How Long Is a Property Survey Good For?

A property survey never legally expires. The corners, monuments and lines a licensed surveyor set stay valid for as long as nothing on the ground changes. What ages is the survey's usefulness for a transaction: lenders and title companies typically want a survey completed within the last 5 to 10 years, and many will accept an older one if the seller signs an affidavit of no change. So the honest answer is that a survey is "good" indefinitely as a record, but "current enough" for a specific closing, loan or permit only if the property has not changed since it was drawn.

Do property surveys expire?

No. There is no statute in any US state that puts an expiration date on a boundary survey. The monuments a surveyor sets and the sealed plat they produced remain a legal record of where your lines were determined to be. A survey from 1985 that still matches the iron pins in the ground is just as legally valid as one drawn last week. The only thing that erodes over time is confidence that the picture is still accurate, because fences move, additions get built, easements get granted and corners get disturbed.

How long is a property survey good for when buying a house?

For a home purchase, most lenders and title companies want a survey from roughly the last 5 to 10 years, and the exact threshold is set by the individual title underwriter, not by law. If the seller has an older survey, the common workaround is a seller's affidavit of no change: a sworn statement that no new structures, encroachments or boundary changes have occurred since the survey was made. With that affidavit, a title company will often insure over the old survey and skip ordering a new one. If the seller cannot or will not sign it, or the property has visibly changed, expect to pay for a fresh survey. For the full picture of which survey a closing actually needs, see mortgage and title survey for closing.

How long is a survey good for a mortgage or refinance?

On a refinance, the standard depends on whether your lender and title company require survey coverage at all, and many residential refinances do not. When they do, the same 5-to-10-year window and affidavit-of-no-change practice applies. A survey exception on your existing title policy can sometimes carry forward if nothing has changed. Whether a refinance needs a survey at all is covered in do I need a survey to refinance.

How old a survey each party actually accepts

There is no legal expiry, so the only number that matters is the one the party in front of you applies. These are the thresholds you will run into in practice, and the workaround column is the part worth knowing before you pay for a new survey you may not need.

The affidavit of no change, and the form that makes it work

This is the document that decides whether you pay for a new survey, and most sellers have never heard of it until a title company asks. An affidavit of no change is a sworn statement by the seller that nothing affecting the boundaries or improvements has happened since the existing survey was made: no new fence, deck, shed, addition, pool, driveway, easement or lot line change. With it in hand, a title underwriter can often insure over a survey that is well past their normal age window, and nobody orders anything.

Texas has the most formalized version of this, and it is worth knowing about even outside Texas because it shows you exactly what these affidavits ask. The T-47 Residential Real Property Affidavit is a form promulgated by the Texas Department of Insurance. It is required whenever a seller provides an existing survey instead of buying a new one, it is signed by the seller in front of a notary, and it lists the changes the seller is attesting have or have not occurred. Without a correctly completed T-47, an existing Texas survey generally is not usable for the transaction.

Three practical points. First, ask early. Sellers discover this at the closing table constantly, and a surveyor cannot turn around a boundary survey in two days. Second, be truthful on it. It is a sworn statement, and the deck you added in 2021 is exactly the kind of thing a buyer's inspection finds. Third, if the seller will not sign it, that is information. Sometimes it means an unpermitted structure or a known encroachment, and the right response is to order the survey rather than to argue about the affidavit.

When do you actually need a new survey?

Order a new survey, regardless of how recent the last one is, whenever the facts on the ground may have shifted:

• Anything was built near a line since the last survey: a fence, deck, addition, pool, shed or driveway.
• You are building close to a boundary and need current, sealed line locations to pull a permit.
• The parcel was split, combined or had an easement added.
• There is a boundary dispute or a neighbor's improvement looks like it crosses the line.
• The corner pins are missing or disturbed and cannot be found in the field.
• A lender, title company or municipality requires a recent one and no affidavit of no change is available.

Can an old survey ever become invalid?

A survey does not become "invalid," but it can become wrong for the current situation. If a retaining wall was rebuilt two feet over, or a subdivision replatted the block, the old drawing no longer describes reality. The legal boundary usually has not moved, but the paper no longer shows what is actually there, so anyone relying on it, a title insurer, a permit reviewer or a court, will want it updated. That is the difference between a survey being legally valid and being practically current.

Do any states put an expiration date on a survey?

No state does, and two concrete examples show how the confusion arises. In Georgia, nothing in the licensing statutes or the board rules sets an expiry, but Rule 180-7-.07(b)(7) requires the surveyor to retain the plat with its field notes, computations, coordinate data and drawing files for six years. People hear "six years" attached to a survey and turn it into an expiry. It is a records-retention duty owed by the surveyor, not a shelf life on your plat.

The real constraint is a freshness rule inside a specific permit process, and Miami-Dade County's is a clean example of how those are written. Its Interpretation Bulletin 122 lets a site plan or topographic map from a previously approved permit be reused only if it was signed, sealed and dated by someone authorized to practice land surveying and the current configuration of improvements matches what that survey showed. If anything has changed since, an addition, a demolition, a different development footprint, the previous survey cannot be used. Note that this test has nothing to do with the date. A survey from last year fails it if you built a deck; a survey from 1998 passes it if nothing moved.

That is the mental model to carry into any conversation about survey age. Nobody is really asking how old the drawing is. They are asking whether it still describes the property, and the date is just the cheap proxy they use when they have no better information. Which is exactly why the affidavit above works: it replaces the proxy with an actual answer.

Does the state I am in change the answer?

The core answer is the same nationwide because no state sets a legal expiration, but local recording and title practice vary. In states with strong record-of-survey filing rules, an older survey is more likely to be on file and reusable. In states without a central recording requirement, a prior survey may never have been recorded, so a new field survey is often needed even if one was done years ago. When in doubt, ask a surveyor licensed in your state and county what local title companies currently accept.

The bottom line

Treat your survey as a permanent record that has a shelf life for transactions. Keep the sealed plat and the recorded plat with your closing documents. When you sell, refinance or build, ask your title company what age they accept and whether an affidavit of no change will do. If the property has changed or the pins are gone, do not gamble on an old drawing. Describe the job in the matcher on the Surveyors.io homepage and compare quotes from licensed local surveyors, and see the land survey cost guide for what a fresh survey runs.