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What the county has to approve, what the survey has to establish, and the order it happens in.
Subdividing is the legal act of dividing one recorded parcel into two or more parcels, each with its own legal description. Each new parcel gets its own defined boundary, a description that can be conveyed by deed, and eventually its own tax parcel number. Once the process is finished, each piece can be sold, financed, taxed and permitted independently.
It is worth being clear about what subdividing is not. It is not drawing a line on a printout, agreeing on a split at the kitchen table, or fencing off a section. Until the new lines are surveyed, approved and recorded, the tract is still one parcel. And because Georgia uses metes and bounds rather than a rectangular grid, every new line has to be described by bearing and distance from monuments that actually exist on the ground. There is no shortcut of quoting a quarter section.
Order of operations derails more splits than anything else. Before you commission survey work, and well before you sign a contract to sell part of a tract, talk to the planning or zoning office for your county, or the city if the land sits inside city limits. What you need to learn is whether the division you have in mind is permitted at all. Ask about:
We deliberately do not publish lot size, frontage or setback figures here. There is no statewide number. These requirements are set locally, they differ between zoning districts inside the same county, and they change. The planning authority with jurisdiction over your parcel is the only reliable source, and asking first is what keeps a survey from being redrawn.
You cannot divide a boundary you have not established, so the work begins by retracing the parent tract: researching the deed and prior plats at the clerk's office, recovering existing monuments in the field, measuring the perimeter, and reconciling conflicts between the written record and the ground. This is ordinary boundary survey work, and it is not optional. The acreage stated in an older deed often differs from what the tract actually measures, and you need the real number before dividing it.
With the parent tract established, the new lines are computed to satisfy the county requirements you confirmed earlier and the owner's intent at the same time: how much acreage each parcel receives, how each one gets frontage and legal access, and which parcel keeps the existing house, well, septic area or drive. New corners are then set on the ground and a plat is drawn showing the parent tract, the new lines, the area of each parcel, and a written legal description for each one. Parcel splits are routine work for us throughout Northwest Georgia.
Recording is governed by O.C.G.A. § 15-6-67, the Georgia Plat Act. The clerk files and records plats, and a plat has to meet the standards of the State Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors to be accepted. The statute even fixes the sheet size: no smaller than 8.5 by 11 inches and no larger than 24 by 36 inches.
One clause in that statute usually governs the project. Where the local government has adopted subdivision regulations, a subdivision plat generally cannot be recorded without approval from the planning commission or the governing authority. When approval is required it is not a formality collected at the end of the job, it is a precondition for the plat existing as a recorded document at all.
The statute carries an important exception, and it covers a great many of the splits we are asked about. Where the division creates no new streets or roads, requires no new utility improvements, and requires no new sanitary sewer or septic tank approval, planning commission approval is not required and the plat may be recorded on the surveyor's own certification. Carving a single lot off a family tract along an existing road often falls here. Which side of that line your project sits on is the first thing to establish, because it changes the timeline substantially, and it is why confirming county requirements belongs at the start rather than after the fieldwork.
Once the plat is recorded, deeds using the new legal descriptions can be prepared and recorded with the Clerk of Superior Court of the county where the land lies, under O.C.G.A. § 44-2-1. Drafting those deeds is attorney work, not survey work.
Most of the divisions we survey come down to a handful of situations: selling part of a tract while keeping the rest, dividing family land so acreage can be deeded to a child or sibling, settling an estate so heirs each take a separately described parcel instead of sharing an undivided interest, creating buildable lots, carving out a homesite while leaving the timber or farmland behind it intact, and describing a specific piece so a lender can finance it on its own.
The inverse operation exists too. Adjoining parcels can be merged, and combining parcels is sometimes required by a county or a lender, for example when a structure crosses an interior lot line. That also takes a survey and a recorded plat. Who receives which parcel, and what a transfer means for taxes, are questions for an attorney and an accountant. Our part is establishing the lines and producing a plat the county and the clerk will accept.
S&S Land Surveying LLC is a family-owned firm at 549 West Ave in Cedartown, founded at the end of 2021 by William "Bart" Sims, who brings more than 40 years of surveying experience. We is a licensed Georgia surveying firm, rated 4.9 stars across 50+ Google reviews, working throughout Polk, Floyd, Bartow, Paulding, Carroll, Haralson, Douglas and Gordon counties and the wider Northwest Georgia and metro Atlanta region.
Tell us the address or parcel number, the acreage of the parent tract, how many parcels you want, and anything the county has already told you. We will put together a free, no-obligation estimate for your project.
That depends on your county’s zoning district, minimum lot size, road frontage requirements and septic or sewer feasibility. Those rules vary by jurisdiction, so we confirm them with the local planning authority before any lines are drawn.
Usually, but not always. Under O.C.G.A. § 15-6-67 a subdivision plat generally needs approval from the planning commission or governing authority before it can be recorded, where the local government has adopted subdivision regulations. The statute exempts divisions that create no new streets or roads, require no new utility improvements, and require no new sanitary sewer or septic tank approval. Those can be recorded on the surveyor’s certification. Establishing which applies is the first step.
A subdivision plat meeting the standards of the State Board of Registration for Professional Engineers and Land Surveyors, on a sheet between 8.5 by 11 and 24 by 36 inches, together with a new legal description for each parcel created.
Cost depends on the size and shape of the parent tract, how much record research the chain of title requires, the number of parcels being created, terrain, and the county’s review requirements. Contact S&S Land Surveying at 678-873-3119 for a free estimate.
Call us today at 678-873-3119 or request a free estimate online.