Hello and welcome. This is Nolan Formalarie with DiscoverNChomes and “Nolan’s News”. As always, thank you for having us. Today I wanted to talk about the importance of a survey.
Oftentimes in the transaction, the buyer will ask their broker and purchasing land and or home: “Should I get a survey?” And an answer, at least my answer to that, is: if there are any questions involving boundary lines, easements, encroachments, something that looks like it shouldn’t be there from the neighbor’s property line onto yours, then yes, you should get a survey because that investigation will reveal if there are any issues like this.
Before you get a survey, though, there is a great resource, it’s called Brunsco.net. And there you can pull the plat map. A plat map is something that was recorded when the subdivision was recorded. So you can see at least on that plat mat, are there any easements, you can look at the boundary lines.
Plat maps, again, in all planned communities like St. James and Winding River, Palmetto Creek, they are all recorded. And usually areas like Southport, Oak island, they require a plat map to be recorded. So that’s a first good step to see if there is anything there.
If you were purchasing in, for example, the historic district of Southport, I would 100% recommend a survey because there are a number of encroachments. We’re going back in some of these homes that were built, 200-300 years ago, and over time boundary lines have changed, things have been recorded differently.
I’ve come across a few homes in sales that there have been encroachments from a pool on the neighbor’s yard, a car port. So Southport has a great handle on that, but again, it is important to know that upfront rather than after you purchased the property.
So I do recommend a survey when there are additional questions on easements encroachments, things like that. Here is the link for Brunsco.net and you can set up your own account and look at plat maps. And always ask your broker too, they should be able to recommend that.
So if you have any questions, thank you, please don’t hesitate to ask us and we’ll talk to you soon.
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About Nolan Formalarie
Nolan Formalarie has been in the North Carolina Real Estate Industry for over 8 years and enjoys every minute of it. He is involved in every aspect of the industry including selling and purchasing residential property, home watch services, property management, association management and construction.
