ALTA/NSPS Surveys in Moraga, CA

Moraga is a semi-rural town, and we scope ALTA work here accordingly. The commercial stock is concentrated in a couple of small town-center shopping districts, joined by institutional holdings — a private college campus, schools, churches — and ranch-style subdivisions from the 1960s and 70s running out to open-space boundaries. When one of these commercial or institutional parcels sells or refinances, the lender and title insurer will call for an ALTA/NSPS Land Title Survey to the 2021 Minimum Standard Detail Requirements: boundary resolution from the record, every Schedule B easement plotted, improvements located, and encroachments flagged. Shopping-center parcels in particular tend to carry layered reciprocal access and parking easements that reward careful research at the Contra Costa County Recorder, whose office holds the maps and documents underlying every Moraga title, with the County Surveyor reviewing any resulting Record of Survey.

Moraga’s geology is the second reason buyers order surveys here. The town sits where Moraga Formation volcanic rocks meet Orinda Formation sediments, and it is known for landslide activity on developed slopes — movement that accelerates in wet winters. For hillside acreage and lots along the open-space edge, a land acquisition without boundary certainty is a gamble: fence lines drift on creeping ground, and the open-space boundary itself is often the most valuable line on the map. We resolve those lines from record evidence, perpetuate disturbed monuments as Business and Professions Code §8771 requires, and can note mapped landslide hazard zone status on the survey as a negotiated Table A item so the buyer, lender, and geotechnical engineer all work from the same sheet.

Our Trimble terrestrial laser scanner captures an entire shopping center or hillside parcel in one mobilization — millions of survey-grade points covering buildings, parking stripes, walls, and encroachments. Table A measurements come from the point cloud without return trips, and the cloud remains reusable after closing for movement monitoring or tenant-improvement planning.