If you have ever bought commercial property, you have probably heard your closing attorney or title agent ask, “Do you have an ALTA survey?” It is not a box-checking question. It changes what your title policy actually protects.
Connecticut is an attorney state. That means a licensed attorney must conduct your closing and act as your title insurance agent. These attorneys work from ALTA policy forms and follow strict title search rules, including a forty-year minimum search under the state’s Marketable Record Title Act. With that much riding on the title exam, the survey becomes a critical piece of the puzzle. Here is what is really happening behind that request.
What a Title Underwriter Is Actually Looking For in a Survey Request
A title underwriter is not asking for a survey because it is standard practice. They are asking because a title search alone cannot see the physical property. Land records show ownership history. They do not show where the fence actually sits, whether a neighbor’s driveway crosses the line, or if a building sits over a setback.
An underwriter reviewing a commercial deal looks for four physical risk flags a plain title search will miss:
- Encroachments from buildings, walls, or paved areas
- Easements that are not clearly located on the ground
- Gaps or overlaps between adjoining parcels
- Access issues, like whether the property actually touches a public road
A standard survey might show boundaries. An ALTA survey is built to a national standard that both surveyors and underwriters recognize, so the underwriter can trust the data without guessing at what was measured or how.
The Survey Exception Clause and How an ALTA Survey Gets It Removed From Your Policy
Every title commitment includes a set of standard printed exceptions. One of them is the survey exception. In plain language, it says the policy will not cover any problem a proper survey would have shown, because no survey was reviewed.
That exception is broad. It can leave a boundary dispute or a hidden encroachment completely outside your coverage.
Here is the fix. When you order an ALTA survey and the underwriter reviews it, they can strike, or delete, that exception from your policy. This is sometimes called removing or modifying the survey exception. Once it is gone, your policy actually covers the boundary and encroachment risks the survey confirmed were not present. Without that step, you own a policy with a hole in it, right where developers need protection most.
Gap Coverage: Why Insurers Won’t Bridge the Time Between Survey and Closing Without ALTA Compliance
Here is a detail most buyers never think about. A survey has a certification date. Your closing happens later, sometimes weeks later. Recording the deed can take even longer, since Connecticut is a notice recording state and documents are filed at each town’s clerk office.
That stretch of time between the survey date and the recorded closing is called the gap period. Anything that changes on the property during that gap, like a new fence, a construction encroachment, or a mechanic’s lien, is a real risk.
Insurers will not extend gap coverage casually. They extend it when the survey meets ALTA standards and the certification is current enough to trust. A survey that does not meet that bar leaves the gap period completely uninsured. For a commercial deal with a lender involved, that is a risk no bank will accept.
What Happens If a Commercial Closing Proceeds Without One
Skipping the ALTA survey does not stop a closing. It changes what that closing looks like.
Expect a marked-up title commitment, meaning the survey exception stays in the policy language. Expect your lender’s counsel to push back, since most commercial lenders require ALTA survey compliance as a loan condition, not a suggestion. Expect possible escrow holdbacks, where funds are set aside until a survey is completed post-closing. And expect delayed funding, since lenders will not release loan proceeds against a policy with unresolved survey risk.
None of this stops a deal from happening. It just makes the deal slower, more expensive, and less certain, right when a developer needs speed and certainty the most.
Coordinating ALTA Survey Timing With Title Commitment Deadlines
Timing is where most delays actually start. A title commitment gets issued early in a commercial transaction, often before the survey is even ordered. If the survey lands after the commitment deadline, the underwriter has no time to review it, request corrections, or clear the survey exception before closing.
A workable sequence looks like this:
- Order the ALTA survey as soon as the purchase agreement is signed, not after.
- Share the survey with the title attorney the moment it is certified, so exceptions can be reviewed early.
- Build in time for revisions. Surveyors sometimes need to correct or clarify details before an underwriter will accept them.
- Confirm the lender’s counsel has reviewed the final survey before the closing date is locked in.
Since Connecticut closings require attorney review at nearly every step, from the title search through document preparation, giving the survey time to move through that same pipeline keeps your closing on schedule instead of stuck in review.
What This Means for Your Next Closing
Think of the ALTA survey as the thing standing between your title policy and an unpleasant surprise later. Land records tell a title company who owns the property. Only a proper survey tells them what is actually sitting on it, right now, on the ground.
For developers working on commercial deals, the move is simple. Order the survey early. Get it in front of your title attorney fast. Do that, and your closing moves on schedule instead of getting stuck over a boundary detail nobody noticed until it was too late.
