Case Study #4: Property Acquisition: What Are You Buying?

How confident are you that what you’re buying is really what you think you’re buying? Sometimes it’s not.  A.G. Zoutewelle Surveyors is committed to identifying issues and opportunities for you in advance of your lock-in date for a real estate deal. 

Whether you obtain a survey during your inspection period or just in time for closing, you may be surprised at the issues a thorough survey (and related research) will identify.

A client recently engaged A.G. Zoutewelle Surveyors to provide an ALTA/ACSM Land Title Survey for a suburban site located on a growing interstate highway interchange.  During the course of the survey, we recognized that the current deed and survey descriptions did not match the configuration of the adjoining interstate highway.  We soon realized why, because the title of the property did not disclose any right-of-way deed to the State.  In other words, the surveyors and attorneys searching the property title records had no way of knowing exactly where the true right-of-way boundary of the property is located.  After extensive research, we were finally able to recover a copy of the right-of-way deed (dating back to the 1960’s), which had never been recorded on the public registry!

We concluded that the past surveys of the parcel erroneously omitted about one-third of an acre of land located adjacent to the State’s right-of-way due to inadequate information available to the past surveyors.  As a result of our thorough research, we were able to confirm that this additional land was part of our parcel and to allocate it to our client.  This area is some of the most valuable square footage on the site and can be used for additional parking, building area and other functions beyond the original expectations of our client.

We are proud of our detailed approach and the thoroughness of our process, which provides accurate contextual information our clients can confidently use to their advantage.  This is one of the important reasons why we call our process “Focused Contextual Surveying”.