Buying abandon mobile lot for new house

[Guyod]

Hello,
I bought a flip house 6 months ago which I live in and will sell in a few months. (Which you helped me through Thank you) Now I need to think about my next project and or place to live.

My house now is on a private road at the base of mountain in Pennsylvania. It’s a great location and very private. The property next door is dump almost literally. There is a 70's camper with a 12' wide house build attached to the front. It is build on 4' of cinder block no mortar no footer. Needless to say it’s falling down. The rest of the property is filled back to back with small sheds redneck style. I was told it was abandon about 5 years ago but I don’t see how any one ever lived there.

I am thinking of buying this property and building on it, install a modular or mobile. Problem is a don’t have clue where to start as far as finding out about zoning, permits, septic, and well. It’s about 1 acres alot of it is low lying and high water table. If I have to replace the septic and well I doubt I will have the finances (20k plus for a raised septic). How do I find these things out before hand with about raising red flags? Any tricks of the trade? At the very least if I put an other mobile will there still need to be a sewer inspection?

I figure by buying and clearing this property is will pay for it self by raising the value of my house now.

Any help would be appreciated.

[TnAndy]

You're probably right about buying it will raise your current property value depending on how close and visible it is.....so you might want to consider doing that simple to clean the place up......then when you sell the current place, offer this as "an additional lot" for "x" number of bucks, so that you just break even on the deal. Lot of folks like additional property just for 'insurance' against neighbors or whatever.

BEFORE you buy:

As to building on it yourself, that would seem to simply be a matter of visiting whatever zoning or building permit office you have in your county.

Ask questions like "is the size of the property buildable".....in our county, a parcel must be at least 1 acre IF on septic AND private well. Ask about setbacks, permit costs, etc....just anything they will tell you.

The septic I can see you having to possibly replace, or from what you describe, may never have been there in the first place. Get whoever is the permit authority ( health dept here ) out there, act like you're the owner, and discuss the septic system with them. See if you can figure what the costs will be.....

A well, which should be fairly apparent from a visual inspection, shouldn't require "replacement" assuming it's a drilled well with proper casing, etc......though you might want to figure in a new pump and lines. You might also look into utility water. I bought an acre lot one time cheap (5k ) because it had no water, but the water line was down the road about a mile. I planned to build a house on it one day and drill a well ( a 3-8k crapshoot here ).....but then I went down to the water place and asked what it took to get the line extended....they would do it for material costs, which turned out to be about 10k, but they would give 12 'free' water taps with that, taps that normally cost 1k each. So, I went up and down the road asking neighbors if they would be interested in utility water.....got enough get on board with it at 850bucks each that we got the line in, and everybody got a tap for less than the price would have been IF the dang water line had already been there !
And I didn't have to spend who-knows-how-much on a drilling a well. It increased the property value to the point I later sold it WITHOUT even building a house for 25k. 20k profit for a few hours talking to folks and dealing with the water utility for a little while. I'll take that.

I'd also go to the tax office, get the tax history and current owner details so you know how much, if any, taxes are owed. I always start there, since the tax card for the parcel gives me the current owner and address of them, and the page and deed book number ( or microfish roll number now ) of current deed in the Register of Deeds office.

Then a trip to the deed office to do your own "mini" title search......see when it was last transferred, see if you can find any restrictions, easements, or liens.....especially look of IRS tax liens that will have to be cleared up, they are quite common......that sort of thing. If you don't know how to use the Grantor, Grantee, and Misc. listings, get the folks in the office to help....I've always found them quite educational.

IF the current owner has died, try to see if there was a will filed and if the property was listed to a heir...usually county court clerks office for this.......if NO will, USE CAUTION, especially if you deal with one heir or the spouse......many States, the spouse and any children have, by law, shares in any property....it doesn't automatically go to the spouse in total absent a will. ( dies "intestate" )......they may claim they can "sell" you the property and even make a deed out to you, but another heir may come along down the road and bite you.

You would, of course, want a title search done when you buy the property that hopefully would reveal many of the above issues......and BUY TITLE INSURANCE for YOU if you buy the place....it's CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP compared to potential problems that could arise......but doing a little detective work on your own doesn't hurt and is cheaper than an attorney doing the same thing, just to let you know if you even want to buy the place......You may find out real quick there is a 50k IRS lien on the place and it's only worth 20k.....

On the other hand, like I did on a 3ac piece near me, there is a 10k IRS lien on it, and I bought the place JUST for the price of the lien....the guy wanted them off his back and was willing to sign over the deed in exchange for me settling the lien with the IRS.....which I did, and later build two nice houses on the place and made 150k profit.

There are so many ways to wring a profit out of real estate, it ain't even funny....or mabye it is.....ahahahahaaaa

[Guyod]

Thanks for all the information.

I found a great web site for my county that lists alot of information for every property. It listed property type, size, utilities, tax assessments, sale prices, photo, sketch with dimensions, property dimensions and survey info, owner info.
This property is listed as vacant land. I guess they never got permits for anything. So grandfathering is out of the questioning.
I found out on my township website that you can get fined for having debris on your property. A friend in the garbage hauling business estimated 12k to remove everything. Imp sure I could be creative and clean it up for alot less. But I could use that to blackmail the neighbor. Sell the property to me for a couple 1,000 or I turn you in and you pay to clean it up. This is not something I want to do my self so I will be looking for a lawyer.

Tax liens is not something i thought of. I will have to look into that. Taxes cant be more that a few hundred a year though so hopefully they wont be to high.