did the land development for roads and utilities and subdivision into sites for individual buildings. At the outset of the project, the owner’s surveyor had to visit the site and do construction staking for the perimeter wall and the interior footings. This was done with our construction drawings which had all the required measurements.

One spring day one of the construction managers came into my office and sat down red in the face.  It turned out that the land surveyor had staked the wrong parcel and the subcontractor had already poured most of the foundation wall.  Thankfully, the client decided that since the two parcels were close in size, they could just proceed in the new parcel.  Nevertheless, it was a bizarre event that stuck in my mind. 

Fast forward a number of years: I had a high-end men’s clothing client in Chicago that was moving the downtown operations next-door to their warehouse in suburban Chicago. Their new building had a much bigger floor plan than the warehouse so the plan was to back up the new building to the north wall of the warehouse and size the new building so that it would extend all the way to the west property line. Upon reviewing the client’s existing site survey with all the parcel boundaries dimensioned and the existing buildings marked, something in the back of my mind told me we should set back the building one foot from the property line. Everyone at the meeting gave me a lot of pushback but in the end I prevailed – and luckily so!

In early December, a construction staking survey was done laying out the exterior wall footings and the interior column footings.  All the perimeter foundations and interior column footings were excavated and then the foundations were poured (being Chicago, the construction industry had figured out how to pour concrete in winter!). A final survey was conducted to check the staking of the footings before the steel went to fabrication… and this is when it was discovered that the building was in fact 10 inches wider in the east west dimension than in the drawings! The building was now 2 inches from the property line.  And, because the building was 10 inches wider, the structural bays dimensions also did not match the drawings. 

Uh-oh. The land surveyor had made a mistake. Luckily we had planned to be a foot back from the property line otherwise the building would extend into the adjacent property!!  Still, before the project could continue, all the structural drawings had to be changed – a costly exercise. 

The five main tasks of land surveying are: research, field work, computing, mapping and stake-out. This story shows the importance of accurate performance of each of these tasks.  The lesson is not to never build to the property line (although that is what saved our client an even worse headache in this case!) but to engage a survey firm that has all the resources at its disposal and the expertise to complete the project without error.