How to get existing floor plans of my property?

Introduction

There are a number of ways to get the existing floor plans of your property.

Go to your council’s planning or building department.

If you want to find out what the layout of your property is, you can check with your local city planning or building department. You may need to do a bit of research online in order to find the right place to go and what information they can provide. Depending on where you live, you might be able to get the plans from any development on your council’s portal.

You should be able to get the plans from doing a quick search on your property or properties on the same road as you as the chances of the property being the same layout will be quite high. However, these are only good to some extent. They would only be good for ideas and not for construction as they are not accurate and reflective of your property.

Here is an example of the portal and the files that you can get

If you are looking for more accurate plans, you will need to speak to your local land surveying company. They should be able to provide you with the plans for your house accurate to the day it was surveyed. This will allow you to get an accurate idea of what it looks like inside and out. You also won’t need to do any research on where to go as this is all provided by them.

Create your own floor plans.

If you need to create your own floor plans, there are many CAD software packages available. You will need to install and learn how to use the CAD software before you can export your floor plan as an image file, pdf or just print.

You may also want to take a look at a guide on creating a floor plan.

Get property surveys from the previous owner.

If you are able to find a survey from your previous owner, it will be helpful for your contractor and architect. If you are unable to get a copy of this survey, another option is to ask the seller if they know who created the survey. They may still have it or know someone who does. It’s also possible for county clerks’ offices in many states to provide property surveys as public records.

For new builds or properties that have been built in the last 20 years or so, you should be able to get a copy of the existing plans from the developer. Most new build would have them. However, they are not asbuilt plans and are only the proposed plans. BUT! it can still be used to some extent as long as you can verify the measurements.

Modifying a drawing is a lot more complicated than drawing a new one from scratch.

Hire a land surveyor to produce a measured survey for you

A measured survey is an exact record of all the features of your property. It shows where buildings are, what is inside (not temporary features such as furnitures, but all structural elements such as walls, doors, etc..), where boundaries are, and any other features such as roads, paths or fences. You can find out more about different types of measured surveys here.

In brief a measured survey produces a map that gives you exact measurements for each feature on your property. This can be really useful if:

• You want to sell your house or another piece of land (for example, if you need to get planning permission before building work). This is mostly for topographical surveys – a type of measured surveys.
• A dispute arises between neighbours (for example, who owns a path through the common ground between two houses). It’s also important in disputes with utility companies such as gas and electricity suppliers who need access rights through private property to carry out their work.
• Modifying the property such as change of use, extending the properties.

There are several options for getting existing floor plans of your property

If you’re wondering how to get existing floor plans of your property, there are several options. The first is to go to your council’s planning or building department and request for copies of the original plan. You may be required to pay a fee for this service, but it will probably be less than hiring a surveyor or architect to produce one for you.

Another option is creating your own floor plans by plotting out walls and doors yourself on graph paper—this can be helpful if you want an accurate depiction of the layout but don’t need too much detail.

If possible, ask any previous owners if they have copies of their plans (or at least some sort of documentation showing where everything was placed). If they do not have them (which often happens), hire a land surveyor who specializes in measuring existing structures such as houses or businesses so that he/she can produce measured surveys specific for each home component, including rooms, windows/doors, etc., that way when designing new additions it will be easier using these measurements rather than guessing from memory alone.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this article has given you some ideas on how to get the existing floor plans of your property. If you’ve been frustrated by the lack of options for getting these plans and think there should be a better way, let us know! We’re always looking for ways to improve our services, so please don’t hesitate to reach out with any feedback or suggestions.