Los Angeles County · Commercial Land Surveying
Survey support for commercial purchases, refinancing, title review, due diligence, and closings on a deadline throughout Los Angeles County — coordinated with your title company, lender, escrow officer, and attorney.
Working against a closing date, a loan condition, or a 1031 identification deadline? Tell us the date first — we will tell you what fits and what does not before you order the work. Call (213) 787-3342 or request a written commercial survey quote.
Most commercial survey requests do not arrive casually. A title company has flagged a survey exception, a lender has made a current ALTA/NSPS survey a condition of funding, a due diligence period is running, or a 1031 exchange deadline is fixed on the calendar and cannot be moved. The property is under contract, several parties are waiting on the same document, and the useful question is not “what does a survey cost” but “can this be done properly in the time that is left.”
That is the work this page describes. We provide commercial property surveys and ALTA/NSPS Land Title Surveys throughout Los Angeles County for purchases, sales, refinancing, title review, due diligence, leasing, and development. We coordinate directly with title companies, lenders, escrow officers, attorneys, buyers, and property owners so the survey answers the questions the transaction actually raises.
We will not promise a closing, and we will not quote a schedule we have not scoped. What we will do is look at the property, the title commitment, and your deadline, and give you a straight answer in writing about what is achievable — before you commit to anything.
Call (213) 787-3342 or request a written commercial survey quote.
Commercial transactions rarely need only one thing. Depending on the deal and the property, the scope may include:
If you are not certain which of these your transaction requires, send us the title commitment and the lender or title company’s written requirement. Reading that requirement is usually faster than describing it.
An ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey is prepared to the Minimum Standard Detail Requirements jointly adopted by the American Land Title Association and the National Society of Professional Surveyors. Unlike a general boundary survey, it is built specifically to serve a title insurer and a lender, and it is certified to named parties. A typical survey includes:
Table A is where most of the scope, schedule, and cost variation lives. A short Table A list and a long Table A list are very different pieces of work on the same parcel. If your lender or title company has issued a required Table A list, send it with your quote request — it changes the answer.
For a general overview of the standard outside the Los Angeles County transaction context, see our ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey service page.
Not every item below is required in every case, and you do not need a complete file to start a conversation. The address and a deadline are enough for that. But the more of the following you can provide, the more accurate the quote and the schedule will be:
If the title commitment has not been issued yet, say so. That is a normal starting point, and it affects sequencing rather than eligibility.
A survey can usually be completed before a real estate closing, and in a well-run transaction that is the intended sequence: the survey is prepared during the due diligence period, delivered to the title company and lender for review, and any resulting questions are resolved before the parties reach the closing table. Problems arise when the survey is ordered late — after the diligence period has largely run — and there is no room left for record research, fieldwork, plotting, review, and revision.
Whether a specific closing date can be met depends on the property, the title work, site access, and how much time actually remains. We will tell you plainly whether your date is realistic before you order the survey rather than after.
A 1031 exchange runs on statutory deadlines — the identification period and the exchange period — and those dates do not move for anyone’s scheduling convenience. When survey work supports a replacement property in an exchange, the deadline is the governing constraint on the entire engagement.
We regularly perform commercial and ALTA survey work for exchange transactions. What helps most is early notice: give us the deadline in writing at the quote stage, identify the replacement property as soon as it is under contract, and get the title commitment to us as soon as it issues. We can plan around a date we know about. We cannot plan around one we learn about at the end.
We provide land surveying services only. We do not provide tax, legal, or exchange advice — your qualified intermediary, attorney, and tax advisor handle the exchange itself.
The title commitment is the spine of an ALTA survey. Schedule B, Part II lists the exceptions to title coverage — easements, rights of way, agreements, restrictions, mineral reservations, and similar recorded interests. A significant part of the surveyor’s work is taking those exceptions, obtaining the underlying recorded documents, and determining where each one physically falls on the ground.
Three outcomes are common, and each is reported on the survey:
This is also where surprises surface: an easement running through a building footprint, a recorded access route that no longer matches the paved drive, a neighboring wall standing inside the boundary, or a utility line with visible evidence but nothing in the title record. Finding these during due diligence is the point. Finding them after closing is the expensive alternative.
Title companies often use the survey to decide whether the standard survey exception can be removed or modified. What they will accept is the title company’s decision, not ours — but we will prepare the survey to address the items they identify and work directly with them on questions. Related work is described on our easements and legal descriptions page.
This is an area where expectations and reality frequently diverge, so it is worth stating clearly.
What a survey can show — measured and observed conditions, and record information supplied to the surveyor:
What a survey does not do — a land survey does not determine or certify that a property complies with a zoning ordinance. Zoning compliance involves ordinance interpretation, legal nonconforming status, variances, conditional use permits, code enforcement history, and municipal discretion. Those are determinations, not measurements.
When a transaction needs a formal answer on zoning, that is a separate product from a separate provider: a specialized zoning report vendor, a land use attorney for a legal zoning opinion, or the city or county planning department for an official determination or zoning verification letter. The survey and the zoning report are complementary — the survey supplies accurate measured dimensions the zoning analysis can be applied to. Ordering the survey does not substitute for the zoning report, and we will say so rather than let the assumption ride.
We do not publish turnaround times, because a published number would be wrong for most properties. The schedule for a specific commercial survey is shaped by:
Once we have scoped your property, the written quote states the schedule we can commit to. If your deadline cannot be met properly, we will tell you that instead of accepting the job and disappointing you later.
