Frequently Asked Questions

Most people need one because somebody has asked for it. Planning and zoning departments and building officials commonly require a current survey before they will approve an addition, a pool, a deck, a fence near a boundary, a septic system or a subdivision.

The other reason is that you are about to spend money based on where you believe a line is. Buying, building near a boundary, clearing trees, or settling a question with a neighbour are all cheaper to get right first than to correct afterwards.

The property address and what the survey is for. That is genuinely enough to start a conversation.

What helps us quote accurately is any paperwork you already have: the deed, an existing survey or filed map, a site plan, or title documents. Anything that tells us what has already been established saves research time, and research time is a real part of the cost.

You can attach those to the request form on this site, or call and we will tell you what is worth digging out.

Usually not. Boundary and topographic work happens outdoors and does not require anyone to be present.

What we do need is access. If the property is gated, if there are dogs, or if evidence of the boundary sits on a neighbour's side of a fence, tell us in advance so we can arrange it rather than lose a trip.

We work across Connecticut (Statewide); New York (Westchester · Putnam · Dutchess · Rockland counties); Massachusetts (Western MA).

If your property sits at the edge of that, call and ask rather than assume. Phone 203-263-6776.

A-2 is an accuracy class defined by the State of Connecticut, not a marketing term. The Regulations of Connecticut State Agencies set out classes of accuracy for surveys, and Class A-2 requires positional accuracy of about a fiftieth of a foot, a ratio of 1:7,500 over distances beyond 150 feet, and angular measurement within 20 seconds.

In practice A-2 is the class most municipal submissions and property transactions in Connecticut call for. Tighter classes exist for control work, and Class D is not a field survey at all — it is a compilation of existing records.

If somebody has told you that you need an A-2, that is what they mean: a boundary survey performed and mapped to that published standard, sealed by a licensed surveyor.

A property or boundary survey establishes the whole boundary. It shows the position of every boundary line, the monumentation found or set at the corners, and the surveyor's full opinion of where the property is.

A limited survey answers a narrower question. Connecticut's standards recognise several — a zoning location survey, an improvement location survey, a boundary stake-out — each covering only what its purpose requires.

A limited survey is not a lesser one; it is a different scope. The right question is what the person asking for it needs to see, which is usually the first thing we establish.

It is the survey commercial property transactions run on. It follows a national standard published jointly by the American Land Title Association and the National Society of Professional Surveyors, so a lender or title insurer in another state knows exactly what it is receiving.

The current edition took effect on 23 February 2026 and superseded the 2021 standards for any survey begun on or after that date.

The standard also carries an optional list, Table A, covering things like utilities, parking counts and zoning detail. Which items are included is negotiated between you, your title company and us at the start, because they affect both the scope and the fee.

If you are buying or refinancing commercial property, your lender or title company will tell you an ALTA/NSPS survey is required, and usually which Table A items they want.

It is a document recording the elevation of a building relative to the flood levels mapped by FEMA. Insurers use it to rate flood policies, and municipalities use it when permitting construction in a mapped flood zone.

People usually need one because a flood insurance premium was quoted on an assumption about elevation, or because a building official has asked for one before approving work.

We can establish where the boundary lies according to the records and the physical evidence on the ground, and produce a sealed map and a written description of it. In most disagreements that is the end of the matter, because the disagreement was about facts nobody had checked.

What a survey cannot do is decide a legal claim. If your neighbour asserts a right based on long use of the land rather than on the deeds, that is a legal question, not a measurement — Connecticut recognises claims of that kind after fifteen years, and resolving one is a matter for an attorney and potentially a court.

We are surveyors, not lawyers. We will tell you clearly where the record boundary is. If the situation needs legal advice, we will say so rather than guess.

Not in any legal sense. A survey does not have an expiry date in Connecticut, and a properly performed and recorded survey remains a valid record of what was found. Surveyors routinely rely on maps that are decades old.

What changes is whether it still describes reality. Construction, subdivision, new easements, moved or destroyed monuments, or a neighbour's long-standing use can all mean an old map no longer reflects the ground.

Lenders and title companies frequently want a recent survey regardless of whether the old one is still accurate. If somebody has asked you for a current survey, that is usually why.

Often, yes. Recovering existing monumentation is part of a boundary survey, and pins set by an earlier surveyor are frequently still there under a few inches of soil.

When they cannot be found, they are replaced. Setting a monument is not a matter of measuring from a fence — the position has to be re-established from the records and the surrounding evidence first, which is why locating a corner is survey work rather than a site visit.

We quote a fixed fee before any work begins, so you know the number in advance rather than watching an hourly meter run.

What drives that number is how much work the property actually needs: its size and shape, how much of it is wooded or steep, how accessible it is, whether existing monumentation is still in the ground, how clean the deed history is, and what the survey has to show. A suburban lot with a recent filed map and pins still in place is a different job from a rural parcel whose deed predates reliable mapping.

Send the address and what the survey is for and we will tell you what it takes. If a number online seems too good to be true for a sealed, standards-compliant survey, it generally is.

For construction staking on an active site, we complete staking operations within three working days of a request, weather permitting.

Boundary and topographic surveys run to a different clock, because the field visit is only part of the job. Records research comes first, and mapping and the written description come after. How long that takes depends on the property and on how quickly the land records yield what we need.

If you are working to a closing date or a permit deadline, say so when you call. We would rather tell you honestly whether it is achievable than agree and disappoint you.

A map, prepared to the standard your purpose requires and signed and sealed by a licensed professional land surveyor. On a boundary survey it is accompanied by a written description of the property.

Only a sealed survey carries professional standing. A sketch, a screenshot of a town GIS parcel viewer, or an unsigned drawing does not, whatever it appears to show.