T-47 affidavit and the survey exception on title insurance: what removal costs

The survey exception is a line in Schedule B of your title commitment that says the insurer will not pay for anything an accurate survey would have revealed: encroachments, boundary overlaps, protrusions, easements visible on the ground and shortages in area. Removing it takes one thing, a current survey the underwriter is willing to accept. In most states that means paying for the survey itself, roughly $450 to $900 on a residential lot and $2,500 or more for a commercial ALTA/NSPS survey, and the underwriter deletes the general exception at no separate premium. Texas is the exception to the exception, and it prices the coverage explicitly at 5 percent of the owner's policy premium on residential property and 15 percent on vacant land.

The part almost nobody explains, and the part that decides whether the money was well spent, is what you get afterward. Deleting the survey exception does not hand you blanket coverage over your boundaries. It converts one broad unknown into a specific, named list. That is still worth buying, for reasons below, but not for the reason most buyers think.

What is a survey exception on title insurance?

A title policy insures your ownership against defects in the public record. A survey exception carves out the things that are not in the public record but are visible on the ground. The general form used in most states excepts any encroachment, encumbrance, violation, variation or adverse circumstance affecting the title that an accurate and complete land survey of the land would disclose. Different underwriters word it slightly differently, and it usually sits with the other standard or general exceptions near the top of Schedule B.

Texas writes it as a single numbered item and the wording is worth reading because it is unusually plain. The unamended Texas owner's policy excepts "Any discrepancies, conflicts, or shortages in area or boundary lines, or any encroachments or protrusions, or any overlapping of improvements", and it deletes Covered Risk 2(c) along with it.

Read that list slowly, because every item on it is a real thing that happens to real properties:

This is the single most common gap between what buyers think title insurance does and what it does. People assume the policy guarantees the boundaries. It does not, unless the survey exception comes out.

How do you remove the survey exception?

You give the title company a survey it is willing to rely on, and it deletes the general exception. That is the whole mechanism. What counts as acceptable varies by underwriter and by transaction type, and the differences are worth knowing before you pay for the wrong product.

1. Order the survey early. Two to four weeks is normal for field work, records research and a sealed drawing. Ordering it the week of closing is where rush fees and delays come from.
2. Have it certified to the right parties. A survey certified to the seller and their lender from six years ago is a reference document, not something your underwriter can rely on. The certificate has to name you, your lender and the title company.
3. Send it to the title company for review, not just to your file. The underwriter reads it and decides what to except specifically.
4. Read the revised Schedule B. This is the step buyers skip, and it is the step that has value.

For commercial deals the bar is higher and more standardized. Underwriters typically want an ALTA/NSPS land title survey, often dated within six months of the commitment date, and on owner policies some will also want public utility letters before granting extended coverage. Residential practice is looser and regional: one large Illinois underwriter, for example, requires a current survey or an affidavit in lieu of survey in the six Chicago-area counties, and accepts an affidavit alone elsewhere.

Does removing the survey exception give me full coverage?

No, and this is the correction that matters most. When the general survey exception comes out, the underwriter replaces it with specific exceptions describing exactly what your survey found. Those named items remain uninsured. ALTA publishes suggested wording for them, and it reads like this: "Any rights, easements, interests or claims that may exist by reason of, or be reflected by, the following facts shown on the survey dated ______ by ______", followed by a description of the encroachment, the setback violation or the easement.

So if your survey shows the neighbor's shed two feet onto your lot, you do not get insured against the shed. You get an exception that names the shed. The general unknown became a specific known.

That still justifies the cost, for three reasons that have nothing to do with insurance payouts. First, you find out before closing, while you still have leverage to renegotiate the price, demand the seller resolve it, or walk. Second, everything the survey did not find is now covered, which is most of the boundary risk on most properties. Third, you end up owning a sealed survey and monuments in the ground, which is what you need later to build a fence, pull a permit or answer a neighbor. Read the specific exceptions carefully rather than filing them: each one usually cites a recorded document by book and page, and those old scanned plats and easements are worth pulling and reading, which is easier if you can turn the scanned pages into searchable text before you start.

How much does it cost to remove the survey exception?

In most states the cost is simply the cost of the survey. Underwriters outside Texas generally do not charge a separate line item to delete a general exception once they hold an acceptable survey, though some apply a special risk premium for extended coverage on owner policies. Ask your title officer directly rather than assuming.

Against a purchase price, this is small. Against the cost of moving a driveway or losing a sixth of an acre you paid for, it is very small. Broader pricing is in our land survey cost guide and the ALTA survey cost breakdown.

