How to Read an ALTA Survey

1. Start With the Caption and the Certification

Two things establish that the document is what you paid for. The first is the caption: §6.D.ii(k) requires the plat to carry the words "ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey". A drawing titled "boundary survey" or "topographic survey" is a different product with a different scope — see ALTA survey vs boundary survey.

The second is the certification block, governed by §7. Its wording is fixed. The standards say the plat "must bear only the following unaltered certification", and the text names the standard ("the 2026 Minimum Standard Detail Requirements"), lists the Table A items included, and states the date fieldwork was completed. Three things to check:

• Is your lender named? The certification runs to the parties listed in it and no one else. If your lender, title insurer or an assignee is missing, they may refuse it.
• Does the Table A list match your engagement letter? The items recited in the certification are the items the surveyor is certifying they performed.
• What is the fieldwork completion date? Not the plat date. Lender survey-age rules run off it — see lender survey requirements, where the windows run from Freddie Mac's 90 days before the Note date to Fannie Mae's 360 days before recording.

Under §7.B the certification may be extended to successors and assigns of the lender on request. If your loan is likely to be sold or securitised, ask for that at engagement rather than paying for a recertification later.

2. Basis of Bearings: Why the Angles Are What They Are

Somewhere in the notes you will find a sentence naming the basis of bearings. This is not a courtesy: §6.B.iv requires the plat to state "the basis of bearings and, where it differs from the record basis, the difference." Everything angular on the drawing is measured relative to that stated reference.

It matters because there is no single "north". Satellite positioning gives a surveyor grid north. Your deed was written against whatever reference the original surveyor used, possibly a century ago. Rather than publish a drawing whose angles disagree with your legal description, the surveyor rotates the field measurements onto the record reference, then states the line that defines the rotation. That statement is what makes the survey reproducible: another surveyor can find those two monuments and rebuild the same drawing.

This is also why a bearing that appears to contradict your deed usually does not. A line running north-east in one document and south-west in another is the same line described from opposite ends.

3. Monuments: The Physical Evidence

Monuments are the markers that fix the boundary on the ground. §5.A requires the surveyor to record the location, size, character and type of every monument found, and — where Table A Item 1 is selected or the jurisdiction requires it — every monument set. The 2026 standards additionally require the monument's relationship to the surface of the ground, so a plat should tell you whether a pin was flush, buried, or standing proud.

You will see these as small symbols with abbreviations beside them. The standards do not prescribe what a monument must be made of, so types vary by region and era; in common use are iron pipes, rebar (frequently with a cap stamped with the setting firm's name and licence number), masonry or "PK" nails set in concrete or asphalt, aluminium or brass discs, and cast concrete monuments. Do not work from a generic list — the legend on your plat defines the abbreviations actually used on it, which is exactly what §6.D.ii(d) exists to guarantee.

The found versus set distinction carries the most meaning. A found monument is evidence, and §3.D requires boundaries to be "established and/or retraced in accordance with appropriate boundary law principles governed by the set of facts and evidence found in the course of performing the research and fieldwork." §3.E.ii is explicit that the availability, condition, history and integrity of controlling monuments is one of the sources of boundary uncertainty a surveyor must weigh as evidence — not something a measurement can settle.

So when a found monument does not agree with the record, resolving it is a judgement call under boundary law, and §6.B.viii requires the surveyor to explain it on the face of the plat where the results differ significantly from the record or a fundamental boundary decision is not otherwise clear. That disclosure is the survey working correctly, not a defect.

4. Line Tables and Curve Tables

On a simple rectangular parcel, each boundary line is labelled in place with its bearing and distance. On anything complex — an assembled site, a condominium, a parcel with many short segments — there is no room. The surveyor labels segments L1, L2, L3 and curves C1, C2, and moves the values into tables on the sheet.

A line table gives bearing and distance. A curve table gives the curve data — conventionally radius, arc length, chord and delta angle, though the standards specify the requirement by function rather than by field list: §6.B.iv requires "the direction, distance, and curve data necessary to compute a mathematical closure of the surveyed boundary". Whatever a curve table contains, it must be enough to reconstruct the boundary and close it mathematically. Nothing is lost by moving the values into a table.

The same section requires a note if the record description does not mathematically close — worth looking for, because a non-closing legal description is a title problem, not a drafting one. Practically, a long curve table also signals a boundary with many calls, which is one of the things that drives survey cost and turnaround upward.

