Los Angeles County · Land Surveying
Downey's mid-century neighborhoods — broader lots and ranch homes by Gateway-area standards — support one of the busiest remodel and ADU markets in southeast LA County, and its aerospace-era commercial sites add large-parcel work most neighboring cities don't have.
Planning a remodel, a purchase, or new construction? Describe the project and we will suggest the survey it needs. Call (213) 787-3342 to talk it through.
Downey built out in the postwar decades as a step-up suburb, and its housing stock still draws owners who invest: second stories, major additions, pools, ADUs, and full rebuilds. Nearly every one of those projects benefits from knowing the property lines and setbacks precisely before design gets far — especially since Downey lots, while more generous than in adjacent cities, still carry additions and accessory structures accumulated over seventy years.
We provide the surveys that anchor those projects: boundary and property-line surveys before fences and additions, setback exhibits for ADUs and conversions, and topographic base maps when a design team wants existing conditions in CAD before drawing.
Downey's tract maps date mostly from the 1940s-1960s, a period of better survey standards than the 1920s subdivisions common nearby, so retracement is often efficient — but seven decades of pools, garages, and room additions mean as-built conditions rarely match the original plot plan. Sales and permits both go smoother when a current survey documents what exists. Where corners have been lost, we re-establish and file them with Los Angeles County as required.
The city's commercial fabric includes ordinary corridor retail and offices, plus the large parcels of its aerospace heritage — the former plant site area that today hosts civic, retail, medical, and park uses. Large assembled parcels like these, and the institutional properties around Downey's hospitals, generate ALTA/NSPS surveys, as-built mapping, and construction staking as they are financed, redeveloped, and expanded. Project-specific requirements should be confirmed with the city's planning and building departments.
The Downey workload concentrates in:
Downey projects typically need one of these:
Useful for scoping:
We review the tract records and title documents, confirm scope with you or your design team, complete fieldwork, and deliver marked lines, CAD mapping, or the certified survey your transaction requires. Details at how it works.
Before is usually more efficient: designers work faster and more accurately on a surveyed base map than on assessor sketches, and boundary or setback surprises surface while the design can still absorb them cheaply.
It affects what is worth mapping. For sales and permits we typically recommend documenting all improvements relative to the lines — accumulated structures are exactly what raises questions from buyers and plan checkers on Downey lots.
Yes. We confirm layer conventions, coordinate basis, and file format with your design team before fieldwork so the deliverable drops straight into their workflow.
Yes. Large assembled parcels are a core ALTA/NSPS use case — multiple underlying lots, layered easements, and lender requirements — and we scope them from the title commitment so the survey matches what the transaction needs.
An older survey is helpful history, but it shows conditions as of its date and was certified to someone else. Lenders and title companies typically want a current survey certified to the parties in this transaction; we can often update efficiently using the prior work as evidence.
The plot plan shows what was proposed or assumed at permit time; an as-built survey measures what is physically there now, tied to the actual boundary. When the two disagree, the as-built is what resolves the question.
Anywhere in Downey or greater Los Angeles County, you can request a survey quote online.
Survey scope and deliverables depend on title records, site conditions, and what your project requires. Call (213) 787-3342 to discuss the property and the survey you need.
Call Southern California Land Surveyors at (213) 787-3342 or describe the project through the contact form and we will recommend the right survey.