As many home buyers learn, it’s not always clear where a property’s
boundaries are, especially when the home has several acres or the property
includes more than one parcel of land. In
PA, a survey is not required for a home sale, and most sellers in our area have
not had their property surveyed (though some may have obtained one before installing
a fence).
Even though most home sales in this area proceed without a
survey, that doesn’t mean you can’t make an offer contingent on one. If you want the right to terminate the sale if
the boundaries differ from what you thought, you can elect the property-boundary
contingency in the standard PA agreement of sale used by most area realtors. The
contingency allows you to have the property surveyed, at your expense, within a
time frame agreed to by you and the sellers.
Examples of cases where a survey would be particularly useful
are when:
- The home has several acres, and you need accurate
information about boundary lines because you have specific plans for the land.
- The home is on a large wooded lot, but the sellers
have limited information about how far into the woods it extends and have never
surveyed it.
- The sellers think their land includes the stream nearby,
but you don’t want to proceed with the purchase unless you can confirm that it
does.
- The home is on a property that includes more than
one parcel of land.
Read more of Annette’s real estate articles for the latest real estate advice.
If you’re planning to buy or sell a home, contact Annette Nelson at (610) 247-7892 or annette@preferredhomes.com
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