A word of advice to all waterfront home owners.
Take a trip to your town hall and get a copy of your assessment cards.
It’s important to make sure the town considers your home year round, especially if you plan to sell it.
Just because you have heat, insulation and a septic system may not make your home year round according to some towns.
There have been law suits over this very issue and there will probably be more in the future.
Seasonal or year round?
To most people it would make a big difference. Let me tell you a story… Recently buyer clients wrote an offer on a year round home in Sandown NH. The property was bank owned, had a full blown septic system, well, insulation and heating system. The town records at first glance indicated it was a year round home and as you know with bank owned homes..it is Buyer beware.
For some reason I decided to reference the property as a “year round” home in the property description section of the Purchase Agreement and good thing I did. After our offer was accepted the buyers went to the town to poke around and see what they could find out about the house. With bank owned homes there are no disclosures to rely on and they hoped to discover more information about the septic system.
The buyer found out to their chagrin that the home was really considered seasonal by the town of Sandown. Although NOTHING on the tax/assessment card indicated that it was seasonal. Apparently, they were told, that the property met all the requirements for year round status but the former owner had never finished the paperwork process. It was a “technicality” they were told and if they paid the fee and filed the paperwork, the issue could be heard at the next ZBA meeting. Since we did not yet own the property (thank goodness) we needed the listing agent to do that. She agreed and was great to work with. Paper work filed on time and we wait a month for the next scheduled ZBA meeting. Everyone assured us this was pretty well a done deal.
A month later the property was denied year round status. None of us could believe it. What can be done? Appeal the decision, which could take months with no guarantee. We didn’t have that kind of time. So what’s the big deal? If my buyers had closed… they could not register to vote, register a car or send their young child to school. If I hadn’t put “year round” on the purchase agreement and the Bank wanted to enforce the ” as is” rule, they could have lost their deposit if they failed to close.
Just like the song…nothing compares to you. We’ll keep looking and I know we’ll find a perfect home but in the meantime we learned a valuable lesson. It doesn’t matter what the assessment card does or does not say…doing further due diligences is crucial. Seasonal does not necessarily mean a home has no insulation, heating system, septic and well …sometimes it means something very different.
If you’d like more information about buying a New Hampshire waterfront property or about buying a home in general please give us a call we’d love to help you find that perfect home you can all your own.
603-548-7685
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