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http://www.AsktheBuilder.com founder, Tim Carter, discusses how not to lose tens of thousands of dollars when buying a vacant lot. He also answers random questions. Return the favor. Buy Tim a mocha chip ice cream cone: https://shop.askthebuilder.com/tims-tip-jar/
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Hi, I'm Tim Carter, founder of as the builder.com and thanks so much for joining me today
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Oh, my hair is a little messed up. Uh, I, uh, I really appreciate you joining the live stream today
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Got a really fast paced one and we're gonna cover some really interesting topics and the first one of course is zoning nightmares
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And then of course, I'd love to take your live questions. Uh, if you
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if you have anything a bit really about any topic, uh, but at first let's try to keep them to zoning issues
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So let's get started, first of all. So, what is zoning, uh
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zoning is? It's basically a set of rules and regulations that you might have to conform to when
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you build on a piece of land. And for the most part
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zoning is really a good idea but just like anything else, it can kind of get out of hand
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Uh, some, some zoning regulations are so confusing, uh, and so restrictive that it's makes it really
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really hard to build on a piece of land. Ok. So, but they're
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they're a good idea because what they do is they help preserve the value of the improvement that you're gonna put on the lot
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Because for example, I'll, I'll give you a wild example. So let's
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let's talk about a place that doesn't have any zoning, uh, for many years
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Uh, Houston, Texas had that reputation that they really had. Some, some
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just a complete lack of zoning in, in some areas. And what would happen is you
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you might want to build a house, uh, and, and you might spend a lot of money doing it and then the person next door
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to you decides to run a junkyard and, and you might not be really happy about that
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All right. So, so zoning helps prevent that. I, it doesn't, doesn't stop it because I could show you a couple of photos
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of a couple of people up here in New Hampshire who live just two or three miles from me and it looks like they have
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a junkyard and in fact, one of them is actually in a conflict with the
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uh, the town and, you know, they're trying to sue them. It's a long story
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So, even if you have zoning it doesn't stop, it's basically, it's like a speeding law
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Just, uh, just because there's speed limits up on the highways doesn't mean everybody
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uh, obeys them. Right. Ok. So, um, hi, Steve. It's great to see you
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Uh, oh, yeah, I don't do much cage fighting anymore. All right
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Anyway, so let me tell you a couple of stories about zoning to really kind of put it into perspective and how you can avoid
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getting burned and basically losing tens of thousands of dollars. So this happened to me and I was lucky
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So let me tell you what happened. Uh, the, uh, first new home I built for myself
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uh, happened back. Oh, gosh, in the 19 eighties and I, my wife and I were looking for AAA building lot for months and
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months and months. And uh we knew kind of where we wanted to go. And we
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we found this lot on the street in a very, very nice uh village called Amberley Village
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And it just so happened. In fact, I, her mom and dad
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my, my in-laws lived on the street and I had driven by this lot hundreds of times
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you know, not only when I was dating my wife, but, but afterwards
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and I never knew that the lot existed. So it was just kind of a weird shaped lot
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very narrow at the front, like at the street where my palms are maybe only 60 ft wide
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And then it kind of went out like this. Well, I thought that it was basically a lot
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I just thought that the houses on either side only halfway down the middle of this lot while I was wrong
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So the trouble is this particular village Amberley Village. Uh and I think their zoning code still holds true today
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They have two residential districts, they have residential, a classification and residential b well
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in residential A, the zoning code is really clear, it says that all lots must be one acre or larger if
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you want to build a home. And the classification B is for all lots have to be a half acre or larger
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Well, guess what? The lot was two thirds of an acre. So when we went to look at it that day
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um I had got, I knew about this and luckily my father in law was
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he knew one of the members that was on the, the board of Selectmen or the councilman in the village
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And this gentleman also had previously been on the planning and zoning board
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So it was a Sunday. We actually called him up. He was nice enough to talk to me on the phone and he said you've
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got nothing to worry about because, um, you're allowed to build on that lot
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even though it's only two thirds of an acre. Now, I just had his word on it
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I didn't have it in writing. So I was kind of gambling there
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but we went ahead and made an offer. They accepted our offer
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We were able to build on the lot. Ok. So that could have ended badly if
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if he gave me the wrong information. So, what you need to do is if you're thinking about a lot is you must go to
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the, um, you must go to the zoning people, you must go to the town
