Title and Survey: What a Commercial Buyer Should Check

You are buying a place to run your company, so the question goes beyond whether the seller owns the property. It is whether anything recorded against the land, or sitting on it, limits how you will use it. A recorded restriction, a utility easement across the spot where you plan a loading dock, or a neighbor's fence over the line can all survive the sale.

Maynard Nexsen explains the split in practical terms. A title search looks through public records for easements, covenants, liens and other matters, and confirms that title is vested in the seller. Liens such as a mortgage, a judgment, unpaid taxes or contractor claims must be identified so they can be paid and removed at closing. Other encumbrances, like a sewer easement or restrictive covenant, will likely stay on the property, so you need to evaluate whether they hurt your current or planned use.

That is the job in one sentence: clear what can be cleared, and understand what you will live with.

After the examination, a title insurer issues a commitment. Chicago Title's overview of the ALTA commitment form, written about the 2016 version, stresses that the commitment is an offer to issue a policy, on stated requirements and conditions, and not an abstract of title or a representation of its status. Forms get revised and states vary. Texas uses its own lettered schedules, for example. Check which form you have received.

On the ALTA form, the main parts are these:

• Schedule A: the commitment date, proposed policy amount, proposed insured, the interest being insured and the legal description of the land. Check that the buyer name is the entity that will actually take title, and that the land matches what you think you are buying.
• Schedule B, Part I, Requirements: what must happen before the policy issues, such as paying the price and premiums and recording properly authorized documents. Payoffs and releases of existing liens are usually handled here or at closing.
• Schedule B, Part II, Exceptions: what the policy will not insure against. This is the part that needs the most attention from a buyer.

The form also carries a time limit. In the version Chicago Title reviews, if the requirements are not met within a stated period the commitment ends, so watch the date if closing slips. It also includes an exception for matters that first appear between the commitment date and the date the requirements are met, and that gap is the reason to have your title company update the search close to closing.

Ask the title company for legible copies of every recorded document listed as an exception. The one-line description in Schedule B rarely tells you what the document allows.

A commitment reports what is in the records. A survey shows what is on the ground. Maynard Nexsen says a survey should identify the boundaries, any encroachments by neighbors onto the property or from the property onto neighbors or setback areas, and the location of easements. It adds that lenders often require a survey unless a recent one exists, that the title insurer is likely to require one as a condition of deleting the exception for matters a survey would show, and that a surveyor is not liable to you for errors unless the survey is certified to you.

The American Land Title Association describes the ALTA/NSPS standards as the minimum requirements for surveys used in commercial transactions, covering fieldwork, map preparation, optional Table A items, certification and deliverables. The current standards took effect on February 23, 2026. Holland & Knight notes that surveys now give more explanatory notes, including whether easements are shown, cannot be located, are blanket easements, are illegible or do not affect the property.

Table A items are optional add-ons, so the order form matters. Parker Poe calls the new Table A Item 20 the most significant change: if requested, the surveyor includes a table of potential encroachments observed, without giving a legal opinion. Adding Item 20 also changed the numbering of later items, so an older request list may need updating. Ask your attorney and lender which items they need before the surveyor starts.

The review only works when the two documents are compared line by line. Have your attorney lead it, and add what only you can know: how the company will use the site.

• ✓Does the legal description in the commitment match the survey and the purchase agreement?
• ✓Is every Schedule B exception plotted on the survey, or noted as not locatable or not affecting the property?
• ✓Does any easement cross the footprint of planned parking, truck access, signage, generators or an addition?
• ✓Do recorded covenants or restrictions limit our use, our hours, our signs or future changes to the building?
• ✓Does the property have legal access to a public road, or does access depend on a neighbor's land?
• ✓Does the survey show encroachments in either direction, or setback problems?
• ✓Are any tenants or other parties in possession, and do their rights appear in the commitment?
• ✓Are all monetary liens scheduled to be paid and released at closing?
• ✓Is the survey certified to our entity, our lender and the title company?

Zoning is a separate question that title and survey do not settle by themselves. Maynard Nexsen describes a planning and zoning report as the tool for confirming current zoning, allowed uses and whether the existing use is grandfathered. Order one if your use differs from the current occupant's.

The purchase agreement usually sets the process, and the wording varies. Writing in the Michigan Bar Journal, practitioners describe an arrangement in which the buyer may raise title or condition objections before the end of the due diligence period, the seller has a period to cure, and buyer's counsel wants the option to terminate with a full refund of the earnest money or to waive the objection. They also note that the inspection period is often triggered by the buyer's receipt of the survey and title commitment, which is a reason to define that trigger clearly. Silberman Law Firm, writing about Texas commitments, warns that a buyer who does not object is agreeing to the listed exceptions. Have your attorney confirm the effect of silence under your contract.

1. Order title and survey immediately after signing, and calendar the objection date.
2. Collect the exception documents and give the surveyor the commitment, so plotted items match.
3. Review both with your attorney, your lender and whoever is planning your space.
4. Send written objections as the contract's notice clause requires, and sort them into must-clear items and items you can accept with coverage or a price change.
5. Track the seller's response. Decide before the deadline whether to terminate, waive or extend.
6. Before closing, get an updated commitment and a final policy form you have read.

Tenant Advisory Group works with your attorney on the business side of this: checking the exceptions against how you will actually use the building and keeping the deadlines in view. The legal review and the cure language belong to your attorney.