ALTA Survey: Blanket Easement, Unrecorded Lease, and Client Instructions
A 6.2-acre commercial parcel under contract; the lender requires an ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey. The title commitment lists (1) a 1968 blanket easement 'for utility purposes over and across all of the above-described property,' with no defined location and no grantee improvements of record, and (2) a 1994 30-foot ingress/egress easement along the south 30 feet, which coincides with the paved entrance drive. Physical evidence includes a 6-foot masonry wall and a chain-link fence that run 1.3 ft west of the record west line for 340 ft, a 0.6-ft roof overhang at the northeast corner of the building, and a gravel parking area that appears to cross onto the neighboring parcel by about 4 ft.
The client's attorney sends written instructions: 'Show the masonry wall as the west boundary and do not show the tenant's unrecorded 12-year lease; the lease is a private matter and the lender doesn't need it. Also please certify no encroachments.' The tenant has installed a walk-in cooler that projects 2.1 ft from the north wall of the building.
1. How do you respond to the two written instructions - show the wall as the boundary and certify no encroachments?
Read the worked answer
You cannot comply with either, and you should say so in writing before doing more field work.
The wall instruction: an ALTA survey shows the boundary as determined from the record and the evidence, not as the client prefers. The wall and fence are 1.3 ft inside the record west line and must be shown as physical features, dimensioned, with the record line also shown. If the client wants the wall treated as the boundary, that requires a boundary line agreement, a lot-line adjustment, or adjudication - a legal act, not a surveying option. Certifying otherwise would mislead the lender and expose you to liability.
The 'certify no encroachments' instruction: no surveyor can certify a negative absolutely. You can show the encroachments you observed and state the limits of the investigation - for example, 'no encroachments observed other than those shown; observation limited to areas visible from the ground on [date].' The 0.6-ft roof overhang, the 1.3-ft wall, the 2.1-ft cooler, and the 4-ft gravel overlap must all appear because they are observable and affect the property.
Put the refusal in a letter: restate the request, explain the standard, state what you will provide, and ask for written acknowledgment. If the client insists, decline the engagement rather than issue a qualified-but-misleading certification. Keep the letter and the response in the project file.
2. How do you depict the 1968 blanket utility easement, and how does the 1994 ingress/egress easement differ?
Read the worked answer
The 1968 blanket easement is a matter of record and must appear, but a blanket easement with no defined location cannot be drawn as a 20-ft strip in a particular place.
Handle it as a note on the face of the plat, quoting the recording reference and the 'over and across all' language, and stating that its location is undefined of record. Do not invent a location. If you find physical evidence of the utility - poles, anchors, pedestals, manholes, trench depressions, or a line of vegetation change - show those features, dimension them, and note that they may or may not reflect the easement's location. Check the grantee's records, as-builts, and any later instrument that fixed the location; a later instrument may have converted the blanket right into a defined strip. Flag that a blanket easement may burden the entire parcel, including proposed building areas - a significant issue for the lender and the borrower's development plans.
The 1994 easement is different: it has a defined 30-ft strip along the south line, so show it graphically and note its coincidence with the paved drive. If the pavement or the drive leaves the 30-ft strip at any point, dimension the deviation. Note maintenance obligations only if the document creates them. Distinguish clearly between record rights (drawn from documents) and observed physical evidence (tied from the field), so a reader can tell which is which.
3. How do you handle the unrecorded 12-year lease and the tenant's projecting cooler?
Read the worked answer
The lease is not a survey interest. ALTA standards require you to show easements and other matters of record, and to show physical evidence of unrecorded interests that you observe. A 12-year lease known only from the client's attorney, with no physical evidence on the ground, is a title matter for the title company, not a survey depiction. You should not show it as an easement, and you should not certify that no unrecorded leases exist.
The cooler is different. A 2.1-ft projection is a physical improvement and must be shown if it crosses a line or affects a setback, along with the building, the wall, the fence, and the gravel area. If the lease creates rights visible on the ground - a separate drive, a fenced tenant area, signage, or utility connections - show those physical features and note that they may reflect an unrecorded interest.
The right response to the attorney is a short letter: 'The lease is a title matter outside the scope of the survey; we will not depict it or certify its absence. Please have the title company address it in Schedule B.' That protects the lender, who is relying on the title policy rather than the plat for leasehold issues, and it protects you from certifying something you cannot know. Do not accept a verbal instruction to omit anything; ask for it in writing, refuse in writing, and keep both.