Survey Works provides ALTA/NSPS Land Title Surveys in San Antonio and across Bexar County for commercial buyers, developers, lenders, and the title companies and attorneys who close their transactions. An ALTA survey is the most comprehensive survey prepared for commercial property, built to the national standard published by the American Land Title Association and the National Society of Professional Surveyors, and ordered when a transaction justifies the highest level of survey evidence on record.
ALTA surveys are also called ALTA land surveys, ALTA/NSPS land title surveys, or simply title surveys in the commercial real estate market. In every case the deliverable is a sealed drawing, prepared by a licensed land surveyor, that reconciles the boundary, the improvements, and a buyer-specified set of Table A investigations into one document a closing can rely on.
What a San Antonio ALTA survey documents
Every ALTA survey brings together the record and the ground. The record is the deed, the filed plat, and the recorded easements affecting the parcel, searchable through the Bexar County Clerk's free official records portal, and the ground is the monuments, improvements, and physical evidence the field crew locates on site. The sealed certificate documents both, along with the parcel's access, setbacks, and any encroachments. Every certificate carries:
- Record and measured boundary tied to the legal description
- Buildings, foundations, hardscape, and other physical improvements
- Encroachments onto or off the subject property
- Easements and rights of way of record, including access and utility easements
- Points of access from public roads and any applicable zoning setbacks
- Flood-prone areas and other physical conditions bearing on the title
The buyer's counsel selects the additional investigations through the ALTA Table A list. On Bexar County commercial deals the items added most often are item 3, flood zone classification against the current FEMA maps, item 5, vertical relief and contour data, and item 11, evidence of underground utilities serving the site. Zoning analysis and ADA review are common on larger sites. The Table A selections are confirmed in writing before the crew mobilizes, so the certificate matches what the title company and lender expect. An ALTA survey is the commercial-standard synthesis of what a boundary survey and a title search do separately, held to the national ALTA/NSPS standard and certified to a defined list of parties so the buyer, the lender, and the title insurer can each rely on it.
When San Antonio clients order an ALTA survey
A title company orders one to clear the survey exceptions on a commercial commitment. A lender orders one when underwriting a San Antonio commercial loan calls for current survey evidence. A commercial buyer orders one during due diligence on an acquisition where the risk profile justifies the full survey. A developer orders one early on a Bexar County site to confirm the property being bought is the property that can be built. ALTA surveys also come up on refinancing, 1031 exchanges, and partial acquisitions where an older survey no longer reflects current conditions or current ALTA/NSPS standards.
Who pays for the survey is a term of the purchase and sale agreement, and on most San Antonio commercial transactions the cost falls to the buyer, since the buyer and its lender are the parties that need the survey for due diligence and financing. It is negotiable, and sellers sometimes carry the cost or split it as part of the deal terms.
Reconciling record and ground in older San Antonio
What makes a Bexar County ALTA retracement take real work is the title chain. Commercial parcels in the older parts of San Antonio, downtown, King William, and the original town tracts near the river, can carry descriptions that trace back through Republic-era conveyances to Spanish and Mexican land grants, and those descriptions rarely line up cleanly with modern GPS and total station measurements. Reconciling that historical record against the monuments on the ground, and against the easements recorded with the county in the decades since, is the part of the job that protects the certificate the title insurer relies on. The same care applies when an acquisition spans several parcels that were platted at different times and need to close as one.
Timeline and scope
A typical ALTA/NSPS survey runs two to three weeks from kickoff to signed certificate. The records research, the coordination with the title company, the utility locating, and the preparation of the sealed drawing to current ALTA/NSPS standards together take more time than the field crew spends on site. Cost is driven by the size and complexity of the parcel, the Table A items selected, and the volume of recorded title evidence that has to be reconciled against physical conditions, so Survey Works scopes each job on a firm timeline that protects the closing date.
Survey Works has delivered ALTA/NSPS surveys on Texas commercial transactions for over 10 years, and our San Antonio crews work the full range of Bexar County property, from downtown redevelopment sites to acreage along the US-281 and Loop 1604 corridors to holdings in the surrounding Comal and Guadalupe County markets. Every project runs through the same process, calibrated to the recorded evidence and the parties who have to rely on the certificate.
For an ALTA/NSPS land title survey anywhere in the San Antonio area, request a proposal and we will walk you through the scope, timeline, and deliverable format.