What Is a Property Survey? Types, Costs, and Uses Explained

What a property survey shows

The finished product is a plat, or map, drawn to scale. It pins down your property boundaries, using deed descriptions, recorded plats, and iron pins at each corner. When markers disagree with the records, the plat notes the discrepancy: exactly the problem to catch before closing. The survey also maps easements, legal rights for someone else to use part of your land, most commonly utility lines a power, water, or gas company may run across your lot. An easement can block a planned shed, pool, or fence entirely. Encroachments show up too: a neighbours fence two feet over the line or a garage corner onto your lot. Finally, it locates every improvement, meaning buildings, driveways, decks, and retaining walls, and plots them against setback lines, the minimum distances zoning requires between a structure and the boundary.

The main types of survey

Not every survey covers the same ground. A boundary survey is the standard residential choice: it establishes corners and lines, flags discrepancies between records and the ground, and locates visible improvements relative to those lines. If a lender or title company asks for a survey on a home purchase, they almost always mean a boundary survey, with iron pins typically set at each corner. An ALTA/NSPS land title survey is the most comprehensive option, developed jointly by the American Land Title Association and the National Society of Professional Surveyors. Beyond boundaries, it shows easements, encroachments, access points, and improvements, with optional Table A items adding flood zone or setback detail. Its main purpose is to support title insurance, giving lenders and insurers enough detail to remove the standard survey exception from a policy. Commercial transactions almost always require one. Lighter options: a mortgage location survey sets no monuments with boundary precision, so it will not hold up in a dispute; a topographic survey maps elevation for grading and foundation design.

When a survey is required, and when it is still worth it

Roughly half of US states require or strongly recommend a survey to close a residential purchase, though the exact rule varies by state and by title insurer. Elsewhere, lenders or title insurers may still request one, and commercial lenders typically require an ALTA survey. Beyond buying, get a survey before building or renovating: most building departments require a site plan showing proposed work against boundaries and setbacks before issuing a permit, and skipping this can mean tearing out finished work. A survey is also the standard answer to a boundary dispute, giving an impartial answer neighbours usually settle by agreement, easement, or small land purchase. Subdividing effectively requires one, since each new lot needs its own legal description and road access. Even when no one requires it, order one if the property has shared driveways or fences near lot lines.

Worked example: what a survey costs against the price of the home

Pricing varies with lot size, terrain, boundary complexity, and research needed. Take a case inside the published ranges: a boundary survey quoted at $2,000 on a home bought for $400,000, which is 0.5 percent of the price. At the top of the typical suburban range, a $5,500 survey on the same home is 1.375 percent. For roughly half a percent to under one and a half percent of the price, you confirm the boundaries of the largest asset most buyers ever own, and you learn about easements and encroachments while you still have leverage to ask the seller to fix them. Order early: a typical survey takes one to three weeks.

How to read your survey

Start with the boundary lines and corner monuments, check every structure against them, and confirm none crosses a setback line. Trace each easement, look for encroachments, and confirm the legal description matches your deed.

Survey vs appraisal vs title search

The three checks are complementary, not substitutes. An appraisal can value a home perfectly while missing a fence two feet over the line, and a title search can confirm clean ownership while missing an easement only a field survey reveals. A survey matters to title insurance for the same reason: standard policies contain a survey exception excluding anything a survey would have revealed, and a current survey lets the title company replace it with specific exceptions for issues found. See our guide to what a title company does and to what a title commitment is.

What to do if the survey finds a problem

Finding an encroachment or discrepancy is not unusual, and it does not automatically kill a deal. The first step is a conversation, not a lawsuit: many encroachments are accidental. Common resolutions include a recorded boundary line agreement, an easement grant, a purchase of the strip, or, as a last resort, removal. If you are the buyer, you hold the leverage before closing: require the seller to resolve it. Our verdict: order early and never waive it to speed up a closing.

This article is general information only, not financial advice.