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to the village and you've got to get it in writing. Um you
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you whatever it takes to make sure that a piece of land you're buying
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that you can build what you want to build on it. Ok? It's really important
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Now, here's the second story. This one just happened and it happened to my daughter
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This one is almost unbelievable and I was kind of almost tied into this
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So my daughter lives on Mount Desert Island up in Maine, up and down East Maine and she just bought a one acre lot
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that was on this, this, this lake up there and she wanted to buy another lot that was adjoining it
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All right. Well, comes to find out that this other lot is a non conforming use and it's at the current time
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the way the town statutes are written, you cannot build on this lot
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You know, this other lot, the secondary one and get this, this is the thing that's unbelievable
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The person who owns this lot also owns three other lots that are part of like a tiny mini subdivision
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And you know, he put the road and did all this work and I don't know if he knew it or not
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I don't know how he got permission to do it. Maybe he didn't even get permission to put the road in
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I I don't know that story. It doesn't matter, but the road is non conforming
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And as a result, none of the four lots are buildable. In other words
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if you and the and the realtors, these things have been, all four lots have been on the multiple listing service for months and months
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and months. And if you had bought one of the lots and closed on the deal and then went to get plans drawn and
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you know, spent 50 grand on plans, think of this, spent 30 40 50 grand on plans with an architect and then you take the
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plans to the town and they, they go, uh we got bad news for you
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You're not allowed to build on that lot. Could you imagine that
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So, um, so the realtor said that the lot owner was unaware of all this
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That may be true. That could be true. He, he might not even realize that he
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he's uh in, in a non conforming situation. All right. So, um so that's all trying to get straightened out right now and what you
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can do. So I used to be a real estate broker for uh back in Ohio for 20 something years
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And um so you could still tie up that lot, but what you would do the way you would handle that is you would make
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an offer on the land. Uh if you could get the, you know
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you would agree on price. And um, but you would put a contingency in the contract that would say
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um I'm, I'm only going to go through with the sale and give you the money if I can get permission from the town to
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build on the lot. All right. So, so that's just a contingency. They're very common in contracts
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And, you know, you would write in the contingency that if the town does not grant permission
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then, then I get back my earnest money. You know, because when you make an offer on your state
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you generally write a check, uh a good faith deposit, uh to show that you're sincere in
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in your offer. So that's how you would at least tie up the lot because if it's a
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if it's a great lot, but you can't build on it just yet
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um, you might be able to work it out as you move forward. So that's
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um, that's zoning. Um Yes. LV. Um, you got that right. Check
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planning and development before you buy. Absolutely. Yes, contingency clauses. They're everything
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I mean, that's how you buy real estate. You know, you always have to be thinking to protect yourself
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Uh, you don't want to make any mistakes, too much money involved, way too much money
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And could you imagine, could you imagine if you had bought that lot and
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and then go to, to find out after you spent not only spent the money on the lot
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you know, you might have spent 100 and 50 grand, 200 grand, whatever
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And then you spent, then you spend 2030 40 grand on plans for a house
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then you find out you can't build on it. Oh, my gosh
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Um, could you imagine that litigation? I mean, you'd be so upset
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you know, you'd want, you want to sue the realtor, you'd want to sue the
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the landowner. Um, and, and let me tell you something about litigation
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So, I've written about this a lot. You can imagine how many homeowners
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you know, actually sue their builders or contractors for lack of performance or all kinds of
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you know, bad workmanship. Whatever, the only people who win in these cases are the attorneys I used
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I've done expert witness work for about 20 years. In fact, the last case that I worked on
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I was crawling on the roof of the Brazilian ambassador's house on the island of Antigua
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So I've done some high profile cases and the point is is that it's the attorneys who are making the money as this case goes
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on. And, and you also have to realize one other thing about litigation really quickly
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This, this is kind of, I'm kind of going off the rails here a little bit, but it's important if you're
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if you ever think of that you want to sue somebody. Um, you
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what happens is you, you, you're already upset, you're mad, you think you're right
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Uh, it doesn't matter if you're right or not, by the way, it doesn't really matter. I know. It sounds crazy
