ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey in Seattle, WA

Built for Lenders and Title Insurers

An ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey is the survey commercial real estate runs on. Its content is fixed by a national standard jointly maintained by the American Land Title Association and the National Society of Professional Surveyors, which is why a lender in another state can read a survey of a Georgetown warehouse and know what it contains without calling anyone. Buyers, lenders and title companies order it when a property is being bought, refinanced or developed and nobody wants to rely on the owner's memory of where the fences are.

Removing the Survey Exception

A title policy issued in Washington without a survey carries a general exception for matters an accurate survey would disclose. On a house that is often accepted. On an apartment building, retail pad or industrial yard it usually is not, because the lender wants extended coverage, and the title company will generally only remove that exception once it has a current survey showing boundaries, access, improvements and every recorded easement it has listed in the commitment. The survey responds item by item to that commitment: each recorded document is either plotted on the drawing or noted as not affecting the property, with the reason.

The Optional Items Are the Negotiation

Beyond its minimum requirements the standard offers a menu of optional items - flood zone designation, zoning setbacks and height, building area, parking counts, utilities, evidence of recent earthwork, and more. The lender's counsel or the buyer's attorney usually specifies which ones apply, and that list is what really defines the size of the job. We ask for it before quoting, and for the title commitment with copies of its exception documents, because a survey scoped before either is available tends to be revised afterward.

Where Commercial Surveys Come Up Around the Region

Industrial land in the Duwamish corridor and SoDo in Seattle brings old railroad rights of way, vacated streets and filled tideland into the title picture. Warehouse and distribution property on the valley floor in Kent and Renton often carries drainage and levee-related easements, and flood zone status is frequently one of the requested items. Office and retail parcels in Bellevue and Redmond tend to involve shared access, reciprocal parking agreements and utility corridors among neighboring owners. Whatever the setting, how those easements affect the deal is for the attorneys; the survey shows where they are. If the transaction is residential and the goal is simply to know the line, a boundary survey is the better fit. When the property will be redeveloped, the same fieldwork can feed a topographic survey, and a separate elevation certificate may be needed for flood insurance on buildings in a mapped zone.

How long does it take? The longest of the survey types we produce. The title commitment and its recorded documents usually set the pace, not the field work.

Frequently Asked Questions