I recently completed an ALTA survey.
I spent many hours locating the improvements to the site and in addition to my field location, I had the site flown (it was a complicated site), and because time was critical
I spent HOURS!!!! on the phone with attorneys the title company and others, walking them thru the survey step by step, in how the easements, both on site and offsite affected the fee parcel. We went through every detail, from street opening permits to, sign-offs on easements, to is this contiguous with that... HOURS!!!
Anybody wanna guess how many questions were asked about the improvements I located/had flown?
I'll send a $0.05 gum ball to the person who guesses closest...two $0.05 gumballs if you get it exact!!!
Zero
Happy chewing!
It makes sense that the attorneys would be more concerned with title rights that they cannot see, rather than physical improvements that they can see.
If you had to tabulate what items caused the most trouble in terms of closings and in terms of title, I'd be guessing it's the former.
Who gets the bills from the attorneys for talking to them on the phone? I once had to keep calling an attorney because he couldn't get some easement documents right even after I provided him with the well-written legal descriptions. He billed the client for my calls when I was just trying to make sure the confused attorney got it right to get the project completed.
Time for phone calls was built into contract.