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It doesn't matter. Um, but one of the first questions you should ask attorney in the first five minutes if you have a meeting with
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an attorney and you're thinking about suing somebody, you have to say if I win the case
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if we go that far and I win, does the person who lose
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do they write me a check that day in the courtroom? Guess what the answer is
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No, you get no choke, get no check. They can appeal, they can appeal the decision
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All right. And then, then you have to go through the whole lawsuit again. Uh
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they might not have the money. Um, and even if you do win
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typically what happens, I, I don't know about every other state in the nation in the UN in the United States
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but you get a judgment, the judge writes a little judgment and says
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ok, Mr Carter, you won. Here's a judgment, the, the, the Mr Smith
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the person that you sued, um, he owes you $100,000. Here's the thing that says that he owes you and good luck getting the 100,000
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That's how it works. It's crazy. All right. So, so you need to get educated that if you were to win
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when do you get the money? All right. So it's, it's a very, it's a horrible process is all I can tell you
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So, anyway, that's it with zoning. Um, do you have any questions about zoning if you do now is the time to ask them
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go ahead and, um, let me know what you want to know about zoning or planning
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E even planning. I'm happy to tell you, uh, about planning. Le let me actually talk a little about it
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I was in a conversation, uh, kind of an email back and forth with
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uh, someone who'd stopped by the website and a lot of people plan
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um, uh, well, you're not gonna, you're not gonna LV challenge. Zoning was good luck with that
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You have to remember that cities and towns for the most part have a bottomless pit
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I'm, I'm sorry, uh, uh, an unlimited amount of money, uh, to
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to, to do litigation whereas you, you don't. Right. So, um, you
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you, um, you're not gonna, you're not gonna, um, you're not gonna challenge
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Oh, but what you may mean here's, here's something that you might want to also know about zoning before we go to planning
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Understand that the zoning laws laws are not like Spandex, you know
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where the zoning law, you know, completely fits perfectly. Well, actually, yeah
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they're not where the Spandex fits perfectly around people of any size
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Right? What happens is the people who write the zoning laws, they
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they try to anticipate everything. They don't always, so they don't always work for every lot
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So what you can do frequently is you can, you can ask for a variance that's the actual term
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I was on the planning board in my, in that Amberley Village town many
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many years ago, I was on the planning and zoning board for eight years, so I had to grant a few variances
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So variance is basically like an excuse. It's where the town agrees that the zoning code
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even though it was well intentioned, it doesn't necessarily meet your, your situation and then they let you maybe get closer to a line
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uh, a property line that you otherwise wouldn't be able to get close to
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There's all kinds of ways of advantages, but here's the problem, you have to really look closely at the zoning code and the process
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when, which they grant the variance because they typically will say once again
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this is not everybody, but they'll say they only grant variances if you can prove a hardship
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All right, that's really an important word. And the reason why is think of it from the standpoint of the town
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Um, they don't want variances to be like Halloween candy, you know, where anybody who comes up and knocks on the door
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you know, gets a, a clerk bar or, or, uh, you know, AAA bag of a score bar or whatever it might be
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Uh So they, they want to kind of make the bar pretty high before they grant one
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Otherwise it becomes a very slippery slope. So you can get a variance often it's not guaranteed
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but you have to prove hardship in almost every instance. You know, you have to show that
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that if, if I don't get the variance, um it, it just, this isn't gonna work out or whatever and they'll give you examples of
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what a hardship is. So just keep that in mind and, you know
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you should, you should be able to do well, you know, with um with
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with getting what you want done. But um trust me be and
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and you wanna do that too, for example, let's say you wanna do a edition
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Here's a really great example. Let's say you wanna do a room edition and you um you know
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the size of room edition is gonna violate the setback, either the rear or the side yard setback
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And so, and the architect says, oh, no worries, no worries. You'll be able to get a variance
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blah, blah, blah. So, you know, he then draws $15,000 worth of plans or $10,000 worth
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You got the plans and then you go to the zoning board and you find out no
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you don't get the variance. Now you've just blown 10 or 15 grand. All right
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So you, you would want to kind of do a preliminary plan
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a really inexpensive one that kind of gives you an idea like, oh my gosh
