alta survey nyc
ALTA/NSPS is not a type of survey so much as a published specification, jointly set by the American Land Title Association and the National Society of Professional Surveyors, that says exactly what has to appear on the sheet. That is the point of it: an underwriter in another state can rely on the drawing without knowing anything about local practice. On a New York commercial parcel the work behind it is substantial. The title commitment lists exceptions - easements, agreements, restrictions - and each one has to be plotted or explicitly noted as unplottable. Vault space extending under the sidewalk, party wall agreements, light and air easements and recorded encroachment agreements are all routine here and all have to be reconciled against what is actually standing. The optional Table A items the client selects change the scope considerably, so the first thing we ask for is the title commitment and the Table A list.
ALTA/NSPS is a published standard jointly maintained by the American Land Title Association and the National Society of Professional Surveyors. It sets out precisely what has to appear on the drawing, which is the entire point: an underwriter in Chicago can rely on a New York survey without knowing anything about how New York files things. That portability is what the premium buys.
Send it early. The commitment lists exceptions - easements, restrictions, agreements, prior conveyances - and every one has to be plotted on the drawing or explicitly noted as unplottable. On a Manhattan parcel that list can be long and genuinely old: light and air easements, party wall agreements with the buildings on both sides, licensed vault space extending under the sidewalk, and transferred development rights recorded against a neighbouring lot. None of those are exotic here. All of them take research time that has nothing to do with how large the site is.
The standard carries an optional menu - zoning classification, parking counts, utility locations, building heights, flood zone. Your lender and underwriter choose which items they need, and that selection changes both cost and schedule materially. We would rather see their requirement letter than guess at it, so forward whatever they sent you and we will price against the actual list.
Commercial work concentrates in Manhattan and the industrial and waterfront edges of Brooklyn and Queens, plus assembled downtown parcels in New Rochelle. It appears less often in Staten Island and residential the Bronx, where a title survey usually covers what is needed. If existing grades matter to the deal a topographic survey is normally commissioned alongside, and where the parcel is being reconfigured the boundary survey underneath has to be settled first.
How long does it take? Longer than any other survey we produce, and the constraint is the title commitment rather than the field work. Send the commitment early - the exceptions drive the schedule.
These are usually asked for on the same transaction:
The drawing a residential closing usually needs: lot lines, building footprint and anything crossing a line.
Learn More →Establishes where the record property line runs and what sits over it - fences, extensions, stoops and a neighbour's addition.
Learn More →Existing grades, elevations and site conditions - what an architect or engineer needs before anything is designed.
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