Guides › Due diligence

How to check a piece of land

Most bad land purchases fail on something that was visible from a desk: no legal access, a creek bottom that floods, soil that will not take a septic system, a zoning rule that forbids the plan. This is the check in the order that kills the most deals fastest, so you stop early on the wrong parcel and spend the site visit and the professionals on the right one.

The desk check, in order

1. Boundaries and acreage	Find the parcel on the county's own GIS lines and read the deeded or GIS acreage. Listings round up; a 10.2-acre listing that maps at 8.6 acres is a price conversation, not a surprise at closing.
2. Legal access	A road that touches the parcel on the map is not a right to use it. Look for public road frontage, a recorded easement or a private road agreement. No access means no building permit and no mortgage.
3. Flood	Read the FEMA zone across the parcel, not just at the pin. A dry upland building site with a wet creek bottom can be fine; a parcel that is all A or AE zone is a different purchase.
4. Wetlands	Mapped wetlands and open water are the land you cannot fill, drain or build on without a permit you may not get. They also hint at a high water table around them.
5. Soils and septic	Off the sewer line, the soil decides whether you can live there. Read the survey's septic rating and drainage class before you pay for a perc test.
6. Slope and elevation	Ground over about 25% slope costs real money to build on and may be barred by the county. Check the terrain change across the parcel and where the flat part is.
7. Zoning	The district sets minimum lot size, setbacks, what you may build and whether you may split the land. Agricultural and conservation districts often forbid the second house or the business.
8. Protected land and easements	Conservation easements, utility corridors and adjoining public land limit what you can do and who can cross you. Pipelines and transmission lines carry their own setbacks.
9. Utilities	Power at the road, or a mile away at a price per pole? Water, sewer, gas and fiber each change the budget. Nearby power lines and substations are a useful first clue.
10. Owner and tax record	The county record shows the owner of record, assessed value and the tax status. A long-held parcel in an estate or a trust is a slower, different negotiation.
11. Covenants and HOA	Platted subdivisions carry recorded covenants: minimum house size, no mobile homes, no livestock, architectural review. They bind every later buyer.
12. The deed	Pull the deed from the county recorder. It names the grantor, any reserved rights (minerals, timber, access) and the legal description you will compare with the survey.

What the desk cannot tell you

Where the corners really are: only a licensed survey settles the boundary, and old fences are not evidence
Whether the title is clean: a title search finds liens, unreleased mortgages, unrecorded heirs and easements the map does not show
Whether the soil will take a septic system: the survey rates the map unit; a perc test and a soil scientist's hole rate your spot
Whether a well will produce: neighbours' well logs are a hint, a drilled well is the answer
What the county will actually permit: a short call to planning and environmental health is worth more than any map

How to do it on LandCheck

Search the address or drop a pin, turn on Parcels and click the lot. The panel reads the county's own record: parcel id, owner where the county publishes it, acreage and assessed value.
Read the Road access row, then turn on Streets and look for the gap between the parcel line and the public road. If there is one, you are looking for an easement in the deed.
Turn on Flood and Wetlands and click around the parcel. Pro users get the share of the lot in each zone in the Flood exposure section without clicking around.
Turn on Soil and read the septic rating and drainage class in the Soil detail panel. Red means plan on an engineered system or a different parcel.
Draw the parcel outline with the measure tool to get terrain change and slope across it, or read Buildable land (Pro) for the acres left after floodplain, wetlands and steep ground come out.
Check Zoning where the county's layer is wired, and follow the ordinance link to the district's rules. Where it is not, the County record link takes you to the county's own page.
Open the deed portal link and read the last deed. Then save the place, add your notes, and export the PDF to take to the surveyor, the lender and the county.

Open the map and start with a parcel →

Everything on this map is read live from public government servers at the scale they publish it. It is a screening tool: a survey, a title search, a perc test and the county's own determinations are what you rely on at closing.