Residential Condominium Conversions in San Francisco, CA

Congratulations on your eligibility for condominium conversion and welcome to our website.

The City of San Francisco has very specific rules for converting an existing building into condominiums. The best places that I have found to walk you through the entire process are the City’s website and the following attorney’s websites. Follow these links to their websites for a great overview of the process:

     City of San Francisco: http://www.sfdpw.org/index.aspx?page=1242
     G3MH: http://www.g3mh.com/wp-content/uploads/G3MH_Condo-Conversion-Brochure.pdf
     Sirkin & Associates: http://andysirkin.com/Index.cfm?Page=15

Bay Area Land Surveying, Inc. surveyed over a third of the lottery subdivisions and over 20% of all subdivisions in San Francisco in 2011. We have established ourselves in the condominium subdivision field with our PRICING, PROFESSIONALISM AND PERFORMANCE.

PRICING: We offer very competitive pricing and we do not add any extras during the course of the project. The price we quote you is the price you are going to pay to complete your project. Our fee covers all the research, site visits, staking, mapping, printing and shipping costs needed for your entire project. We do not charge extra for making revisions, printing or shipping your maps via USPS.

PROFESSIONALISM: Our head surveyor, Michael Foster has been doing condominium subdivisions in the Bay Area since 1985. He knows exactly what the City, your attorney and your title company want to see on all of your maps and is an expert at delivering these items in a very professional package. He communicates clearly, sets a tight schedule and works closely with you to coordinate timing for your project. He has spent many years cultivating great relationships with San Francisco’s Department of Public Works, SF attorneys and local title companies to insure that your project goes smoothly. Mr. Foster and our entire staff pride themselves on having the experience and knowledge to address any problems or issues that may arise during your project. We are dedicated to delivering all of our projects on time and within our stated budget.

PERFORMANCE: Our staff is committed to meeting and exceeding your expectations at every stage of your project. From our first email contact or phone conversation, through our site visits, mapping and the final signatures on the maps, our entire staff has the dedication and experience to get your project completed in a timely, efficient and professional manner. Our key staff members have been with the company for an average of ten years, so we work very well together. Everybody knows their part of the job and is an expert at working together to get it done as quickly, completely and professionally as possible. We have been doing this long enough, so we know exactly what is needed to make your project go smoothly. You will not find another staff in the Bay Area that has more condominium experience or is better at getting your project done in a timely, professional manner.

BAY AREA LAND SURVEYING, INC. AND YOU:
Either call our office or email us and give us your name, your phone number, the address of the property to be subdivided, and the number of units. Our surveyor, Michael Foster, will then have a conversation with you about the particulars of your project, what we can expect from each other during the course of the project, and will provide you with a quote. Please be aware that our fee covers everything from start to finish. There are no hidden charges and no extra fees for prints, copies, USPS shipping or revisions.

Once we agree on a fee, we will prepare a CONTRACT for you. When you receive the contract, you will need to sign it and return it to us with a check for the agreed upon deposit (generally $1,500). While the contract and check are en route to us you can decide on your title company and order the Preliminary Title Report and coordinate a time with your co-owners to provide us with access to your building.

As soon as the contract and check arrives, we will call to schedule a day to meet at your site to do all of the surveying work and interior measurements for your Tentative Parcel Map and Condominium Plans. Please note that on the day we survey your site, we will need access to your entire building and to have someone present who knows how the spaces are to be distributed between the different units and common area. We will need access to all of the interior and exterior spaces on the entire site: all units, closets, decks, patios, garages, storage spaces, utility closets, private sheds, planter areas, garden areas, yard areas and parking spaces. We keep our prices low by completing all of the site work in a single day.

We will then prepare the Tentative Parcel Map Submittal Package and deliver it to your attorney for inclusion with the application to the City. On the same day we deliver this package to your attorney, we prepare a package for you that will include: copies of the Tentative Parcel Map and Condominium Plans for each owner of the property and an invoice for the balance due for this portion of the project. We email the invoice to you. As soon as we receive payment of the invoice, we mail the package out to you so you can begin review of your Condominium Plans. Over many years of doing these projects we have found that this is the fairest, most efficient way to insure that your project is not delayed (since your attorney gets the submittal package right away) and that we are paid in a prompt manner for our service.

I urge you to sit down with your co-owners right away and review the Condominium Plans. Look them over together to make sure everything is described the way your would like them described, distributed to the owners you would like them distributed to and that everybody involved agrees to this distribution. It can take as little as a few weeks for the City to approve the Tentative Map if the City has issued the Certificate of Final Completion (CFCO) or as long as six months to a year if you have your inspections and end up having to make a lot of upgrades to your building. The one thing that holds these projects up longer than anything else is the building inspection, making the upgrades and getting the City to sign off on the CFCO.

When the City approves the Tentative Map, they will issue a Request for Final Parcel Map directly to me. If you have provided me with a copy of the CFCO, I can then submit the Final Parcel Map directly to the City at that time. If they have not yet issued the CFCO, I will have to wait until I receive a copy of that from you before I can submit that map to the City. As soon as I deliver the Final Parcel Map to the City, I will invoice you for the final balance due for the project. You can then make your final payment and make your final arrangements with your attorney, your title company and the County Tax Assessor to complete the final items so the City and County will record your Final Parcel Map. The City will then contact me within a few weeks and request minor changes to the map and delivery of the Final Mylar version of the Final Parcel Map.

The City will not accept the Final Mylar version of the Final Parcel Map unless they have received all of the following items:

1)	Updated Title Report from your title company. This needs to be dated within 45 days of submittal of the Mylar map, so wait until you receive the CFCO and I contact you to let you know it is time to order this.
2)	Go to the Assessor's office and pay the required taxes. You will be emailed a copy of your Tax Certificate when your check clears. Please include me in the email chain for both the tax certificate and the updated Title Report.
3)	Check for $11.00, payable to S.F. County Recorder.

Once I have the final request from the City and your final payment, I will arrange to deliver the Mylar map to you. You will need to arrange to sign it in front of a notary and deliver it to the City. We offer complimentary notary services at our offices. It is best if all of the co-owners sign at either our office or your title company's office because they know the proper procedures for signing the map. If you decide to sign it with a different notary, please make sure that your notary does not stamp the map. The stamps tend to smear and you will risk having the City and County reject the map if the stamp is smeared. I will provide the specialty pen that the notary needs to use to fill out the acknowledgement. The acknowledgement has spaces for all of the information that is on their stamp.

When you have completed the signing of the map you must take the map to the City and provide them with an updated Title Report (dated within the last 45 days), a tax certificate and a check for $11.00 made payable to the S.F. County Recorder. The map is then delivered to the City for their signatures then routed to the County for the County Recorder’s signature. The map is then filed in the County records. Your subdivision is finally completed when your attorney and title company file the association documents and the Condominium Plans.