We do not publish prices for commercial survey work. Fees are scoped per property and per transaction, and the same building on the same street can quote very differently depending on the deal. The main drivers:
Send us the address, the title commitment if you have it, and the Table A list, and you will get a written quote scoped to your property — not a range that changes later.
ALTA surveys are ordered by buyers, sellers, property owners, lenders, title companies, escrow officers, attorneys, developers, brokers, and asset or property managers. Most often the buyer or the buyer’s lender orders it, while the title company specifies what it needs in order to address the survey exception.
Because a certification is addressed to named parties, it matters that the right names are identified early. A survey certified to the wrong list — or a list that is missing the lender added late in the deal — becomes a revision at exactly the moment nobody has time for one.
We coordinate directly with:
Our commercial and ALTA survey work is focused on Los Angeles County — the Downtown Los Angeles office and industrial core, the Long Beach and South Bay port and logistics corridors, the studio and creative-office districts of Burbank, Glendale, and Culver City, the retail and medical-office markets of Pasadena and Beverly Hills, and the industrial parks spread across the Gateway Cities.
Properties we survey regularly include office buildings, retail centers, industrial and warehouse facilities, multifamily and mixed-use developments, medical offices, self-storage, hospitality, automotive and service properties, and vacant commercial land.
We are a service-area firm and do not maintain an office in every city. Cities where we frequently work include:
We also serve surrounding Los Angeles County communities not listed here — see the full service area, or simply send the address and we will confirm.
An ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey is a boundary survey prepared to the national standards jointly adopted by the American Land Title Association and the National Society of Professional Surveyors. It documents the surveyed boundary, plots the recorded easements and other items listed in the title commitment, shows visible improvements and observable evidence of use, notes apparent encroachments, and adds whatever optional Table A items the client or lender selects. It is certified to the parties named in the transaction.
There is no single answer, and we do not quote a schedule before we have seen the property and the title work. The timeline depends on parcel size and shape, the number of parcels, how many Schedule B exceptions have to be plotted, which Table A items are selected, how quickly the title commitment and record documents arrive, site access and tenant coordination, and crew availability. Send us the address, the title commitment if you have one, and your deadline, and we will confirm a realistic schedule in the written quote before you commit.
Not every item is needed in every case. The most useful starting documents are a current title commitment or preliminary title report, the vesting deed, any existing surveys or maps, the ALTA Table A items selected by you or your lender, the site address and assessor parcel number, the transaction deadline, contact information for the title company, lender, or attorney, access instructions, and notes on any known easement or boundary concerns. If you only have the address and a closing date, that is enough to start the conversation.
In many transactions, yes, and that is the normal sequence — the survey is prepared during the due diligence period so the buyer, lender, and title company can review it before closing. Whether it can be completed before a specific closing date depends on how much time remains, how quickly the title commitment and record documents are provided, and site conditions. Tell us the date at the outset and we will tell you honestly whether it fits before you order the work.
Yes. We routinely provide commercial and ALTA/NSPS survey work for replacement properties in 1031 exchanges, where the identification and exchange deadlines are fixed and do not move. Give us the deadline in writing when you request the quote so scheduling and delivery can be planned around it. We provide survey services only — your qualified intermediary, attorney, and tax advisor handle the exchange itself.
Yes. A core purpose of an ALTA/NSPS survey is to plot the easements and other Schedule B exceptions listed in the title commitment, where they are plottable from the recorded documents provided. Items that cannot be plotted — blanket easements, unrecorded rights, or exceptions with no describable location — are noted on the face of the survey instead. The survey also shows observable evidence of use, such as visible utility structures or worn access routes, which may suggest rights not shown in the title record.
No. A survey can show measured and observed conditions — setback dimensions from located improvements to the boundary, building dimensions and height where those items are requested, parking counts and striping, and zoning classification or setback text reported to the surveyor from a zoning report or municipal source. That is survey-related zoning information, not a zoning determination. A formal zoning report or a legal zoning opinion is a separate product and generally comes from a specialized zoning report provider, a land use attorney, or the city or county planning department.
We do not publish prices, because commercial survey fees are driven by the specific property and the specific transaction. Acreage and boundary complexity, the number of parcels, how many title exceptions must be plotted, which Table A items are selected, the density of improvements, terrain and vegetation, access and security requirements, the quality of available record data, and any compressed schedule all affect the fee. Send the address, the title commitment if available, and your Table A list, and we will send a written quote.
Buyers, sellers, property owners, lenders, title companies, escrow officers, attorneys, developers, brokers, and asset or property managers all order ALTA surveys. In practice the buyer or the buyer’s lender usually orders it, and the title company specifies what it needs to remove or modify the survey exception. Whoever orders it, the parties who need to rely on it should be identified early, because the certification is addressed to named parties.
We provide commercial and ALTA survey work throughout Los Angeles County, including Los Angeles, Long Beach, Pasadena, Glendale, Burbank, Santa Monica, Culver City, Beverly Hills, West Hollywood, Torrance, Inglewood, Downey, Compton, Carson, and surrounding Los Angeles County communities. We are a service-area firm and do not maintain an office in every city.
Survey services are coordinated under the direction of a California-licensed Professional Land Surveyor.
Send the property address, the APN, your transaction deadline, and the title commitment or Table A list if you have them. We will scope the work and send a written quote with the schedule we can commit to. Not sure how the process runs? See what to expect from start to finish, or contact us with a question first.