Buying a commercial building involves massive risk. You put millions of dollars on the line. You need facts. You order an ALTA survey to map out the property lines and find title issues. That standard document gives you the baseline facts. It does not give you everything. To get the specific details your bank or architect actually needs you have to look at the Table A Items. Table A is a menu. It sits at the end of the standard national requirements for commercial property maps. You pick what you want. You pay for what you pick. If you pick the wrong items you waste money. If you skip the right items your bank will refuse to fund your loan. Understanding the Local Terrain Developing property near the historic waterfront brings unique headaches. Old industrial lots near the harbor sit on fill dirt from a century ago. Century-old brick sewers run under these lots. Old rail lines cut across abandoned factory floors. A standard boundary map just shows the property corners. It completely i...
You bought a house with a backyard. You want to build a new patio. You look at the old wooden fence and assume you own everything inside it. You probably do not. Fences rarely sit right on the legal property line. Builders put them where digging is easiest. Roots and rocks push fences off the mark. Over time everyone forgets the actual lines. You need the facts before you dig a footing. You need a Boundary Survey . Historic Lots and Shared Walls Living in this specific region means dealing with old rules. Neighborhoods built over a century ago feature tightly packed rowhouses. These homes share party walls. A mistake of two inches here costs thousands in legal fees. If you plan to add a second story or dig a basement you cannot guess your limits. Local building departments demand exact measurements. A licensed Land Surveyor checks the historic deeds and compares them to the actual dirt. They find out if your neighbor's roof actually hangs over your property. They find the exact cen...