Verified
You have the controlling record, written authority response, provider commitment, professional conclusion, or appropriate field evidence.
Land due diligence checklist
Use this checklist to organize questions before buying vacant land, acreage, recreational land, agricultural property, or a development site. Adapt it to the property, intended use, contract, jurisdiction, lender, and advice of qualified local professionals.
LandBinder can help screen and organize public evidence. It cannot complete title, survey, access, local approval, utility, water-rights, professional, or field-investigation work for you.
Property identity and transaction
- Match the listing, parcel identifiers, deed description, contract exhibits, and land shown on the ground.
- Confirm the seller’s authority to sell and obtain current title or closing documentation.
- Identify whether the sale includes one parcel, several parcels, a partial parcel, improvements, mineral interests, water rights, or personal property.
- Record price, deposit, financing, closing date, due-diligence deadline, contingencies, and required deliverables.
Title, boundaries, and easements
- Review the title commitment or equivalent search, requirements, exceptions, liens, restrictions, and referenced documents.
- Obtain and evaluate the appropriate survey; locate corners and improvements when material.
- Compare deed acreage, assessor acreage, mapped geometry, plat, and survey results without assuming they must match.
- Investigate recorded and visible easements, encroachments, shared facilities, rights-of-way, leases, covenants, and access rights.
Legal and physical access
- Determine how legal access reaches a maintained public right-of-way and identify the controlling record.
- Inspect the entire physical route for grade, surface, drainage, width, bridges, gates, snow, mud, emergency access, and construction traffic.
- Confirm road ownership, maintenance agreements, association obligations, private assessments, and seasonal restrictions.
- Ask the road authority about driveway, approach, frontage, sight-distance, drainage, and addressing requirements.
Zoning, permits, and intended use
- Give the exact parcel identifier and proposed use to the planning or zoning authority.
- Confirm district, overlays, lot status, setbacks, frontage, density, dwelling eligibility, subdivision history, and nonconformities.
- Ask about camping, RVs, short-term rentals, agriculture, home businesses, grading, floodplain work, clearing, and accessory structures as relevant.
- Obtain written confirmation or controlling code references for material answers; identify every required review and permit.
Utilities, water, and sanitation
- Request written electric, gas, water, sewer, and communications availability and extension information from each provider.
- Confirm capacity, connection point, construction responsibility, easements, meters or taps, fees, deposits, timelines, and recurring charges.
- For wells, investigate authorization, water rights, likely drilling conditions, nearby records, yield uncertainty, testing, and treatment.
- For septic, confirm site evaluation, perc or soil requirements, design flow, setbacks, disposal and replacement areas, and permit sequence.
Land, water, and environmental context
- Review flood, wetlands, hydrography, drainage, soils, slope, elevation, wildfire, seismic, landslide, radon, and land-cover evidence with dates and limitations.
- Investigate nearby regulated facilities, tanks, cleanup records, mining claims, historic resources, critical habitat, or other context relevant to the use.
- Check state and local datasets and records where federal coverage is generalized or incomplete.
- Commission environmental, geotechnical, wetlands, drainage, biological, cultural, or engineering work when the potential consequence warrants it.
Improvements, costs, and field inspection
- Inspect structures, fences, wells, septic systems, roads, culverts, drainage, debris, dumping, vegetation, erosion, utilities, and evidence of past work.
- Verify permits, age, condition, ownership, location, and serviceability of improvements rather than relying on imagery or listing claims.
- Price surveys, title work, access construction, utility extensions, tests, permits, engineering, clearing, grading, insurance, taxes, maintenance, and holding costs.
- Visit in conditions that reveal seasonal access, runoff, noise, neighboring uses, light, odors, smoke, dust, and other practical concerns.
Final decision and record
- Separate verified controlling evidence from public screening, seller representations, estimates, assumptions, and unresolved questions.
- Resolve or accept each material unknown before the contractual deadline; document extensions or changes in writing.
- Confirm lender, insurer, attorney, title, survey, and professional requirements before closing.
- Save the final contract, deed, title policy, survey, approvals, provider commitments, tests, correspondence, and source-linked LandBinder report together.
DECISION DISCIPLINE
Classify the evidence before the deadline
Pending
The responsible person and deadline are known, but the evidence has not been received or reviewed.
Assumption accepted
You understand the uncertainty and consequence and deliberately proceed with appropriate advice and contract protection.
NEXT STEP
Create a land report Start the checklist with a source-linked land report
Define the boundary, run the public-data screening, and carry every material unknown into your transaction workflow.