After taking a slight detour from Suze Orman’s Protection Portfolio’s Checklist, I will return without anymore turns in this category. 🙂
The past three weeks, we have concentrated on our home ownership documents which are housed in our filing system. This third category of our Box 1 items currently holds our deed(s), insurance (homeowner’s or renter’s), and property tax documents.
The fourth item housed in this category is a survey of our property. If you have numerous properties, then you might consider making a separate category per address. With multiple properties, you will have these documents for each property. Keeping them organized will be extremely beneficial for you.
Our survey is a one-page document showing a scaled diagram of the property we have purchased. The drawing includes where on the property our house is located, easements, and property lines. This document also includes a small location map, book identification where the survey is recorded, and a raised seal deeming this survey official.
Having setup this filing system before we built and purchased our house, I went into our closing ready to ask for a copy of our survey. Now, the survey may already have been packaged with our closing documents. I am not sure if this is standard practice or not. However, I purposefully asked for a copy and received it before our closing session was complete.
If I had skipped preparing the home ownership category of my filing system, then I would not have known to ask or looked for our survey.
If you cannot locate your survey, you can contact the Register of Deeds Office in the property’s county for instructions. Each county has different regulations, so there is not a standardized request form to obtain your survey.
If you have closed recently on your home, I would check with your mortgage lender or closing attorney (if you had one) to obtain a copy. Usually the mortgage company and attorney’s office will be able to locate your survey quicker than the county’s government office.
In my file, our survey is located behind our property tax documents. It is a small document, but one I will be glad to have should we extend our home or add a shed to our property.
Next week I will share another document in our home ownership category. In the meantime, keep using your time wisely to stay organized.
Question: Was your survey included in your package of paperwork at your closing?
