Importance of Surveys and Flood Insurance Elevation (FEMA) Certificates
I am a professional surveyor here in Southwest Florida and work in a family owned company. I am on bigger pockets interested in real estate investing and have came across a few recent posts questioning the need for a land survey so have decided to make a post. Please feel free to chime in or message me any questions, I would like nothing more than to help just one person from making the mistakes we see on a daily basis.
The value of real estate in the general public's eyes has diminished to almost nothing in the recent years, in our experience. With technology increasing substantially and people able to see those "invisible lines" on GIS websites they no longer care to see a hard copy of a survey or even care to ask where the property corners fall. It is an education process that we conduct on a daily basis to realtors and home buyers and the majority of them still do not care about anything but checking off that box to close. They all think we cost too much and they do not understand what we do when it comes to conducting a proper boundary survey with the benefit of a title commitment.
In the state of Florida there is a thing called a surveyors affidavit. It is used in refinances and real estate transactions where the seller signs that no changes have been made to a survey that was previously completed (sometimes 5+ years ago). The problem with this is that if you get a thorough and complete survey by a capable LOCAL surveyor, you will see a note in the survey that only the parties certified have rights to it and that the survey is only to be used for that particular transaction. It is appalling that people do not hesitate to sign a surveyors affidavit to get by without having a new survey complete! Where is the title affidavit?!? Essentially it is the same thing. Surveyors are an insurance policy and it is very important for real estate professionals aka realtors to point that out. Remember that the cost of a survey is negligible to attorney costs and litigation that can occur over property and in the end you will have a piece of mind where your boundary lines are, where your property corners are and most importantly where the improvements sit on your lot relative to easements and other encumbrances.
When it comes to FEMA flood elevation certificates, just get them complete (again, by a capable LOCAL surveyor). We see clients on a weekly basis that are paying way too much on flood insurance. On a general note, if you are paying more than $1,000 a year on flood insurance you need one complete. If you have one already, try getting another company to do it or see if a local surveyor will take a look at it and see if there is anything they can do to help. Insurance agents rarely understand what you need to do to reduce the cost of flood (they too are guilty of just checking boxes without understanding what they are doing or the affects that it may have). Don't get me wrong, some are very good but in our experience most have no clue. It is up to the home owner to ask the questions about what they can do to reduce the costs of flood insurance. Most of the time they can put in flood vents or retro-fit their house to reduce the costs of flood with minimal costs. Also, insurance companies will refund you for overpaying if you can prove that your house is not rated correctly by an elevation certificate. Engineers and sometimes surveyors can do LOMA or letter of map amendments or flood studies to prove that your house is out of a flood zone or above a base flood.
Ask the questions and do the research, find the knowledgeable insurance agent that has experience with flood insurance, or the realtor that has some experience in boundary law and values property they are helping you purchase. Remember, in the long run it is cheaper to hire a good surveyor that it is a bad one or one at all. Russ