Condominium survey and condominium plat: condo plat cost, condo survey scope, and who is allowed to seal it

A boundary survey answers a two dimensional question: where does this parcel end. A condominium survey answers a three dimensional one, because a condominium unit is a volume of air inside a building, not a piece of ground. The plat has to fix where each unit stops horizontally, usually at an interior wall surface, and where it stops vertically, at a floor and ceiling elevation. Everything that is not a unit is a common element, and some of it, the deck outside unit 4B, the parking space assigned to unit 12, is a limited common element reserved to one unit but owned in common.

That distinction is the whole product. Every future deed, every mortgage, every assessment allocation and every insurance claim in the building traces back to lines on this plat. If a unit is drawn a foot off, or a storage room is labeled as common element when the declaration says it is limited common element, the error is recorded and it propagates into every conveyance that follows.

The District of Columbia statute is unusually explicit about the contents, and it is a fair checklist to hold any surveyor to anywhere. Under D.C. Code 42-1902.14 the plat must show the location and dimensions of the submitted land and of any convertible lands, the location of existing and contemplated improvements, the location and dimensions of all easements appurtenant to the submitted land, the distance between non-contiguous parcels, withdrawable and leased lands appropriately labeled, and all encroachments by or on any portion of the condominium. Improvements that are not yet begun or not yet completed have to be labeled as such.

There is a second document alongside the plat, and confusing the two is the most common budgeting mistake. The plans, showing the vertical boundaries of each unit, the horizontal boundaries of units that have them, and the unit identifying numbers, are certified in D.C. by a registered architect or registered engineer, not by the surveyor. The plat is surveying work. The unit plans are architectural or engineering work. You are hiring two licensed professionals, and a quote that covers only one of them is not a complete quote.

This is the single most expensive thing to learn late. A condominium can be created on paper before the building is finished, but units generally cannot be sold until a surveyor certifies that what was built matches what was recorded. That means the survey happens twice: once to record the condominium, and once to certify substantial completion.

Florida writes the rule out in full. Under Fla. Stat. 718.104(4)(e) the declaration must contain a survey of the land meeting the standards of practice of the Board of Professional Surveyors and Mappers, a graphic description of the improvements in which units are located, and a plot plan, in sufficient detail to identify the common elements and each unit and their relative locations and approximate dimensions. If construction is not substantially complete there must be a statement to that effect, and on substantial completion the developer or the association must amend the declaration to include a certificate of a surveyor and mapper authorized to practice in the state that the construction is substantially complete, so that the identification, location and dimensions of the common elements and of each unit can be determined from the materials.

The practical consequence for a developer is a closing calendar, not a legal footnote. Completed units inside a substantially completed building may be conveyed even while other buildings in the development are unfinished, provided the planned improvements serving that building, landscaping, utility service, access and common element facilities, are in place first. Every week the certifying surveyor is not scheduled is a week of held closings.

One nuance worth knowing before a lawyer alarms you about it: Florida also provides that failure of the survey to meet the standards of practice does not invalidate an otherwise validly created condominium. A defective survey is a real problem, it is a title problem and a liability problem, but it does not by itself unwind the condominium.