Texas is different: amending the area and boundary exception

Texas rates and forms are prescribed by the Texas Department of Insurance, so the coverage is priced openly instead of being folded into underwriting discretion. Texas does not call it removing the survey exception. It calls it amending the exception as to area and boundaries, and the amended item is reduced to two words: "Shortages in area". Everything else on that line, the discrepancies, conflicts, encroachments, protrusions and overlaps, comes back into coverage.

Published Texas schedules put the cost at 5 percent of the owner's title policy premium for residential property, meaning land plus a house, and 15 percent for vacant land. The T-19.1 endorsement covering restrictions, encroachments and minerals is usually issued alongside it and is priced separately. Texas buyers should also know that the area and boundary amendment appears as a checkbox in paragraph 6(A) of the standard 1-4 family contract, and the contract decides who pays for it, so it is negotiable before you sign rather than a fixed closing cost. State detail is on our Texas land surveyors page.

Is a survey required for title insurance?

No. A title company will happily insure you without one. It just keeps the survey exception in the policy, which means the boundary risks stay yours. Lenders drive most of the demand: commercial lenders almost always require an ALTA survey, while many residential lenders accept a cheap inspection product or no survey at all, because their exposure ends at the loan balance and yours does not. That asymmetry is the reason to decide for yourself rather than defaulting to whatever closes the loan. Our guide on whether you need a survey to buy a house works through the cases where skipping it is defensible.

What is a T-47 affidavit, and can I use it instead of a survey?

Sometimes, and only where the underwriter allows it and nothing has changed on the ground. The document is usually called an affidavit in lieu of survey, or in Texas the T-47 Residential Real Property Affidavit promulgated by the Texas Department of Insurance. The seller swears under oath that no improvements, fences or boundary changes have been made since the date of the existing survey. If that is true, the underwriter may accept the old survey and amend the exception anyway.

Two cautions. The affidavit binds the seller, not the insurer, so if the seller is wrong you have a claim against a person rather than coverage from a company. And it only works if an existing survey exists to attach it to. Where a fence went up, a deck was added or a lot was split since the last survey, the affidavit path closes. More on this in how long a property survey is good for.

Texas runs the most formalized version of this, and the mechanics are worth knowing before you sign anything. The Texas Department of Insurance promulgates two forms. The T-47 Residential Real Property Affidavit is sworn before a notary. The T-47.1 Residential Real Property Declaration in Lieu of Affidavit does the same job but is signed by the seller without notarization, which is why it has largely taken over in practice. Under Paragraph 6(C) of the TREC contract the seller may supply either one, but one of the two still has to accompany the existing survey.

The clause most sellers miss is the cost consequence. If the seller does not deliver both the existing survey and one of the two forms within the time the contract allows, the buyer can order a new survey at the seller's expense. So a seller who cannot find the old survey, or who will not sign the declaration because they added a deck and would rather not say so, is often choosing to pay $450 to $900 for a new one without realizing it.

None of this binds the underwriter. The title company or the lender can still require a new survey and decline the affidavit, and they routinely do when the existing survey is old, when the legal description has changed, or when the aerial imagery shows something the declaration does not mention. Treat the T-47 as a request that is often granted, not an entitlement. If it is refused, you are back to buying a current boundary survey, and the Texas amendment pricing below is what the deletion itself will cost on top.

What is a survey endorsement?

An endorsement adds coverage back on top of the policy rather than removing an exception from it. The most common survey-related one ties the policy to a specific survey by date and surveyor, so the insurer is agreeing that the land described in the policy is the same land shown on that drawing. Others cover restrictions, encroachments and minerals. Endorsements and exception deletions are different levers and are often used together; the exception deletion is the one that actually restores boundary coverage.

Owner's policy or lender's policy: which one matters?

The owner's policy, by a wide margin. Your lender's policy protects the lender up to the loan balance and disappears when the loan is paid. If the survey exception is deleted only on the loan policy and left on yours, the bank is covered for the encroachment and you are not. When you ask the title officer to delete the exception, confirm in writing that the deletion applies to the owner's policy.

What to do before your closing

Pull Schedule B of the commitment as soon as you get it and find the survey exception. Decide whether you want it out. If you do, order a boundary survey immediately, have it certified to you, your lender and the title company, and ask for a revised commitment showing what the underwriter will except specifically. If any of those specific exceptions describes something touching a structure, get a price to fix it before you close rather than after. An encroachment survey is the right product when you already know there is a problem, and a plain boundary survey is the right one when you are checking.

Surveyors.io returns up to three quotes from licensed surveyors in your state, which is usually fast enough to fit inside an option or inspection period. Enter the address above and pick the boundary survey option.