Land Surveying in Braselton, GA

Braselton Sits in Four Counties, So the First Question Is Which One

Braselton is a town in Barrow, Gwinnett, Hall and Jackson counties. The 2020 Census split its 13,403 residents across all four: 4,236 on the Jackson side, 3,906 on the Gwinnett side, 3,254 on the Hall side and 2,007 on the Barrow side. Town Hall, at 4982 Highway 53, stands in Jackson County. Chateau Elan, about three miles west-southwest, stands in Barrow County. Both are Braselton addresses, and they record in different courthouses.

The town publishes a page about exactly this confusion. In its own words, Braselton is one town with four ZIP codes in four counties, and while mail at one end of town is addressed to Braselton at 30517, properties inside the same town limits carry Flowery Branch, Buford or Hoschton addresses. The town states plainly that a ZIP code cannot be used to determine whether a property lies inside the limits. For a boundary survey that is not trivia. A deed and a plat are recorded in the county where the land lies, not the county printed on the envelope.

Jackson County land records go to the Clerk of Superior Court at 5000 Jackson Parkway, Suite 150, in Jefferson, about sixteen miles east-northeast of Town Hall by road. Hall County records go to the Clerk's Real Estate Division at 116 Spring Street SE in Gainesville, roughly eighteen miles north-northwest. Gwinnett County records go to the Clerk at 75 Langley Drive in Lawrenceville, about twenty-four miles southwest. Barrow County records go to the Clerk at 652 Barrow Park Drive, Suite B, in Winder, ten miles south. Four indexes, four sets of deed books, four drives.

Assessment records sit somewhere else again. Jackson County publishes parcels at qpublic.net/ga/jackson, Barrow at qpublic.net/ga/barrow, which forwards to the Barrow Board of Assessors site, and Hall at qpublic.net/ga/hall. Gwinnett publishes through its Board of Assessors at the Gwinnett Justice and Administration Center on Langley Drive. An owner who pulls the wrong county's record gets somebody else's acreage and somebody else's deed reference.

Inside the town limits, subdivision plats and site development plans are reviewed and approved by the Braselton Planning and Development Department at 4986 Highway 53. The town also seats a five member Planning Commission, one seat for each of the four council districts plus one at large, and a separate Zoning Board of Appeals. Land just outside the limits on the Hall County side goes through Hall County Planning and Zoning at 2875 Browns Bridge Road in Gainesville instead.

Flood mapping splits the same way the deed index does. Braselton is a single National Flood Insurance Program community, number 130343, but its FEMA panels are pieces of four separate countywide studies with different effective dates. The Barrow and Hall panels covering the town carry a December 1, 2022 date. The Jackson panels carry December 17, 2010. An elevation certificate has to cite the panel that actually governs the parcel, which means settling the county first.

William "Bart" Sims is the licensed Georgia land surveyor at S&S Land Surveying, and he signs and seals every plat that leaves the office. Send a parcel number or an address and we will confirm the recording county before any field work is scheduled.