How to convince someone to sell vacant land

[Anonymous Poster]

Mosey,

I've been trying, unsuccessfully, for about 12 years to buy a 1/2 acre parcel (non buildable due to zoning restrictions) which my property surrounds on three sides. I'm embarrassed to say I've probably spent more in postage, writing the owner, than the property is worth /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif. When it comes to offering advice on how to get someone to sell, you've hit a dry well when it comes to any advice I could offer. I will offer some suggestions on how to find out how much the individual paid for the property, provided it was not a gift. One source is the local assessors office. In NY, a real property transfer statement is recorded which lists the purchase price. This is public information. In addition, when a deed is filed, a tax is paid which is a percentage of the purchase price. This tax stamp appears on the deed. Knowing what the percentage is, you can figure out the purchase price. Good luck, hope this helps.


Russ

 

[bgott]

He probably made $75,000 in general contracting fees on top of selling the property. I bet he didn't have a problem in the world with leaving messages on the buyer's machine!

 

[Gary_in_Indiana]

Golfgar, your story is a perfect example of why I specifically stated <font color=blue>"and record it"</font color=blue> when referring to the agreement.

Just getting it in writing is no real help. If I give you first right of refusal in writing but you don't record it I could still "forget" and sell it to a third party or die and have my heirs sell it or lose it in a lawsuit or bankruptcy.

In any of those examples, the property is gone. If I "forgot" then you might have recourse against me, but that won't help you with the innocent buyer who's opening up the big rendering plant next door and upwind of you.

If you record it, then any potential buyer has been put on notice of your potential interest in the property. For Danny, who is a fellow Hoosier, reducing the agreement to paper AND having it notarized so it can be recorded AND having it recorded is very important. Here any document must be notarized to be recorded. There is a way to kind of circumvent the notarization requirement, but I don't want to confuse the issue here. I hope this helps. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[Briarwood]

Wish I had tried harder. We are building a new house on a 90 acre farm. The 120 acre farm next door was split between a brother and sister when their mother died two years ago. The sister built a house on her half. The brother's 62 acres is adjacent to ours. Didn't know his intentions but I wrote him last year asking if he would contact me if he ever wanted to sell letting him know I wanted to preserve the land. Well, we were surprised to find a realtor's sign on the property this spring and called the next day to find the land had already been sold to a development company for $158,000. They have divided it into 10 lots and have already sold over half of them. Based on their lot prices, they will gross over $350,000 for the 5-7 acre lots. The only cost to the company was for a surveyor to plot off the lots. Our county/township has no zoning so you can file a plat without approval as long as the lots are 5 acres or more. The term "developer" is a misnomer here because the developer did nothing to the land or even put in a road. Five of the lots to the back of the land are flag shaped with only 30 feet of frontage each for their individual lanes (one will be at least 2000 feet long). Its going to look like a 5 lane highway with all these lanes side by side. I think the brother sold to the land company just to spite his sister but that is irrelevant at this point. We thought about making an offer on the lots that adjoin our property but those are the ones that sold first. Now I am worried that the same could happen to the 130 acre farm on the other side of ours as it is absentee owned. I am making a more concentrated effort to make sure that the owner knows I have an interest.
FWIW
Briarwood

 

[Golfgar4]

Point well taken, Gary! /w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

 

[Mosey]

Thanks for all your ideas! It sounds like my best bet right now is to bide my time and keep dropping hints once in a while. I don’t want to pester him about it every time I see him, but I won’t let him forget that I would like to be the first to know if he ever decides to sell it. I haven’t mentioned the idea of selling only the back half yet, so next time I see him I at least run that idea by him so he can think about it.

I’m confused about the "option or right of refusal to buy" thing. Why would he sign such a thing? What advantage is it to him? Plus, it seems like if he really wanted to sell to a someone else, like a developer, someday, all he has to do is price it way out of my range, then I’d have to refuse, then he’d sell it to whoever he wants.


Why do I need to buy it?

Well, I really don’t need to buy it, I want to buy it. Some of you stated correctly that right now I can use the property and he pays the taxes. But, he did state that "someday, maybe in 20 years, one of my kids might want to build on it". What if those kids are heavy into dirt biking or ride those 4 wheelers? Those things are fine except for the fact that many of them are loud. If I’m going to stay here for the rest of my life, I don’t want to have to worry about something like that. Right now no hunting is allowed, so I can take walks with my family any time of the year and not have to worry about getting shot, or interfering with someone who is hunting. I would like to bush hog a couple more trails to walk on, and I can’t do that on someone else’s property. I’m also trying to make a decision on whether to add on to my house or find a house with the square footage I need. I don’t want to go to all the work and expense of adding on if I can’t buy that property. I would be better off to look around and find another place with the square footage I need that’s on more property.

I did go down to the county assessors office as suggested. They said they needed to know when it was last sold and sent me to the county auditors office. I found out the date and went back to the assessors office, but by the time I got back it was 10 minutes to closing time and they were already heading out the door (yup, our tax dollars hard at work!). Anyway, I’ll go back over later today and look it up.

 

[hazmat]

<font color=blue>I’m confused about the "option or right of refusal to buy" thing. Why would he sign such a thing? What advantage is it to him?</font color=blue>

Typically you pay him money to sign such a thing. It keeps you out of a bidding war. Lets say you pay him $1,000 for the right of first refusal. This means that if he puts the property for sale & gets a valid offer, then you have the option to pay the amount for the property. Whoever buys it, your neighbor is up $1,000. Sometimes such agreements are time limited (10 months 20 years etc.)

Our town used such an agreement to purchase some farm land to use as open space. The property owner was interested in selling. Basically it kept the property owner from selling while the town worked out the finances to purchase it.

Kind of a moot point if he doesn't want to sell the property. If you decide to try to go down this path, get your attorney involved.

If you and your neighbor truley share the same goal of preserving the land, you may be able to get some covanents? placed on the land, ie for ag use only, no more than 1 house to be built etc. Sometimes there is a tax advantage etc. for preserving the property thru these types of restrictions. You could offer to pay for the required legal work. Again talk with your attorney.

 

[DarrenP]

Absolutely, I can think of no reason why he would sign such an agreement. I am in somewhat the same position as your neighbor. I have an acre lot across the street from my 4 acre homestead. The neighbor (actually 2 of them) has asked to buy it and was told basically the same thing you were. I will keep it in the family in case one of my children ever want to build there. If they kept after me, especially asked me to sign some agreement to give them right of first refusal, I would take offense. I suggest to do as you have already done. Make your interest known and then leave it alone. Good luck.

 

[DarrenP]

I just read of a good reason to sign such an agreement! If my neighbor wants to give me $1000 dollars to sign an agreement for right of first refusal on some property I don't want to sell I'd say, "Hand me the cash and where do I sign?"

 

[unaka]

<font color=blue> IF his big concern really is having a buffer you could offer to buy it and add a restrictive covenant prohibiting development there </font color=blue>

These clauses can be put into a deed, but later down the road they could be hard to enforce if the owner decided he wanted to build or develop. The courts generally frown on restrictions that restrict commerce (I think that was the word he used). I was told this by a real estate attorney when we thought about adding such a clause to some family land. From what I remember he said something like that could easily be overturned in the future.

I think the best advice has already been stated. Be a good and helpful neighbor and maybe one day it will work out. I'm doing the same thing with the adjacent farm. It is old family land, just like ours, and they have no intention of selling. They know I'm interested, but in the meantime, I just try to be a good neighbor.

Good luck