Do I need to buy Owner's Title Insurance for a vacant lot/land?
Amit Ramani
5 years ago
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Comments (11)
robin0919
5 years agoRelated Discussions
Taxes and joint tenance of vacant land
Comments (8)As someone who takes care of her 78 yr. old mother, let me assure you TODAY is the time to put together a thoughtful, cohesive estate plan! Trust me, nothing is harder than trying to get one in place following a major "failure" on the part of a surviving parent. And now that Social Security is about to go belly up, the "rules" surrounding estate planning and gifting change yearly. MOVE NOW! Your mother is legally entitled to gift up to 11k/yr. to any and everyone she so pleases! Once she gifts the money, it's no longer her's... it's a GIFT. But if you are willing to abide by promises you still have the money at your discretion to fund her long term care should it become necessary. A big "but"... ! I see no problem with your mother borrowing money to fund a MIL apartment. BUT, the reality is, whatever she funds will be your's at such time as she either dies or requires care in a facility. That's not such a bad idea... it locks her assets away... safe from the requirements of "long term care". DO NOT PERMIT HER NAME TO APPEAR ON THE DEED TO YOUR HOME! If it appears there the government will swoop in and attach that portion of your home when her assets run out and her long term care requires funding. Don't even go there. So much of this has to do with your mother's frame of mind. My late FIL was bound and determined to die "broke". And he did! when his stepchildren contested his will there were NO assets left... they'd all be "gifted away"! His kids understood and were willing to fund his life with his savings... we had a FIL apartment ready for him. He died of a heart attack before requiring it. Do you have siblings? are you "all on the same page" with respect to your mother? This is key. My husband and BIL were OK with the agreement, my brother and I are OK with Mum and how we're handling things. But, Man! do we ever wish we'd insisted our names were on the deed to Mum's home years ago when the opportunity presented itself... See a lawyer and get it done, NOW. You'll be glad you did... playing "catch up" is not much fun. Trust me, I know....See MoreShould we buy the vacant lot next to ours? (cross post)
Comments (16)Do it if you can! The other posts bring up great points & if all of that checks out to your satisfaction I'd buy it. I can't tell you the # of times we talked about doing the same thing on various properties. It happened in our last house (WOW do I wish we'd bought the lot next door - they moved in a Home Depot Kit house - awful, but better than a trailer, I guess + they were very nice neighbors). It also happened at our lake house - we were offered the house next door but were short on money at the time & couldn't justify it. We kick ourselves every time we go, wishing we'd found a way to do it. Now, we might get the chance to purchase the 15 acres directly behind us. They bought it several years ago & never built. He's tired of keeping it up and told my DH they might sell & asked if we'd be interested. Funny, he was really bummed out when he found out that we bought our house last December. He never knew it was for sale & would have bought it. I'm hoping it won't be totally out of reach $$$$-wise, but we're gonna try to do what we can to give it a shot. We like the buffer zone. After that Home Depot kit house thing that built about 5 feet from our last property line, we learned our lesson - haha! Good luck!...See MoreTitle insurance and survey needed in buying house?
Comments (12)Land that was once owned by the church, and was developed in 1985 - that is a pretty safe bet that there are no issues with the lots. The church is not going to sell the developer land they do not own, and the developer is not going to buy any land that had an issue. I would say title insurance is not needed. Same goes with the property survey. Most of the time with townhouses, the lot lines are not very hard to figure out. To me, a title lawyer who is in the business of recommending title insurance and boundary surveys is similar to a car dealer who sells rust-proofing and extended warranties. Sure, the lawyer is not going to be getting the insurance premium, or the fees associated with the boundary survey, but if he successfully recommends someone to you, I wouldn't doubt that he gets a kickback for that. I work for a land surveying company, and we had a client who had lived on a property for a long time. This parcel of land used to be part of a 400 acre farm dating back to the late 1700's, and over the years, the lot got chopped up into much smaller lots. So the neighboring lot sold, and the buyer had a boundary survey done. Upon doing the deed research, it was determined that a survey done in the 1930's was in error, and they held the wrong property corner. This meant that our client's paved driveway was on the new buyer's property. The new guy could have been nice about it, and just sold our client an access easement, but he didn't legally have to, so he didn't. Our client had to pay to rip up the old driveway that was encroaching, put sod down in that area, and relocate his driveway. This required removal of a lot of trees, and a lot of additional grading. I don't know what his total bill was, but I would estimate it was at least $20k. Our client actually had title insurance, so he wasn't worried - until he actually contacted the insurance company. They told him that this issue wasn't present when he purchased the house, that they were not responsible, and it was his problem. So this guy paid for title insurance, which should have protected him, and it didn't. All the guys in my office said that title insurance is a joke - not worth the paper it is written on....See MoreBuying vacant lot via private sale? Offer and vendor mortgage
Comments (2)To start with, any offer you make should be contingent upon the property meeting your needs. You can see if the seller has an older survey, but normally the buyer would pay for an updated survey. You need to be sure that there are no zoning restrictions, easements or encumbrances, environmental issues (e.g., if it's in a floodplain, contains wetlands, or has previously been used as a dump)... that, absent sewer and water hookups, you can successfully install a well and septic system, that the ground will support the home you want to construct, etc. I once saw an amazing custom home, built right across a fault line on a hill overlooking a river. The home was literally splitting in two, lengthwise. The neighbor had a larger house, but had an engineer ensure that the house was built an appropriate distance from the fault line. (If by chance you're in Sarnia, you can see it from your side of the St. Clair River, a few houses north of the River Crab in St. Clair.) Don't let yourself get surprised....See MoreJ B
5 years ago
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