Land surveyors
When a warehouse in Carson, a retail center in Signal Hill or an apartment building in Long Beach changes hands or is refinanced, the lender and the title insurer usually want an ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey. It follows a nationally published set of requirements, so a lender anywhere can underwrite from it. Here the work tends to revolve around what is recorded against the land: pipeline and utility easements, oil and gas reservations in old deeds, reciprocal parking agreements between parcels, and - near the water - tidelands leases instead of fee ownership. Each item listed in the title commitment is either plotted on the drawing or noted as not plottable.
An ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey is prepared to the Minimum Standard Detail Requirements that ALTA and NSPS - the title insurance industry and the national surveying society - publish together. Because the requirements are fixed nationally, an out-of-state lender or title insurer can underwrite a Long Beach property from the drawing alone. The parties relying on it are named in the surveyor's certificate, so the list of who needs to be certified should be settled before the drawing is finished.
A large share of commercial survey work here is industrial: logistics yards and warehouses in Carson and west Long Beach, refinery-adjacent parcels, and properties serving the port and the harbor side of San Pedro. These sites tend to carry pipeline easements, rail spur agreements, oil and gas rights reserved in old deeds, and utility corridors - each one an exception in the title commitment that has to be plotted or noted as not plottable. Some waterfront land is tidelands the State granted to the City of Long Beach to hold in trust; that land is leased rather than sold, and a survey of a leasehold follows the lease description rather than a fee parcel.
Shopping centers in Signal Hill and Lakewood, and smaller commercial frontage along Bellflower Boulevard in Bellflower, are usually split into several parcels tied together by reciprocal easement agreements covering parking, driveways and signage. Mapping those shared areas against the parcel lines is often the bulk of the drafting.
The optional Table A items - flood zone, zoning, building dimensions, parking counts, utilities and others - are chosen by the lender and title company, and they drive both scope and schedule. Send the current title commitment with its underlying documents and the lender's Table A list together. If redevelopment is planned, a topographic survey can be done in the same field work; the boundary survey underneath has to be resolved either way; and if the deal also reshapes parcels, a lot line adjustment may need to record before closing.
How long does it take? Longer than a residential survey. The title commitment and its underlying documents are usually the pacing item, so get them to us as early as possible and schedule back from the closing date.
These are usually asked for on the same transaction:
Locates your property lines from the recorded tract map and street monuments, and shows where walls, fences and structures sit against them.
Learn More →Maps ground elevations, drainage paths, structures and visible utilities as a base for grading, drainage and building design.
Learn More →Surveys, exhibits and legal descriptions for moving a boundary between adjoining parcels under the Subdivision Map Act exemption.
Learn More →Free - No obligation
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