What's the zoning/future use of the property and the nature of the purchaser's business? There is one purpose for an ALTA/NSPS Title Survey - to remove the survey exception from the title insurance policy.
We didn't get the job but at my previous firm we put together a proposal for ALTA surveys on about 75 vacant wooded parcels in the Florida panhandle. There are reserves of some rare type of clay that is used in pharmaceutical manufacturing on the properties and they were being purchased by a mining company. I've also performed ALTA surveys on unimproved properties for the transfer of raw land between forest product companies and for various states and federal agencies when purchasing raw land for future development or preservation.
Thank you for that thought. It's a conservation restriction. No future development.
I've gone to war against title companies over ALTAs and it never accomplished anything and certainly didn't help my client. I've been in, and I'm about to be in again, your situation and I just write my client a letter explaining what's going on and provide them the means to ask the title company pertinent questions regarding the necessity of another major expense. The meat of it is: The title company already has my boundary and therefore all the information that is pertinent to this transaction. They have not identified any easements or boundary issues that are not currently displayed on the map. I stand by my work but by certifying directly to the lender and title company I am providing them with what they really seem to want, an increased ability to collect from my insurer in the unlikely event that there's a claim against title. My price for this increased lability to me plus the time addressing and readdressing comments is $XX,XXX.
Clients who deal with a lot of commercial real estate transactions know the game or can easily understand it when you point it out to them. A PLS could price an ALTA for these folks at 80% of a resurvey or more if time is of the essence.
An ALTA for a conservation restriction (easement?) is a new one to me. I've done a bunch of them but never in ALTA form.
This, copied and pasted from the ALTA Standards, may apply to some of the issues raised about an ALTA not covering the issues typically shown on a local survey:
Other Requirements and Standards of Practice - Many states and some local jurisdictions have adopted statutes, administrative rules, and/or ordinances that set out standards regulating the practice of surveying within their jurisdictions. In addition to the standards set forth herein, surveyors must also conduct their surveys in accordance with applicable jurisdictional survey requirements and standards of practice. Where conflicts between the standards set forth herein and any such jurisdictional requirements and standards of practice occur, the more stringent must apply.
Ken
An ALTA is effectively an insurance policy — the surveyor is certifying that his work has met clear and well-vetted requirements, and has presented it in a manner familiar to the title and banking industries. A generic boundary survey map doesn’t offer those same assurances, at least not in a nationally-standardized format.
Around here we rarely see ALTAs on residential property, but they’re SOP for commercial properties.
This is my experience as well. Banks need standardized and clearly-defined requirements for surveys, which is understandable.
Statutory records of survey are often inadequate - around here there is no statutory requirement to research and show easements, for example. Not good enough for a lender.
