When buying or developing a piece of property, you want to make sure that your investment is sound. Therefore, it is essential to have as much information about the land as possible to make sure you can make an informed decision. An unknown issue with a piece of land can be incredibly costly.

Before you buy or begin building, you should hire a land surveyor to ensure that you can use the property in the way you plan. Property development is an expensive venture. Learn more about how you can use a land survey to your advantage to make sure your money is well spent.

Avoiding a Boundary Dispute

A boundary dispute can be a giant headache. A neighbor challenging where your property ends and theirs begins can cost you in a variety of ways.

If you have begun a building project, you might have to halt construction. This delay can lead to higher building expenses. Your construction team might have another job scheduled after yours and not be able to get back to your project soon after. If building your future house, you could be prevented from moving for some time. If building commercially, you could lose expected income.

Additionally, if your neighbor takes you to court, you could be looking at attorney fees. By hiring a land surveyor, you can get the boundary of your property clearly mapped before you buy. That way, you will be able to build without any doubts about where you can build.

Identifying Environmental Issues

It is essential to identify any potential environmental issues with the property you want to buy. For example, a piece of land could look beautiful when you are looking at it in summer, but you could discover too late that the whole area gets flooded when the rains come in the fall.

Similarly, you could find out that the cliffside, which seems so far away, is eroding at such a rapid rate that the land where you plan to build your home will be gone in a decade or two.

There are a variety of environmental factors that could impact your ability to use a piece of property the way you would like. These issues can often be challenging to identify without a land survey of the property.

Discovering Any Easements on the Land

An easement is an agreement between a property owner and another party that allows the other party to use part of a piece of property in exchange for paying a fee. For example, utility companies have easements on many properties enabling them to run pipes or wires through a property.

Easements are sometimes transferred to the new owner in a property sale. While this does mean that you will receive money from the party that owns the easement, these easements typically devalue the property. Additionally, they may limit how you can use that land.

The party that holds the easement must be able to use the property in an agreed-upon manner. This agreement may limit your ability to build or otherwise develop the property.

Getting a Proper Valuation of the Land

A land survey may be able to put you in a much stronger negotiating position. For example, suppose a land survey turns up problems with the property, such as an easement, an environmental factor, or another factor that decreases the land value. In that case, you may be able to use this to buy the property at a lower price.

It is critical to know the actual value of a piece of property before you make a purchase. You don’t want to discover after you buy that you significantly overpaid.

Finding the Best Spot to Build

A land survey can help you identify the best area to build on a piece of property. You can learn details about the terrain and topography that suggest building in a specific part of your property. You can also discover where any underground utilities are located so that you can build with that in mind.

Get a Quote for a Land Survey Today

If you are interested in getting a land survey for a piece of property, contact the experienced land surveying team at Scalice Land Surveying today. We have a history of providing accurate and detailed surveys to our clients. Once your land survey is complete, you will have access to both a physical and digital copy.

Give us a call or fill out our online contact form today to get started with a free quote.