"What Does the Survey Line on South Dakota's Purchase Agreement Decide, and What Am I Carrying If I Waive It?"

Page two of the offer, and the pen stops over a short section you may never have seen on a purchase form before. The South Dakota Real Estate Commission's residential purchase agreement puts the survey decision right there, in writing, before you sign. It names two kinds of survey, gives you a line for who pays, and gives you a second line you can sign to skip the whole thing. Your agent may tell you that second line gets signed on a lot of files, and the form still asks you to decide.

South Dakota's state-published purchase agreement recommends that you, as the purchaser, get a survey. It lets you choose a location survey or a boundary survey, lets you and the seller decide who pays, and gives you a line to waive it. Signing the waiver leaves you carrying anything a survey would have found, because a standard title policy does not insure those matters unless a survey is provided.

I'm Jeff Moran, a mortgage broker in Bluffton, South Carolina, originating since 1996, licensed in fifteen states, including South Dakota, NMLS #483943, through C2 Financial Corporation. This is the read I would give you across your own kitchen table before you sign either line.

The survey section on the South Dakota purchase agreement

A state rule requires the agreement to address the survey. ARSD 20:69:17:01 requires a purchase agreement prepared by a real estate licensee to contain specified terms, and provisions for a survey are on that list. The others include inspection contingencies, prorations (how property taxes and similar costs get split between you and the seller at closing), merchantable title (a title the seller can deliver free of defects), closing and possession.

The form you are signing is a regulator's form, so the wording is the state's and it is the same on every file. The South Dakota Real Estate Commission publishes the Purchase Agreement - Residential Sales on its transaction forms page, and the posted agreement is the one your agent is filling in.

What is the difference between a location survey and a boundary survey?

They answer two different questions, and the form gives you both because the right one depends on the home.

A location survey shows where the improvements are on the lot. The surveyor draws the home, the garage, the driveway, the fence and any shed in relation to the lot lines described in the deed and the recorded plat, the map of the lot filed with the county. You can see whether anything crosses a line or inside a setback, the distance from the lot line that local rules say a building has to keep. It does not usually set new markers at the corners.

A boundary survey goes further. The surveyor locates the corners of the parcel, sets or recovers the monuments that mark them (an iron pin, a piece of rebar, a concrete post), and certifies the lines between them. The Commission's form describes this option as a new boundary survey marking all property corners before closing, and that phrase is the practical difference.

For a home on a city lot with a recorded plat and a fence that matches it, the location survey usually answers the question you have. For acreage, an irregular lot, a fence line that clearly disagrees with the plat, or a lot you intend to split or build on, the boundary survey is the one that settles it. A home on acreage raises questions about where the land ends that a location drawing cannot answer. A home reached by a private road or a shared driveway is a case where the survey and the recorded access easement (the recorded right to cross someone else's land to reach yours) get read together.

Who pays for the survey in South Dakota?

The agreement decides. The Commission's form lets the cost go to the seller or to the purchaser, and it leaves that choice to the two of you in the same way it leaves who pays for title insurance open. The South Dakota mortgage page covers that title line and the transfer fee the statute puts on the seller.

The survey cost is a line on the offer, so it is worth pricing before you write. I cannot give you a dollar figure here, because the price depends on the surveyor, the lot and the type of survey. A call to a licensed South Dakota surveyor with the address and the survey type gets you a quote, and that quote belongs in your offer math next to the inspection and the appraisal.

If you ask the seller to carry the cost, you are asking for a concession, and a concession is easier to get before the price is agreed than after. The seller's property condition disclosure, which South Dakota requires the seller to give you before you make a written offer, asks whether there is an existing location survey or recorded plat for the property. If the seller answers yes and hands you a copy, the form's existing-location-survey option may cover you at no cost, provided nothing has been built or moved since it was drawn. If the seller answers no, you know before you write that any survey will be a new one.

What happens if I sign the survey waiver line?

You keep the home exactly as it is, and you take on the questions a survey would have answered.

Take the detached garage on the side lot line. Nobody has ever measured it. If a survey would have shown the eave eighteen inches over the neighbor's line, that encroachment is there whether or not anybody draws it. Waiving the survey does not move the line. It means you find out later, often when a neighbor sells, puts up a fence or pulls a permit, and by then the seller who could have fixed it or priced it has moved on.

The same is true in the other direction. A neighbor's fence that extends three feet onto your lot is land you are paying for and cannot use. A survey turns each of those into a line item you can negotiate while the seller still has a reason to, but the waiver leaves them for you to sort out after closing, at your own expense.

Does a title policy cover what a survey would have found?

Usually no, and the reason is written into the policy itself.

Your lender will require a lender's title policy on the loan, and you will likely be offered an owner's policy for yourself. Before either policy is issued, the title company sends a title commitment, which is its written promise to insure the title on stated terms. The commitment carries a list of things the policy will not cover, called exceptions. Owner's and loan policies commonly carry a standard survey exception. A Stewart Title bulletin calls it the exception for "encroachments, overlaps, boundary line disputes or other matters which would be disclosed by an accurate survey and inspection of the premises" (Stewart Title bulletin). The same bulletin explains that the exception may be deleted from the owner's policy when an appropriate survey is received that discloses no facts requiring additional exceptions.

With a survey in hand, the title company can remove the survey exception and insure the boundary matters the survey shows are clear. Without one, the exception stays, and an encroachment or an overlap found later falls outside the coverage you paid for. Schedule B of your title commitment is where that exception appears, and it is worth reading before you decide on the waiver line rather than after.

