Common questions about land surveying

Building near a property line, subdividing a parcel, completing a property sale, navigating a boundary dispute, or filing for certain permits all typically require or strongly warrant a licensed survey. The best first step is a brief consultation — we can determine quickly whether a survey is necessary for your situation and what type would apply.

Most Bay Area cities require some form of boundary verification before issuing an ADU building permit. The typical requirement is confirmation that the proposed structure will meet setback requirements — the minimum distance a structure must maintain from a property line. These requirements vary by city and structure type.

Some jurisdictions accept a licensed surveyor's certification of the proposed structure location; others require a full boundary survey. If your building department is asking for setback documentation, contact us and we can clarify what is needed for your jurisdiction.

Timeline varies by project type. A boundary survey or topographic survey typically takes three to four weeks from order to deliverable, and performing both together saves time and reduces overall cost. Projects that require county review and filing, such as parcel maps, can take several months before final recordation.

We can give a more specific estimate once we understand your scope and timeline.

We review your project details and respond within a few business days to ask any clarifying questions or request additional information. Once we have what we need, we provide a written fee proposal. After you authorize the work, we begin research and schedule field time.

Having the following on hand will help us give you an accurate quote:

• The property address and assessor parcel number (APN). If you don't know your APN, you can find it using the county resources below.
• A copy of your deed or grant deed, if available.
• Any existing surveys, title reports, or plats you have on hand.
• A description of your project and what you are trying to accomplish.

If you don't have all of this, submit what you have — we can work with partial information.

It's called a total station — an electronic surveying instrument that combines a telescope for sighting with a laser rangefinder and an angle-measuring system. One crew member operates the total station from a fixed point while another moves through the property holding a prism, a small reflective target on a pole. The instrument sends a laser to the prism, measures the precise distance and angle, and records the result. Repeated from multiple setups, this builds an accurate three-dimensional picture of the site. Despite the tripod and eyepiece, it does not capture images.

A well-executed survey using a modern total station is accurate to within a few millimeters under good conditions, and positional accuracy of less than one centimeter is routine for most boundary and topographic work. The limiting factor in boundary surveys is rarely the instrument — it's more often the condition of existing monuments, the quality of recorded documents, and how clearly the legal description ties to physical evidence on the ground.

The data is brought back to the office for processing and analysis. We review the measurements for accuracy, perform the necessary calculations, and compare the field findings against the record research — deeds, prior surveys, recorded maps, and title documents. For a boundary survey, this analysis establishes the legal position of the property lines and determines what monuments need to be set or verified. For a topographic survey, the field data is processed into a finished CAD drawing showing elevations, contours, and site features.

Depending on the project, the final deliverable may be a stamped map, a CAD file, a legal description, or some combination. If a Record of Survey is required, the completed map is submitted to the county for review and filing.

A monument is a physical marker set in the ground to mark a property corner or boundary point. Monuments take many forms — iron pipes, rebar, nails, or brass discs — depending on the age of the survey and surface conditions. When a licensed surveyor completes a boundary survey, any new or reset monuments are recorded on a map that becomes part of the public record. Over time monuments can be disturbed, buried, or removed, which is part of why a new survey often involves both research and field work to locate what is still there.