ALTA/NSPS Surveys in Kensington, CA

Let’s be candid about Kensington: this is a small unincorporated residential community with essentially no commercial corridor, so a classic retail or office ALTA is rare here. Where the 2021 ALTA/NSPS Minimum Standard Detail Requirements do come into play is on the parcels that trade with lender or title-insurer involvement — small multifamily buildings, institutional and district-owned properties, and hillside land acquisitions where a buyer wants the full picture of boundary, record easements, improvements, and encroachments before closing. Because Kensington has no city hall, land-use questions run through Contra Costa County planning, and all record maps and documents are filed with the Contra Costa County Recorder and reviewed by the County Surveyor. We build every ALTA here from that county record: the vesting deed, the title commitment’s Schedule B exceptions, and the underlying subdivision maps.

Kensington’s defining due-diligence issue is ground movement. The Blakemont slow-moving landslide area on the El Cerrito border is the canonical local hazard, and mid-century homes on steep, narrow streets sit on slopes that creep over wet winters. For a purchaser or lender, that matters in two ways: Table A item 3 flood and optional hazard-zone notes can flag mapped landslide and earthquake-induced-landslide zones on the face of the survey, and the boundary work itself must reckon with fences, walls, and even monuments that may have drifted with the slope. Under Business and Professions Code §8771 we evaluate and perpetuate monuments rather than accept them at face value on moving ground.

Our Trimble terrestrial laser scanner earns its keep on these constrained hillside sites. One mobilization captures the entire parcel — structures, retaining walls, utility surface features, encroaching improvements — at survey-grade density, so Table A items like building footprints, exterior dimensions, and parking counts come from the point cloud without return trips up narrow streets. The cloud remains reusable after closing for as-built documentation or renovation design.