To scope a new utility easement description and map exhibit, send the proposed utility route or facility area, current parcel and title information, relevant survey records, and the requirements of the utility, owner, and recording office. The surveyor can define and depict an agreed area. The parties and their legal advisers establish the rights, restrictions, and language of the easement instrument.
Identify the area and the parcels
Provide the latest site plan, utility alignment, connection points, anticipated construction width, and permanent maintenance-access needs if known. Distinguish temporary construction access from the intended permanent easement. Identify the burdened parcel and any benefited parcel or utility entity, then supply the current title commitment, vesting deed, recorded plat, and related easement documents. If the route is still being designed, say which dimensions are provisional.
Confirm the boundary and field scope
Ask the surveyor what existing boundary control and record research can support the description, and what new fieldwork is needed. Existing improvement locations, topography, frontage constraints, and neighboring rights may change the practical route. A design line drawn on an aerial image is not a recordable description. Washington's WAC 332-130-040 land-description guidance includes the kinds of references and boundary calls used for metes-and-bounds descriptions of easements.
Name the reviewers before drafting
Decide who will approve the utility alignment, confirm ownership and title, review the legal instrument, and accept the final exhibit for recording. Ask the city, county, or utility whether it has a required format, dedication language, or other submission condition. A description and exhibit should agree with the instrument that grants the rights; the surveyor's drawing does not itself create the easement.
Terrane's legal description and map exhibit service covers the mapped surveying deliverable. The separate article on surveying a site crossed by an existing easement addresses a different problem: designing around a recorded right that is already in place.
Use a short intake packet
Send one package containing parcel IDs and addresses, title and recorded references, the proposed route with dimensions, utility and civil plans, access constraints, the named legal and utility reviewers, and the desired output format. Mark unresolved choices rather than allowing the surveyor to infer them. That makes it easier to scope fieldwork and produce an exhibit tied to the actual agreement.