The question for your title company is whether the survey exception will come off the owner's policy if you provide a survey, and which type of survey they need to do that. The answer tells you which box on the form to check.

Will my lender or the title company make me get one?

Sometimes, and the time to ask is before you sign the waiver line.

For a VA loan, the VA Lenders Handbook lists a survey among the itemized charges the veteran can pay "if required by the lender or veteran" (VA Pamphlet 26-7, Chapter 8, Topic 2, Table 1). It adds that a survey charge on a condominium loan needs VA's prior approval.

For a conventional or an FHA loan on an existing home, the requirement, when there is one, reaches your file through the title commitment rather than through a rule I can point you to in the agency guide. The title insurer decides what it needs to issue the lender's policy, and the lender takes the policy the insurer will write.

A new survey takes calendar days, a surveyor's schedule is not something your contract dates control, and the four clocks that run between contract and closing do not pause for it. You'll want to order the survey the day the agreement is signed.

The steps, in order

1. You'll want to be pre-approved before you are looking at a specific address. The qualifying side is national. The costing side has South Dakota in it, and South Dakota pre-approval covers the transfer fee a national calculator tends to put in the wrong column.
2. The seller's disclosure reaches you before you write, so you'll want to read its existing-survey answer first.
3. A call to a licensed South Dakota surveyor, with the address, gets you a quote for each type, and both numbers belong in your offer math.
4. Your title company can tell you whether a survey will remove the survey exception from the owner's policy, and which type it needs. That answer usually picks the box for you.
5. Then you fill in the survey section on purpose: the type, who pays, and the waiver line either left blank or signed because you decided it.
6. If a survey is ordered, it goes in the same week as the inspection and the appraisal.
7. If the drawing shows something over a line, it goes to your agent and your loan officer the same day, while the seller can still fix it or price it.

An illustration, with made-up numbers

Numbers below are invented to show the mechanism. They are not a quote and not anybody's file.

Say you are buying a $385,000 home in Rapid City on a corner lot with a detached garage close to one side. The seller's disclosure says there is no existing location survey. The title company tells you a location survey is enough to remove the survey exception from the owner's policy, so you check that box, ask the seller to split the cost, and the seller agrees.

The survey comes back with the garage eave fourteen inches over the side line. Now that fact is on the table while the seller still has a reason to address it. The seller can approach the neighbor for a recorded agreement that lets the eave stay, can adjust the price, or can have the overhang trimmed before closing. The right one for a given file is a question for your agent and, if needed, a South Dakota attorney. Your loan is not the obstacle: the lender's policy can issue once the title company is satisfied, and the file keeps moving.

Sign the waiver instead, and the eave is still fourteen inches over the line. Nothing about the loan changes, the closing happens on schedule, and the question arrives in a few years when the neighbor sells and the survey on that sale finds it. By then the seller who could have fixed it or priced it is long gone, and you are the one explaining it to the person who buys from you.

Where to start

Run your numbers with no credit pull and no account: rates for your scenario, your debt ratio, and closing costs priced for South Dakota. If you'd rather talk through the survey section of your offer with me, I'm happy to do that.

Common questions

Does South Dakota require a survey when you buy a home?

No general statewide survey-at-closing requirement was identified. The state does require the purchase agreement to address it: ARSD 20:69:17:01 requires a licensee-prepared purchase agreement to contain provisions for a survey. The Commission's residential purchase agreement recommends that the purchaser get one, offers a location survey or a boundary survey, lets the parties assign the cost, and provides a waiver line.

What is the difference between a location survey and a boundary survey on the South Dakota purchase agreement?

A location survey draws the home, garage, driveway, fences and other improvements in relation to the lot lines in the deed and the recorded plat, so you can see whether anything is over a line or inside a setback. A boundary survey locates the corners of the parcel, sets or recovers the monuments that mark them, and certifies the lines between them. The Commission's form describes the boundary option as a new boundary survey marking all property corners before closing.

Who pays for a survey in South Dakota?

The purchase agreement decides. The Commission's residential form lets the survey cost be assigned to the seller or to the purchaser, the same way it leaves the title insurance allocation to the parties. No statewide rule assigning the cost to either side was identified. A request that the seller carry it is easier to make before the price is agreed than after.

If I waive the survey in South Dakota, will my title insurance cover an encroachment?

Usually not. Owner's and loan policies commonly carry a standard survey exception for encroachments, overlaps, boundary line disputes and other matters an accurate survey would disclose. The exception stays on the policy unless a survey lets the title company remove it (Stewart Title bulletin). Waiving the survey leaves the exception in place, so an encroachment discovered later is outside the coverage.

Does my lender require a survey in South Dakota?

For a VA loan, the VA Lenders Handbook lists a survey among the charges the veteran can pay if required by the lender or the veteran (VA Pamphlet 26-7, Chapter 8). For a conventional or an FHA loan on an existing home, the requirement, when there is one, usually reaches the file through the title commitment, because the lender takes the policy the title insurer will issue.

Can I use the seller's existing survey instead of ordering a new one?

The Commission's form allows an existing location survey as one of the choices, and the statutory seller disclosure asks whether an existing location survey or recorded plat exists, so you will know before you write whether there is one. It is enough if nothing has been built, moved or added since it was drawn, and if your title company will rely on it to remove the survey exception.