What is Table A Item 11(b)?

What is involved from a surveyor’s perspective in order to include Table A item 11(b) (underground utilities) on an ALTA/ACSM Land Title Survey?

The inclusion of Table A item 11(b) on an ALTA/ACSM Land Title Survey has become a controversial topic in the past couple of years.  When a client orders 11(b) for an ALTA, a surveyor will call in a dig ticket and/or design ticket for the subject property.  This is typically a free service that is designed for upcoming excavation.  When calling in a dig ticket, one is asked to give the reason for the ticket.  Typically, it takes about 48 hours for the one call service to mark the property in question.  Sounds simple, right?  Not at all.  From this point, the surveyor has to go to war in order to get the utilities marked.  First of all, the one call service will only mark utilities in public rights of way and/or public land.  They will not mark underground utilities on private property.  Once the one call service arrives on site, they will typically call the number provided on the ticket and ask (again) what the purpose of the ticket is.  Once the surveyor says, “land survey”, the one call service then says that they are not required to mark the site at this time and that they have 2 weeks in order to mark it, since it is not for excavation purposes.  So what do surveyors do?  Surveyors then attempt to retrieve utility plans from the utility companies and county offices, however, this usually is a pointless effort.  Since September 11, utility companies don’t often give out their plans in fear of possible terrorism efforts.

From this point, in order for the surveyor to show all underground utilities on the subject property, a private utility locator would be necessary.  Private utility location, however, is a very expensive service and clients typically do not want to pay for the additional expense.  Pricing varies widely by geographic region and by the location of the site.  If the site is more rural, pricing would likely be reasonable.  By contrast, if the site is urban, pricing could be in the thousands of dollars, even for a one-acre site.  In many cases, having the underground utilities marked is more costly than the price of the land survey itself.

At this point, there is no real solution to the problem that surveyors face in getting underground utilities marked when Table A item 11(b) is included with the order of an ALTA/ACSM Land Title Survey.  The surveyor must do his/her due diligence in order to exhaust all avenues to get the utilities marked and to get plans from local offices.