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we need to go 5 5 ft across the setback line. Then you go talk to the planning board people and say
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do you think this is gonna fly? I mean, you know, have you done this before
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And typically they'll honestly answer you. But if you really go deep into the setback area
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they would say we've never granted a variance like that before. So that'll save you a lot of money with the architect
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So just, just you have to understand how the game is played and by doing that
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then you're going to save a lot of money and a lot of heartache. Believe me
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Oh, you're welcome. You're very welcome. Uh Any other questions about zoning
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I'm happy to answer them and I appreciate you watching today. The um remember if you have a chance
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go back to the ask the builder.com website, sign up for the newsletter
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I I give tips like this out every Sunday in my newsletter. And the other thing is all of the past newsletters are archived on
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the website. So all of that information is there. Um Make, you know
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use the search engine, the search engine at, at my ask the builder.com website
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It's pretty powerful and the best way to use search engines just so
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you know, is to just start with one or two words, don't type a big long stream in of
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you know, stream of words don't do that. You know, for example, let's say you wanted to know about epoxy for wood
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Like, like can I use a wood epoxy feeler? A filler don't type in
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Can I use epoxy filler, just type in epoxy and wood and then hit search and see what happens
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And then if there's too many search results and they're too convoluted
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then start to add a few more words one at a time to your search string and magic is gonna happen
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Yes. Thank you. Thanks very much LV. Uh Yeah, there is a wealth of information on the website
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20 something years of it, of writing and, and video and before that 20 plus years of getting my hands dirty
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you know, so, uh out in the field, um and, and, and just
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you know, I really enjoy doing it. I, I really, one of the things I love doing
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I love doing my newsletter and I love doing these live streams now, just so, you know, if you can't tell and I
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I haven't had a cup of coffee for six or seven hours. So what you see is
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is the real Tim Carter? Ok. Um Any other quick questions? Uh we're running out of time
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I've got a few more minutes if you have a question about any part of your house now is the time to ask it in
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the chat box and I'll do my best to answer it quickly. So go ahead and um chat me up here and type something in
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I'll, I'll do my best to answer the uh I wanna let you know
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uh I'm gonna be producing this Sunday's newsletter tomorrow. And it looks like it's gonna be a pretty good one
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we've had a couple of really good ones. The last two weeks it's gonna be hard to top those
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I think. Uh, what is my main trade? Oh, that's a great question. So
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when I was working every day in the field, um, I did
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uh, all the carpentry on my jobs. So I, I, I'm a master carpenter and then I
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I gravitated early in my career, James. That's a great question. Uh James
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I also gravitated to plumbing. Um I love doing plumbing work. Isn't that crazy
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And I became a master plumber. I passed the exam and got certified in 1981
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So I've been a master plumber for a long time and it's
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to me, it's just really interesting because it's a three dimensional uh challenge because you typically only have one pipe going out of a house
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and you only have one pipe up at the roof. But inside you've got all these interconnected pipes that are all connected to those two
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pipes. It's kind of fun actually. So, carpentry plumbing. Uh I do it all
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I mean, I've done everything I can lay brick. I, I can do it all
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I mean, I like I wired my daughter's new home. Uh I
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I put in the boiler, all the radiant heating system so I can do all that
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Um All right, we're running out of time. We've got just about a minute or so
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Left and Steve, uh, you got a great question. Do you have any thoughts about construction loans
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Well, yeah. Um, the, the interest rates are pretty low right now and just don't
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here's my advice on construction loans. You really have to pin your costs down and have all your costs locked in because we s inflation
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is out of control right now. And the reason inflation is out of control uh is because the government and I'm not getting into politics
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here. You need to understand when they pay all these spending bills and
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and its deficit spending, it's making your dollar and mine worth less money
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That's why there's inflation because the people who are selling things want more dollars because the dollars are worth less
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So you need to make sure that your, that your costs are locked in and that you are not gonna go over budget on your
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project. That's my best advice. Ok. We're running out of time. I want to thank you today for tuning in and I'll be doing another
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live stream tomorrow, gonna do Monday through Friday and just go to the newsletter
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Uh go to go to.com and find out when they're gonna be
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Thanks so very much. Thanks for tuning in. Really appreciate it
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