Buying a house is easy to picture. There’s a driveway. A fence line. A path from the street to the front door. You can see where you stand.
Vacant land doesn’t work that way.
An empty field might look open and reachable from the road. But looks don’t tell you who actually has the legal right to cross it, build on it, or run a pipe under it. For developers buying raw land around Columbus, that gap between “looks accessible” and “is legally accessible” causes real problems. An ALTA survey is the tool that closes that gap before you close on the property.
Vacant Land Doesn’t Come With Visible Clues to Its Access Rights
A house tells a story. The driveway shows where cars come and go. The fence shows where the property ends. A vacant lot tells you almost nothing.
There’s no worn path that proves a right-of-way exists. There’s no gate that confirms legal access. A field edge that looks open to the road might sit on land you have no right to cross at all.
This is the core reason vacant-land buyers get blindsided after closing. They assumed access because the land looked reachable. Assumptions aren’t legal documents. Only a title record and a survey can confirm what’s actually yours to use.
Legal Access vs. Physical Access: Why Table A Item 4 Matters for Raw Land
Walking onto a piece of land is not the same as having a legal right to be there.
You might be able to physically drive across a neighboring field to reach your parcel. That doesn’t mean you have a recorded easement letting you do it forever. If that neighbor sells, or changes their mind, your access could disappear overnight.
ALTA Table A Item 4 addresses this directly. It’s an optional item you can request on your survey that specifically certifies whether your parcel has both physical and legal access to a public street. Most buyers never think to ask for it. Then they find out too late that their only route to the road runs through someone else’s land, with no recorded right to use it.
For developers, this single item can decide whether a project is even buildable. Ask for it up front.
Buried and Unrecorded Easements Common on Central Ohio Farmland
A lot of the vacant land for sale around Columbus was farmland not long ago. Growth corridors in Delaware, Union, Pickaway, and Madison counties are full of parcels that were planted and plowed for decades before anyone thought about zoning them for development.
That farming history leaves marks you can’t see from the road.
Drainage tile lines run underground to keep fields dry. Old utility corridors were laid down to serve a farmhouse or barn that may not even stand anymore. Many of these were never clearly recorded, or the paperwork is thin and outdated.
An ALTA survey pulls this history to the surface. It shows where these old easements sit, so you know about them before they collide with your site plan, not after.
How an ALTA Survey Flags Setback Conflicts Before You Design a Driveway, Well, or Septic System
Vacant land is a blank page. That’s the appeal. But it also means every improvement you plan, driveway, well, septic field, has to fit around whatever easements already exist on the property.
Design a septic field first and find the drainage easement later, and you’re redesigning from scratch. That costs time and money.
An ALTA survey flags these conflicts early. Here’s what that lets you do:
- Place structures outside recorded setback and easement lines from day one
- Route utilities without crossing protected drainage corridors
- Confirm buildable area before finalizing site plans
- Avoid costly redesigns after engineering work is already underway
Get the survey before you design, not after.
Prescriptive Easements: When a Neighbor’s Informal Use Becomes a Legal Right
Land that sits vacant for years picks up habits. A neighboring farmer might cut across a corner to reach a field. A hunter might use the same trail season after season. Nobody minds, because nobody’s using the land for anything else.
That informal use can turn into a legal right. It’s called a prescriptive easement. If someone uses a path openly and continuously for long enough under Ohio law, they may gain a legal claim to keep using it, even without a signed agreement.
For a developer, this matters. A trail that seems harmless could sit exactly where you planned to put a road or a building pad. An ALTA survey combined with a title review is how this gets caught before you own the problem instead of the neighbor.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does owning vacant land automatically mean I have legal access to a public road?
No. Being near a road isn’t the same as having a recorded legal right to cross to it. This is especially true on subdivided farmland or interior parcels that don’t touch a public street directly.
What is ALTA Table A Item 4, and should I request it for vacant land?
It’s an optional survey item that certifies whether a parcel has both legal and physical access to a public street. For raw land, where access is rarely obvious, it’s one of the most useful items you can request.
Can an old farm drainage tile line affect where I’m allowed to build?
Yes. Tile easements crossing former agricultural land can restrict construction. Many were never clearly recorded or mapped in the original deed, so they don’t always show up in a basic title search.
If I don’t plan to build right away, is an ALTA survey still worth it on vacant land?
It’s often more valuable before development starts. Knowing where easements sit lets you plan driveway, utility, and structure placement before you’re locked into a design.
What happens if my vacant parcel turns out to be legally landlocked?
You’d need to negotiate or purchase an easement from a neighboring owner. An ALTA survey with Item 4 is what catches this before closing, when you still have room to walk away or renegotiate.
