Do You Need A Land Survey When Buying A Home?
You would think that, after a few hundred years, land titles and property deeds would be fairly accurate. In most cases, the titles themselves are accurate. It’s we humans who aren’t.
I recently read a story about a parcel of land that had been sold. When it came to surveying the land prior to building, the surveyors found that the neighboring property had, at some time in the past, moved the fence line across by about six feet.
That six feet doesn’t sound like much. However, that’s wide enough for a driveway and certainly wide enough for a garden. More importantly, that six feet had been ‘stolen’ from the rightful owner. Perhaps the buyers should have considered a land survey as part of the sale. Mortgage holders will generally insist on a land survey as part of the mortgage process and that’s fair enough too. They are investing in the property.
Land surveys are not cheap, but if you are buying older properties or properties that have been recently subdivided, then a land survey will ensure that you are receiving what you have purchased. The real tricky issue is when you have a survey undertaken and that survey shows that your property should be smaller than what you see, that in fact the fences on the property you wish to purchase have encroached on the property next door. In this case, you can back out of the sale or negotiate a price reduction with the seller.
Land surveys can be an important issue when it comes to buying a home. You need to ensure you are getting what you are paying for – no loss and no more.
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