Buy raw land and make it buildable: access, water, septic, power, permits

  1. Trace the legal access in the deed and plat
    1 hour

    This step produces a one-page access worksheet: how the parcel is legally reached — public road frontage, a deeded road, or a recorded easement — with the exact instrument cited. The trick is that legal access and visible access are different things: a track worn through the neighbor's field proves nothing until a recorded document grants the right to drive it.

    1. Get the assessor's parcel number (APN) from the county assessor's site or the tax bill, then pull the current deed from the county recorder's online records or the seller's title commitment.
    2. Read the legal description: does it cite a recorded plat (book and page) or run metes and bounds? Note the instrument number.
    3. On the plat, check whether the parcel touches a dedicated public road, or whether access crosses a neighbor's lot.
    4. Search the preliminary title report and the recorder's grantor–grantee index for a recorded easement naming your parcel as the benefited (dominant) estate.
    5. Drive the route: does the visible track stay inside the recorded corridor or the platted road? Note where it diverges.
    6. Write the verdict in one line: legal access via [instrument], matches or does not match the visible route — or landlocked.