Where’s my property line?

The location of your property line is critical for any new construction, and it’s especially critical to the renovation of an existing building’s exterior. If you plan on adding to your home, don’t do any work until you have survey. Most cities will require this document for permitting.

GETTING STARTED WITH ONLINE TOOLS

As a quick way to tell a project’s feasibility, we’ll sometimes look to a property viewer provided by the city of New Orleans. Each city is different, but most cities will offer up some version of a GIS map that will give you a general location of your home in relation to it’s property line. In New Orleans, Orleans parish will also provide the size of the lot in the description. Areas where using a property viewer won’t work will often be as follows:

• Relation of the home to the property line
• Encroaching homes and fences including steps and porches
• Utilities and existing structures on the property

In all three examples above you’ll need to locate a CURRENT survey or place an order with a surveyor. For any exterior work this is a permit requirement, so let’s jump into the next tip of getting a survey!

GET A SURVEY

I recommend anyone buying a home to ask for a property survey. At the very least, acquire a boundary survey. If you don’t have one, get one. It is a valuable piece of information that can tell you about future projects for your home. I recently had a client reach out to do a simple rear porch addition. At first glance the home appeared to be located very far away from their rear fence. No obvious issues. Not the case! Upon review of the property survey, the home had been located (10) feet into the rear yard, leaving no room for them to go back. That was the entire depth of their addition! While the survey told us what we couldn’t do, it also told us what we can do. Legally. Don’t trust your eyes, and let a professional help you.

PREVENT FUTURE LEGAL BATTLES

Getting a survey is a proactive approach to preventing costly legal battles. Lawyer’s fees typically cost a lot more than the cost of a survey. A boundary survey in the city of New Orleans will cost around (500) dollars, and it will show an existing home’s footprint along with neighboring encroachments. We’ve used this document many times to open a discussion with neighbors prior to the start of construction. Many of these issues have been handled in a friendly way, and it’s always our first approach when we have a problem. A note from experience, the primary culprit of property line encroachments is fences. Save yourself the trouble and discuss with your fencing contractor how they are siting your fence, and also ask if they are acquiring a survey.

For a relatively small cost, you can save yourself a lot of legal battles if you get a boundary survey. Get a survey now if you’re looking to do work on your home in the future. Especially if you’re considering moving outward and UPWARD! Even if you’re building up, your home may not be in compliance with current zoning laws possibly changing the scope of your project. Lately, surveys are taking (4) to (6) weeks to acquire. This makes it even MORE valuable to start thinking of one now. It’s also a very important document for an architect. For most projects we can’t start designing or planning without one. So what are you waiting for? Let’s find out the location of your property line!