Boundary or Mortgage Survey?

What is the difference between a boundary survey and a mortgage location survey?

A mortgage location survey is not a boundary survey.  The minimum standards for a boundary survey are much stricter than those of a mortgage location survey.  A mortgage location survey is primarily intended for residential properties in order to obtain title insurance.  The title company and lender must ensure that the residence actually lies on the subject property.  The surveyor does not rectify and issues with the existing legal description, including misclosure, gaps, overlaps, etc…  New legal descriptions are not written when performing a mortgage location survey and the property corners are not set in the field.

By contrast, a boundary survey must comply with a more strict set of requirements set forth by the state in which the property lies, and in some cases, the local municipality.  A boundary survey serves to retrace the existing property description in its entirety.  A boundary survey plat is then produced by a Professional Land Surveyor and may or may not be filed with the County in which the property lies.  A boundary survey is typically requested for any of the following reasons, just to name a few:  landowner would like to install a fence, property line dispute between adjacent land owners, possible encroachment issues between landowners, or conveyance.   Many times, the existing legal description for a property does not meet the current minimum standards for conveyance in the County in which the property lies, so a new boundary survey and subsequent legal descriptions must be performed/created.  The existing description may have been written at a time when the minimum requirements were less strict/detailed.  A boundary survey does not create new lot lines; it serves to retrace the existing legal description of a property or properties.   A new “as surveyed” legal description is typically written by a Professional Land Surveyor and the property corners are set after performing a boundary survey.