Description.
A mortgage survey is often required when you purchase a property with a house on it or just a vacant lot. Lender wants to verify that the property they are lending money for matches the legal documents and is suitable as collateral for a loan.
A Liquor License Survey is done when restaurants, liquor stores or bars apply for a liquor license. Distances are measured to the nearest Church, School, Residential home, Public Park, Etc)
Property Line Staking for Fence Installation (Putting wooden stakes exactly on the property lines)
Condominium Conversion Survey (When apartment complex is converted from single ownership into multiple ownerships, that a developer can sell each individual apartment space as a condo)
ALTA and the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping (ACSM) have jointly developed a set of land surveying standards, with the goal of promoting uniformity and standards in land survey information.
Atlanta ALTA ACSM Land Title Survey is a boundary survey prepared to a set of minimum standards that have been jointly prepared and adopted by the ALTA/ACSM. Also an ALTA survey shows improvements, easements, rights-of-way, and other elements impacting the ownership of land. An Atlanta ALTA ACSM Land Title Survey is often prepared for commercial properties, as it will provide the title company with the information required to insure the title to the land and improvements to the high degree of accuracy that a commercial development may require. In addition to the minimum standards set forth, a table of optional elements is included in the ALTA/ACSM standards. A careful review of the elements from the optional “Table A” is helpful in delineating a clear scope of the land surveyor’s services.
A current title commitment is required before an ALTA ACSM Land Title Survey can be completed. The surveyor will refer to the title commitment for the legal description of the property and for the legal description of any encumbrances (exceptions). Areas of ownership, improvements and encumbrances will be shown graphically. If the survey discovers any encroachments, they should be shown graphically or indicate that it can not be plotted, a note indicating the nature of the encroachment may also be added.
The certification language of the Atlanta ALTA ACSM Land Title Survey should include the names of the affected parties, including as appropriate the buyer, seller, title company, insurance company and lender. The surveyor must work in close association with the title insurance company, as the surveyor and the title company are relying on each others work to show the matters affecting the ownership of the land and improvements in a comprehensive manner.
An ALTA ACSM Land Title Survey has especially stringent requirements as developed by a joint effort of the American Land Title Association and the American Congress on Surveying and Mapping. The ALTA standards are a nationwide uniform set of standards. Atlanta Alta survey is specifically designed to satisfy the needs of lenders, corporations and title companies when dealing with valuable commercial and industrial properties.
For more information please read ALTA website.
When construction is finished the County Building Departments will require an as-built survey to make sure that everything that was shown on the construction siteplan is actually on the ground now. County inspectors and reviewers will compare all elements and if everything is in place as it theoretically should be, the builders get approval on the land surveying part of inspection process.
Atlanta as-built surveys pass inspection successfully when the builder cooperates with Professional Atlanta Land Surveyors by hiring them for construction staking and foundations verification along the process till the final result: the as-built survey.
Services:
After the Construction Siteplan in Metro Atlanta gets approved, builder is on the way to start the construction in the field. All the proposed elements such as house, driveway, decks, retaining walls must be installed exactly where they are indicated on the siteplan.
Mostly in town lots are not very wide and proposed buildings are to be located just within the building setbacks determined by the zoning regulations and in these cases all exterior corners of the structure must be staked on the ground with great accuracy. We as Atlanta Land Surveyors establish a coordinate network with horizontal and vertical controls from the beginning of the property and use it throughout the project to calculate and precisely determine exact location of corners of proposed structures where we place wooden stakes with the appropriate descriptions. (example: PL – property line, HC – house corner)
Atlanta House Staking is very important step in the construction process, that is where foundation of the building will be on your parcel of land within building setbacks. All other building finishing’s take place after foundation construction and we can not emphases enough – how important is to have foundation in the right place. You might ask us: “Who in the world would not follow guide lines and take risks?” Oh well, we have seen cases where builders would assume proposed location and lay out building in the entirely wrong place themselves and you probably image for yourself how expensive it is to remove the building and start all over again.
Suggestion – give construction staking project in Metro Atlanta to professionals to handle. Call Survey Land Express and we would be glad to provide Land Surveying Service that will move your project forwards smoothly.
Lot Split or Lot Consolidation (Subdividing one piece of property into two pieces of property. Or combining multiple parcels into one, usually is done for development purposes).
A Subdivision Survey is a recorded plat that shows residential or commercial complex, all the lots in the development and is an official record that real estate attorneys use for closings.
When it rains for several days non stop property owners can find themselves trapped in the house when water is everywhere around the building or you need a boat to get to your house. How to find out that before purchasing a house? Answer is – call Survey Land Express and order a flood elevation certificate in Metro Atlanta prior to buying the house.
Back in old days people were building houses even in the flood areas, the building codes didn’t have the restriction to stay away from flood area. So there are many older houses now that are located with 100 year flood plain. Metro Atlanta Elevation Certificates are commonly done in the areas of Peachtree creek, Nancy creek and Chattahoochee river.
National Flood Insurance Program.
Purposed of elevation certificate.
The Elevation Certificate is an important administrative tool of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP). It is to be used to provide elevation information necessary to ensure compliance with community floodplain management ordinances, to determine the proper insurance premium rate, and to support a request for a Letter of Map Amendment (LOMA) or Letter of Map Revision based on fill (LOMR-F).
Atlanta Elevation Certificate is required in order to properly rate post-FIRM buildings, which are buildings constructed after publication of the Flood Insurance Rate Map (FIRM), located in flood insurance Zones A1-A30, AE, AH, A (with BFE), VE, V1-V30, V (with BFE), AR, AR/A, AR/AE, AR/A1-A30, AR/AH, and AR/AO.
The Elevation Certificate is not required for pre-FIRM buildings unless the building is being rated under the optional post-FIRM flood insurance rules. As part of the agreement for making flood insurance available in a community, the NFIP requires the community to adopt a floodplain management ordinance that specifies minimum requirements for reducing flood losses. One such requirement is for the community to obtain the elevation of the lowest floor (including basement) of all new and substantially improved buildings, and maintain a record of such information. The Elevation Certificate provides a way for a community to document compliance with the community’s floodplain management ordinance.
Use of this certificate does not provide a waiver of the flood insurance purchase requirement. Only a LOMA or LOMR-F from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) can amend the FIRM and remove the Federal mandate for a lending institution to require the purchase of flood insurance. However, the lending institution has the option of requiring flood insurance even if a LOMA/LOMR-F has been issued by FEMA. The Elevation Certificate may be used to support a LOMA or LOMR-F request. Lowest floor and lowest adjacent grade elevations certified by a surveyor or engineer will be required if the certificate is used to support a LOMA or LOMR-F request. A LOMA or LOMR-F request must be submitted with either a completed FEMA MT-EZ or MT-1 package, whichever is appropriate.
This certificate is used only to certify building elevations. A separate certificate is required for floodproofing. Under the NFIP, non-residential buildings can be floodproofed up to or above the Base Flood Elevation (BFE). A floodproofed building is a building that has been designed and constructed to be watertight (substantially impermeable to floodwaters) below the BFE. Floodproofing of residential buildings is not permitted under the NFIP unless FEMA has granted the community an exception for residential floodproofed basements. The community must adopt standards for design and construction of floodproofed basements before FEMA will grant a basement exception. For both floodproofed nonresidential buildings and residential floodproofed basements in communities that have been granted an exception by FEMA, a floodproofing certificate is required.
Additional guidance can be found in the FEMA Floodplain Management Bulletin about using the Elevation Certificate, available on FEMA website.