5. Numbered Bubbles: The Link to Your Title Commitment

The numbered bubbles scattered across the drawing are the most commercially important thing on the plat, and the least self-explanatory. Each one corresponds to a numbered exception in Schedule B-II of your title commitment. The bubble sits where that exception physically falls, usually with the recording information beside it.

The purpose is reconciliation by a non-surveyor. A paralegal holding the commitment can walk down the numbered exceptions and see, for each one, whether it crosses the building, clips a corner, runs under the parking, or does not touch the property at all. Exceptions that cannot be located from their recorded description — blanket easements, or descriptions too vague to plot — get a note saying so rather than a bubble.

This is a large enough topic to have its own page: Schedule B exceptions on your ALTA survey covers what you must give the surveyor, what "not plottable" means, and why exception count drives cost.

6. Surveyor's Observations and the New Item 20 Table

Encroachments, gaps and overlaps appear in a notes section usually headed "surveyor's observations". Read the verbs carefully: a well-drafted plat says a fence appears to encroach. Surveyors locate physical conditions; they do not opine on ownership, because that is a legal question.

New in 2026, Table A Item 20 standardises this. Where selected, observed conditions must be summarised in a table on the face of the plat, keyed so a reviewer can find each one on the drawing — and expressly "without expressing a statement of legal opinion or an opinion as to ownership". It covers five categories:

1. Potential encroachments across boundary lines, in either direction
2. Potential encroachments into documented rights of way and easements
3. Setback encroachments, but only where setbacks were supplied under Item 6(a) or 6(b) or appear in recorded documents
4. Physical access between adjoining parcels with no documented easement
5. Use of adjoining parcels by apparent occupants of your property with no documented easement

Item 20 replaced the old write-in slot, which moved to Item 21. If you are working from a checklist written before 2026, it will have the numbering wrong. The standards also note the table "may not be a comprehensive list of all concerns" — it is a reader's aid, not a substitute for reading the plat.

7. The Notes Block

The left or right margin carries the notes: flood zone (Table A Item 3), zoning and setbacks (Item 6), parking counts (Item 9), gross land area (Item 4), and the basis of bearings. Two are easy to misread:

• Flood zone is plotted, not determined. Item 3 provides the classification "depicted by scaled map location and graphic plotting only" — it is a scaled read off the FEMA panel, not an elevation certificate.
• Zoning comes from a report you supply. Items 6(a) and 6(b) both require the client to provide a zoning report or letter; the surveyor transcribes or draws it and cites its date and source. The surveyor is not making a zoning determination.

New in 2026, §6.D.ii(l) requires the plat to note any parol statements — verbal claims about title or boundary made to the surveyor by owners or occupants. If a neighbour told the field crew the fence was agreed as the line, that now appears on the drawing. It is hearsay, and it is exactly the sort of thing worth knowing before closing.

What the Standards Require on Every Plat

Section references are to the 2026 Minimum Standard Detail Requirements for ALTA/NSPS Land Title Surveys, effective 23 February 2026. Where a state or local jurisdiction imposes a stricter requirement, §3.B makes the stricter one control — so your plat may carry more than this.

A Reading Order That Works

1. Confirm the caption says "ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey".
2. Read the certification: who it runs to, which Table A items, what fieldwork date.
3. Check that Table A list against your lender's requirements and your engagement letter.
4. Find the legend before reading any symbols.
5. Find the basis of bearings note.
6. Walk the boundary, using the line and curve tables where segments are labelled.
7. Take the title commitment and walk Schedule B-II against the numbered bubbles.
8. Read the surveyor's observations and the Item 20 table last, then send anything unresolved to your attorney.

If something on your plat does not match this description, that is worth a question to the surveyor rather than an assumption — most plats carry firm-specific drafting conventions on top of the required elements, and the legend is the place those get explained.

Related Pages

• Schedule B exceptions on your ALTA survey
• ALTA survey accuracy standards and relative positional precision
• What is an ALTA survey?
• ALTA Table A items explained
• ALTA/NSPS minimum standard detail requirements
• ALTA survey vs boundary survey
• ALTA Table A configurator
• ALTA survey cost calculator
• ALTA survey cost by state and city
• Find ALTA survey providers