Lot survey cost?

[StaggeringGoat]

I'm looking at buying a cheap old house for the lot it sits on to build a shop. The house was a repo and the realtor doesn't know much about it. According to the city, the lot is 50x144, but my own measurements are way off. It looks like the neighbor's fence is about 8 feet onto the property and there is a question of whether there is a public alley behind the house or not.

Anyway, it looks like I'm going to have to have a surveyor come out and mark the corners. The lot is supposed to be exactly rectangular, but it's not. I won't buy it without knowing for sure, and I may have to back out if I don't like the results. (lot is barely big enough for my shop as it is)

Question is, roughly how much should this cost me? It's a small, rectangular lot so it should be relatively easy, but the house and records are from 1901.

If I am able to locate any old corner markers, would they hold any legal meaning if they happen to be in the wrong place?

 

[trackwelder]

I was quoted $800 to mark four corners on a 60'x180' lot. The neighborhood property was surveyed in the late 50's for a highway project. I am supplying all the taking maps and locations of the concrete benchmarks.

 

[5lima30]

I paid $1750 for surveying 2.04 ac about 8 years ago. It was steep mountainous and not cleared.

 

[Riverside]

I have had a couple of surveys done. I think they were both around $500-$600 for lots less than 1/2 acre. Working from old records can make it more complicated.

 

[wnstwolf]

Completed one on 10 acres about 16 months back. As I took civil engineering classes back in school thought I would pop in on the survey team and see how they set up the transists and the like figured they would be there all day.. Wow did I feel old. Two "kids" walking around with very cool GPS backpacks had the entire lot surveyed in about 2 hours. I received CAD drawings, full elevations points for foundation of house and barn and even some future elevation work for pond. About 90 points on the top map they provided.. Very impressed. Cost was $900

 

[Stuart in MN]

There was a big discussion on survey costs a couple weeks or a month ago - the end result is it will cost you somewhere between $100 and $10,000, depending on the situation. There's way too many variables to be able to provide any accurate estimate.

 

[Falcon67]

If you have the time, you might try looking on the county tax assessor web site and see if they have property mappings. I might be under the tax records or it might be a separate mapping program. That would give you an idea of what the county thinks it is and the neighbor properties. The tax records might have dimensions. They may also say when the last deed was recorded. You could go to the county records and see if there is a survey on file with the deed papers. If you could turn that up, then you could maybe locate the markers. Counting you time as money, a survey gets cheaper by the minute. We sold 1600 sq/ft of a lot to our neighbor when they were building last year, cost them $500 to set two more pins in relation to the pins just set that still had the orange ribbons on them.

 

[Kent J]

I had some work done last week and was surprised at the cost. I had a single property line marked so we could install a fence. Both ends were marked with T posts from the original survey 15 years ago. The property slopes so I couldn't just pull a line. They charged me $400.00 to put in 2 point on line pins. I thought that was high but just like everything else prices just keep going up. Good Luck

 

[ddawg16]

It cost me $800 to find all 4 corners....I now know my property line withing 1/8".

It was worth every cent....I gained about 6" on one side that I didn't think I had....it also convinced my next door neighbor that he tree was way too close and needed to come down....

 

[rodm1]

I payed $300 to $600 but it will be greatly different for everyone. It depends if they have a good datum point in your area if not you will pay more.

 

[Marcmcm]

We have a guy locally that's a retired surveryor and goes by "Mr. PinFinder" He'll find pins on relatively small parcels for about $200.

 

[Charles (in GA)]

There was a big discussion on survey costs a couple weeks or a month ago - the end result is it will cost you somewhere between $100 and $10,000, depending on the situation. There's way too many variables to be able to provide any accurate estimate.

^^^^
THIS

It all depends on............

pins
previous surveys of property
previous surveys of adjoining property
thoroughness and accuracy of deeds for your property
thoroughness and accuracy of deeds for adjoining properties
How recent previous surveys were.
multitudes of other factors

 

[StaggeringGoat]

If you have the time, you might try looking on the county tax assessor web site and see if they have property mappings. I might be under the tax records or it might be a separate mapping program. That would give you an idea of what the county thinks it is and the neighbor properties. The tax records might have dimensions.

Yeah...I've been looking at the county's maps, and that's what shows the lot as a 50x144 rectangle....I measure 165 feet inside the fence and 42 feet wide in some places. I think a survey is going to be the only way to get the neighbors to vacate what I think might be mine...

How would I look up any past surveys done? The house has been sold a few times in the last few years, I don't know if a proper survey was ever done though. I still need to look harder for any existing pins.

The surveyor's should be able to determine whether there is an alley at the end of the lot or not, shouldn't they? Or is this something I need to take up with the city?

 

[Will67]

Not this again, we went over this and EVER variation about two or three months ago!

 

[nso123]

Pull the deed to the property. It will state something like "from a pin located ***** follow a north, south, etc bearing for x number of feet to another pin". You should be able to see the markers off of those directions. I always try to go back 3 sales on the deeds, you may find a survey of the property referenced in one of those deeds. I recently had to do this because the county's GIS crew made an incorrect drawing and landlocked a piece of property we had.

 

[Highwayman]

You may find that since the lot is within the city and appears to be rectangular, it may have been part of an "addition" to the city that consisted of several lots with dedicated streets and alleys. The deed to the property might contain this information. The original plat (map of the original subdivision) would be located at the county engineers map office or auditors office (depends on your state and who controls these documents). The plat would show any monuments (iron pins, pipes, stones etc) that were set to control the original survey to be used to reestablish property lines in the future. The plat would also show any streets and alleys along with their widths.

The cost will be dependent on how many original monuments can be found and how much information is required to determine the lot corners. If the original monuments have been removed or disturbed, field work beyond the original subdivision will be required.

Just some observations from an Ohio registered land surveyor.

Good luck!