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Easement Surveys & Legal Exhibits in Santa Barbara, CA | Easement Survey Specialists

Santa Barbara Land Surveyor has run easement surveys across South Coast properties for more than 30 years, locating, mapping, and describing easements whether they already exist or are being created for the first time. Most of the easements we research trace back to a specific recorded grant, but some are prescriptive, established through decades of open and continuous use rather than a recorded document, and those take real title and historical research to pin down correctly. That research discipline is what keeps an exhibit from getting kicked back by the County Recorder or challenged later.

We work from the title report and every prior recorded map to plot access, utility, drainage, and shared-driveway easements, then prepare the plat exhibit and legal description a title company or an attorney actually needs to record. Flag lots and hillside parcels around Santa Barbara depend on shared easements more than most, and a precise exhibit is what removes the ambiguity for good. What follows covers the types of easements we survey, how we tell an existing easement from one being newly created, the exhibit itself, and what happens when an easement and a structure conflict.

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What an Easement Survey Covers

  • Types of Easements

    Access, utility, drainage, shared-driveway, and conservation easements each run across a property differently, and each one gets located and described according to what it actually grants. An access easement crossing a neighbor's parcel reads nothing like a utility easement buried along a property line, and a conservation easement, common on hillside and open-space parcels around Santa Barbara, restricts what an owner can build or clear rather than granting anyone else the right to cross the land. The survey and the exhibit reflect exactly what each easement actually does.

  • Locating an Existing Easement Versus Laying Out a New One

    An existing easement gets located from the title report and every prior recorded map, tracing its recorded position back onto the ground as it actually sits today. When the deed language is vague or the easement was never formally recorded, a prescriptive use case, we research historical use and adjoining owners' knowledge to establish where the easement actually runs. A new easement works the other direction. We lay out where it should run based on what it needs to serve, then describe and plat it so it can be recorded for the first time.

  • The Plat Exhibit and Legal Description

    The finished deliverable is a plat exhibit and a legal description, prepared together so a title company or an attorney can record them with the Santa Barbara County Recorder without sending anything back for correction. Both documents describe the exact same easement, one as a drawing and one as words, and they have to agree with each other down to the call.

  • Easement-Versus-Structure Conflicts

    When an easement and a building overlap, whether a structure was built across a recorded easement or an easement was drawn without accounting for what was already there, we sort the conflict out on the map before it becomes a real dispute. In some cases an easement that has gone unused for decades can be abandoned or extinguished, and we flag that possibility for your attorney to evaluate rather than assuming it still controls. Flag lots and hillside parcels around Santa Barbara run into this more often than a typical tract lot, since shared access and utility easements are frequently how those parcels function at all.

Our Easement Survey Process

  • Title report and prior-map review.

    We start with the title report and every prior recorded map affecting the easement.

  • Field location of the easement.

    We locate the easement on the ground, whether it already exists or is being newly laid out.

  • Conflict check against structures.

    We check the easement against existing structures for any overlap.

  • Plat and exhibit drafting.

    We draft the plat exhibit that shows the easement's exact position.

  • Legal description preparation.

    We write the legal description that matches the plat exhibit call for call.

  • Delivery to the title company or attorney.

    You receive both documents ready to record.

Easement Survey Service Area

Most of our easement survey work covers Santa Barbara, Montecito, and Summerland, where flag lots and shared-access hillside parcels are common. A California Professional Land Surveyor license covers this work statewide, so if your parcel sits outside this immediate area, ask and we will scope it.

Survey crew staking a winding hillside driveway easement with flagged lath, one surveyor at a total station and another holding a prism pole, with homes below and the coastline and foothills beyond

Why Choose Us for an Easement Survey

  • Easements located and described straight from the title report and prior maps
  • Recordable plat exhibit and legal description prepared together, not separately
  • Real experience resolving conflicts where a structure overlaps an easement
  • South Coast flag-lot and shared-access easement experience
  • More than 30 years of easement research across Santa Barbara County
Get Your Easement Mapped
Call (805) 691-0076