Two years after closing on an industrial building, our client got a letter from the neighbor. The truck apron and roughly fourteen feet of the parking area sat on the neighbor's parcel. The neighbor had a survey. Our client did not.
No survey had been ordered. The lender had not insisted on one, the clock had been tight, and it looked like a line item worth cutting.
His title policy did not help him, and the reason is the part most buyers never learn.
Two documents, two different jobs
The title commitment tells you what is recorded: liens, easements, covenants, mineral reservations, rights of way. Schedule B is the list of exceptions, which is to say the list of things your policy will not cover.
The survey tells you where all of that sits on the ground, and what is physically there that no document mentions. A commitment can tell you a utility easement exists. Only a survey tells you it runs beneath your loading dock.
Neither is sufficient alone, and the interaction between them is where the money is. A standard owner's policy contains a survey exception, excluding matters an accurate survey would disclose. Deliver a current ALTA/NSPS survey and the insurer will generally remove or amend that exception, which is what converts your policy from a document about paperwork into one that covers the dirt.
Skip the survey and you have bought insurance against recorded defects only, which is precisely the category of problem our client did not have.
| Title commitment | ALTA survey | |
|---|---|---|
| Recorded easements and liens | Yes | Plots where they run |
| Encroachments, either direction | No | Yes |
| Legal access to a public road | Sometimes | Confirms it physically |
| Setback and coverage conflicts | No | Yes |
| Improvements outside the boundary | No | Yes |
| Effect on your policy | Lists exceptions | Removes the survey exception |
What surveys actually turn up
- Encroachments in both directions. Their fence on your land is a boundary dispute waiting to happen. Your building on their land is worse.
- No legal access. A parcel reached across somebody else's land by long habit rather than by recorded easement is effectively landlocked, and lenders treat it as unfinanceable.
- Easements crossing improvements. A utility right of way beneath a building limits what you can rebuild, which compounds the nonconforming use problem if you ever need to.
- Setback and coverage conflicts that the seller has lived with quietly for twenty years.
- A legal description that does not match what you toured, which happens more often than anyone expects on parcels that have been split or assembled.
The timing problem, again
An ALTA survey typically takes two to four weeks, sometimes longer in rural areas or where records are poor. That lands squarely inside the 45-day identification window, competing with inspection, financing and lease review.
Which is why it gets cut. It is expensive, it is slow, and nothing about it feels urgent until it is the only document that mattered.
The discipline is simple: order the survey and request the title commitment on the day you go under contract, read Schedule B line by line rather than skimming it, and ask your title company what endorsements are available and what each one costs. If a survey cannot be completed before day 45, that is itself information, and you can still revoke and re-identify while the window is open.
Our client settled with his neighbor. It cost him a five figure sum, a boundary line agreement, and the better part of a year. The survey would have cost a fraction of that, and he would have negotiated the price instead. Building both documents into the first week is exactly what our exchange process is sequenced to force, and your attorney and title company should review the specifics for your purchase.
Common questions about surveys and title commitments
Is a title commitment enough on its own?
No. It covers recorded matters. Physical conditions such as encroachments, access and improvements outside the boundary only appear on a survey.
What is the survey exception?
A standard exclusion in an owner's title policy for matters an accurate survey would reveal. Providing a current ALTA survey generally lets the insurer remove or amend it.
How long does an ALTA survey take?
Commonly two to four weeks, longer in rural areas or where records are incomplete. Order it the day you go under contract.
My lender is not requiring a survey. Should I still get one?
Yes. The lender is protecting its loan position, not your equity or your ability to use the property as you intend.
What should I read in the title commitment?
Schedule B, line by line. Those exceptions are the things your policy will not cover, and each one deserves an explanation.
Disclosure: Numerical example is for illustration purposes only; individual circumstances will vary.