Survey

Key Takeaways

• A survey locates and maps the exact boundaries of a parcel and marks them on the ground, commonly with stakes or permanent monuments.
• In Washington it is unlawful to practice or offer to practice land surveying without registration as a professional land surveyor (RCW 18.43.010).
• A legal description is the written identification of a parcel, and the survey is the measured fieldwork the description is built from.
• Washington requires a record of survey to be filed with the county auditor within 90 days when a boundary corner is established, reestablished, or restored (RCW 58.09.040).

What It Means

A survey is the fieldwork that fixes where a parcel sits on the ground. A professional land surveyor measures from known reference points, locates the corners and lines of the property, and sets or recovers Monuments such as iron pipes or capped rebar so the boundary can be found again years later. The surveyor then produces a map of what was measured: the boundary and its dimensions, plus features that matter to it, such as buildings, fences, driveways, and easements.

Describing land and measuring land are two different jobs that depend on each other. The written Legal Description in a deed is only words, whether it recites courses and distances under Metes And Bounds, names a lot in a recorded plat, or locates land by township and section under the Government Survey system. Those words identify a parcel. The survey is what ties them to dirt.

Buyers order surveys because the paper and the ground disagree more often than people expect. A fence built three feet over the line, a driveway that clips the neighbor's corner, a shed sitting on a utility easement: these are the things a survey finds before closing rather than after, while the price is still negotiable.

How It Works in Washington

In Washington, surveying is a licensed profession, not a service a broker, a contractor, or a title company can supply. RCW 18.43.010 makes it unlawful for any person to practice or to offer to practice land surveying in this state unless duly registered. RCW 18.43.020 spells out what that practice covers: assuming responsible charge of the surveying of land to establish corners, lines, boundaries, and monuments, laying out and subdividing land, relocating corners and boundaries after they have been established, and preparing maps and accurate records of the work.

Survey work also becomes a public record in Washington. Under RCW 58.09.040, a land surveyor who establishes, reestablishes, or restores a corner on the boundary of two or more ownerships, or a general land office corner, must file a record of survey with the county auditor within 90 days. The same duty applies when the work reveals a corner that materially varies from the description of record, one or more property corners not previously existing, or ambiguity that puts a line or point in more than one possible position. RCW 58.09.050 governs the format of the map that gets filed. For a broker, the practical consequence is that a record of survey may already be on file at the county auditor, and checking there costs nothing compared with ordering new fieldwork.

Example

Marcus has a 1998 home on five acres near Chehalis under contract at $525,000. The listing says the lot runs to the tree line. During the inspection period the buyer notices that the neighbor's pole barn stands close to that same tree line, so the buyer orders a boundary survey for $2,400.

The surveyor recovers the original corner monuments, finds one of them disturbed, and reestablishes it. The true boundary turns out to be 22 feet inside the tree line. The pole barn crosses it by 6 feet, and roughly 0.15 acre that Marcus has been mowing for years belongs to the neighbor. Because a corner on the boundary between two ownerships was reestablished, the surveyor files a record of survey with the county auditor within 90 days, as RCW 58.09.040 requires.

The parties renegotiate on the strength of the map. The buyer proceeds at $511,000, a reduction of $14,000, and the seller obtains a signed agreement from the neighbor addressing the encroaching barn before closing. Without the survey, the buyer would have paid the full $525,000 for land the deed never conveyed.

Common Mistakes and Exam Traps

• A survey establishes boundaries and an appraisal estimates value, so a question about where the property line runs is a survey question, not a valuation question.
• The legal description is the wording that identifies the land, while the survey is the measurement and map behind it. Exam answers often swap the two.
• In Washington only a registered professional land surveyor may establish property corners and lines, so a title company, broker, or appraiser marking a boundary is the wrong answer.
• A survey discovers an encroachment; it does not create one or cure one.