Buying a Home in Florida? The Benefits of Getting a Survey.
We often get asked by home buyers here in the Orlando, FL area if they need to pay for a survey and why would they need one. The short answer is, “Yes”. It’s our opinion you should pay to have a survey done before purchasing your home. There are several good reasons for getting one.
If you are financing your home purchase, your lender will require one as a condition of the mortgage. The mortgage lender wants legal documentation of the real estate that is will be holding an interest in, what structures are on the property, and where they are in relation to the property lines.
The first thing a professional surveyor will do is establish the boundaries to the property and ascertain that the boundary markers, typically a steel bar in the ground, are in the correct location. They do this by making exact measurements from control points in the neighborhood, which could be a stone monument or steel stake in the roadway.
Once the boundary markers are identified and certified as being in the correct location, the surveyor will identify the location of other structures on the property in relation to the property lines. The survey will document the location of all structures and utility easements in relation to the property lines.
Surveys are certified only to person(s) who hired the surveyor. In the case of a home purchase, that’s usually the home buyer, title company, and mortgage holder. The surveyor who did the most recent appraisal usually can re-certify it to the new homeowner for a reduced fee. In order to successfully dispute a property line disagreement or get a permit to install a new structure, such as a pool, fence, or shed, a survey certified to the current property owner must be included.
We have had cases where the home seller offers an original or copy of a survey to the home buyer. Those are not valid for any legal purpose, though may be helpful for preliminary, informational purposes such as when making an offer on a home. Seller provided copies of surveys do not document anything done to or near the property since that survey was done. If there are one or more errors on the survey that create a costly problem for a new homeowner, the new homeowner would have no recourse with the surveyor as it was certified only to the previous homeowner.
What are some issues that can be avoided with a properly done survey, certified to the new homeowner? A fence mistakenly put a few inches on the wrong side of the property line may be easy to fix. A buyer or buyer’s lender could require a seller to take care of that before closing and would only be known with a properly done and recent survey. An in-ground pool or detached garage built several feet over a property line or into a utility easement, not discovered until months or years later, would be costly to remedy.
When buying real estate, we recommend buyers always have a survey done and certified to them. It’s legal documentation certified to the new homeowner of the exact location of the property lines and the location of structures on and near the property.
Thank you to Rodney Jackson, licensed Surveyor at Boundary and Mapping Associates, Oviedo, FL for contributing to this article.