Title exception review sheets, drafted from Schedule B for your project surveyor to decide.

A title commitment lands with its exception documents, or with some of them. Someone reads Schedule B, Part II line by line, finds the matching instrument, pulls out whatever it says about location, and notes what the surveyor still needs before deciding what goes on the plat.

In the test, AI works from copies of those papers and drafts the review sheet: exception number, instrument reference by book and page or document number, whether a copy was provided, whether the commitment lists it as a burden or a benefit, the instrument's own location wording, and the entries your surveyor must plot or decide. The plottable column stays empty. Your reviewer compares each sheet with the Schedule B notes on the plat you delivered.

The standard's summary has eight possible notes. Section 6.C.ii of the 2026 ALTA/NSPS standards asks for each right of way, easement or survey-related matter in the title evidence, with its record information and whether it lies within or crosses the land, plus a note where its location is shown, can't be determined from the document, had no observed evidence, is blanket, doesn't touch the property, restricts access to an abutting right of way, is illegible, or may have been released. On a job with several parcels it also asks which parcel each one touches. ALTA's FAQ adds a narrow point: since 2021, "does not affect" speaks only to where an easement plots, never to its legal effect. The sheet offers those eight notes as blanks and fills none of them.

Not every document comes with the file. Section 4 expects the surveyor to receive recorded easements burdening and benefiting the land, and says that when those or non-public items such as highway or railroad plans are missing, the surveyor does whatever research the jurisdiction or the contract requires. The FAQ points out that some states may require a surveyor's own easement research regardless. Missouri's plat review checklist, under its boundary survey standards, scores easement locations only when requested: those on the subdivision plat and those in recorded documents the client provided. So each line reads provided, missing or illegible, and a closing list shows what someone would have to order.

Schedule B isn't always a Schedule B. Some government buyers self-insure and arrive with an owner and encumbrance report, the FAQ says; HUD may accept an attorney's title opinion in some cases; and with no insurer in the deal, a prior policy or an abstract can serve, so the surveyor should note what was relied on. Versions change as well. An easement that sat on an earlier commitment and vanishes from a later one gets the same treatment as any other the title evidence fails to list. The sheet names the evidence it read and compares each revision by exception number and instrument, so a dropped, renumbered or added line stands out.

Exceptions point both ways. An easement can benefit and burden the same land, the FAQ notes, and show up in both Schedule A and Schedule B, Part II, and it asks surveyors to raise it with the title company when their reading and the commitment part ways. Underground easements have their own edge: without information about one, the standard asks only for surface evidence seen in the field. Platted setback lines and building restriction lines, and the recorded plats, filed maps or right of way maps a survey represents, need references of their own under Sections 6.C.v and 6.C.vii. The sheet tags each line as the commitment lists it and leaves the reading to your surveyor.

Some buyers ask for more than the standard. The USDA's Natural Resources Conservation Service, in its 2018 land survey specifications for easement programs, says exceptions listed in the preliminary title commitment must be plotted and shown on the final plat. The University of Texas System's 2019 survey requirements ask the surveyor to certify that recorded easements and rights-of-way in a named commitment are labeled and plotted unless noted otherwise. Houston's easement approval checklist, dated April 30, 2025, wants each easement affecting a parcel listed with its Harris County Clerk file number, and tells surveyors to call the record that actually created a right-of-way, not only one that mentions it. Your reviewer will check that every exception number appears exactly once, that each instrument reference matches its document, and that no line was marked plottable or not without a surveyor. These are summaries of published requirements, not legal or surveying advice.

On your reviewer's yes, new commitments get the same review sheet for about 30 days.

Your project surveyor works every line and makes each plotting call before anything reaches a plat. The sheet stays a working paper inside your office.

Scoring continues on live jobs against the same written criteria. Another job is a separate choice.