As a licensed professional engineer with over 20 years of experience and a licensed professional land surveyor with 5 years of experience, I will give a unique perspective from both professions.
Many homeowners in Maryland have a drawing of their property somewhere in their closing paperwork, and many of them believe it is a survey. They were given this "plat" by the closing agent when they closed on their new house. When they come to me for work on the property, they bring it out and say, "I already had a survey done, here it is."
It is a real document, prepared by a licensed surveyor, but it was not prepared for them.
Who the drawing is for
Location drawings produced during a residential property sale are solely for the purpose of the title insurance company. Most title insurance policies are purchased by the mortgage company. Very few are purchased by the buyer.
Most buyers do not understand that the mortgage company purchases title insurance. The mortgage company is purchasing protection from lost, forged or incorrectly filed deeds, property access issues, liens, or other issues on a property that could result in them losing their investment, or affect the borrower's ability to pay the mortgage due to property title ownership issues.
The drawing is part of that protection. You pay for it at settlement, but it is there to answer the lender's question.
What the drawing provides
Under the minimum standards for land surveying in Maryland, a surveyor preparing a location drawing must examine the current deed and the recorded plat, if there is one, and take enough on-site measurements to do the work.
What the title insurance company gets is a level of certainty regarding three things:
- significant buildings, structures, and other improvements, in their approximate relationship to the apparent property lines reflected in the deed
- a statement regarding the level of accuracy of distances to those apparent property lines
- possible encroachments either way across the property lines, to the extent reasonably determined by a visual inspection of the property
The property lines are called apparent because they come from the deed. The relationship to them is called approximate because the drawing states its own level of accuracy. Encroachments are limited to what the surveyor could see on the property that day. Typical accuracy of a location drawing is plus or minus one foot.
What the state requires us to print on it
The minimum standards require this sentence, in capital letters:
A LOCATION DRAWING IS NOT A BOUNDARY SURVEY AND CANNOT BE RELIED UPON BY ANYONE TO SHOW WHERE THE PROPERTY'S BOUNDARIES ARE.
The drawing must also display that it:
- is of benefit to a consumer only insofar as it is required by a lender or a title insurance company in connection with a contemplated transfer, financing, or refinancing
- is not to be relied upon for the establishment or location of fences, garages, buildings, or other existing or future improvements
- does not provide for the accurate identification of property boundary lines
When a location drawing is enough
For the transfer of title, or for securing financing or refinancing, the location drawing is typically sufficient. The regulation says the accurate identification of property boundary lines may not be required for those purposes. You do not need to buy anything else.
That is what the document is for.
Where the misunderstanding happens
Typically, when a client is requesting surveying services, they already have some understanding of their location drawing. Sometimes I will give a price and they will say, "but I already have this survey, shouldn't it be cheaper?" Then I have to explain what hiring a licensed surveyor provides.
A boundary survey is not a cheaper or more expensive version of a location drawing. It is different work. To provide a justifiable boundary, a licensed surveyor has an ethical and legal requirement to perform research based on recorded documents, unrecorded documents, physical evidence, and oral evidence. Oral evidence means what people can tell you about the property and where the line has been treated as running.
Where location drawings tend to be a larger issue is when a client is trying to make a significant improvement to the property, or change how it is used. Usually this occurs because the county or town requires a permit, and the permit requires a site plan. Property owners sometimes provide a location drawing and say that a survey has already been done. Then I have to explain what a professional engineer needs in order to meet the minimum standards for the design of a site plan.
That usually means a property boundary survey, a topographic survey, the site plan, and stormwater plans when they are required. The property owner is usually shocked at the price we charge for that. Sometimes we convince them, sometimes they go somewhere else, and sometimes the project does not happen at all.
What to do
The location drawing was the right document to buy at closing. The trouble comes from planning around it later.
Take it out of the folder and read it. If it carries the capitalized sentence above, or the language about not being relied upon for fences and buildings, it is a location drawing.
If you are planning an improvement, call your county or town permit office and ask what the permit requires before you call anyone else. If they tell you a site plan, you know it is a package of work and not a single drawing, and you can plan for it.