FAQ: Can I Pick My Own Surveyor?
As a buyer, your mortgage company will allow you to shop some services and surveyors are one of them. As a homeowner, you should also shop surveyors, and price is not the only reason that you should!
In the Huntsville and Lake Livingston area, the amount of time it will take to get your survey back varies greatly from one surveyor to another. Another thing to shop, and -- in my opinion, the most important thing -- is to determine whether or not the surveyor puts a copyright on their work.
If you are having a property surveyed for any reason, you may as well make sure that you can at least offer it to someone else, should the need arise.
In the Huntsville and Lake Livingston area there are a few surveyors that copyright their surveys to specific transactions. This keeps the survey from being used again at a later date. Even when the transaction involves the purchaser of the survey.
Here's some examples:
Buyer orders survey for a loan they are getting on 123 Main Street. Buyer freaks out over some issue and backs out of the loan. If there is no copyright on the survey, it may be able to be used on a future transaction, and the buyer may be able to recoup some or all of the money that was spent.
Another example: Seller has home refinanced due to a drop in interest rates. A year later they are transferred out of state. If the survey does not have a copyright, the seller may be able to offer the survey to a potential buyer for use with their mortgage to save that buyer some money.
Note: Whether or not a new lender will accept an old survey depends on whether or not something has been built or added to the property since the time of the survey, the age of the survey, the title company, the loan underwriters, or a combination thereof. It is not guaranteed that the lender will accept a previous survey, but for sure you want to be able to try! Right?! :)
In Texas, there is a form called the T-47 that is a Property Affidavit that the seller can complete and sign in front of a notary to attach with their existing survey for the benefit of the buyer.
Can you pick your own surveyor? ABSOLUTELY! AND YOU SHOULD!
FAQ: Can I Pick My Own Surveyor?
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