Developer Wants Some of My Land for a Road -- What do I need to know?

Developer Wants Some of My Land for a Road -- What do I need to know? open original image

Hello,

My house is in a neighborhood that was, at one time, intended to be much larger. But the developer went out of business after building just a few homes, and another developer swooped in to buy the land a few years later to finish out the main section. My house sits adjacent to a 50' plot of grass that was once intended to be a road to somewhere. The county owns this land. I'm attaching a hilariously crude sketch here so you get the idea.

The black to the right is the main neighborhood road. My house is the grey box at the bottom. A neighbor is at the top. The light green section is 50' wide and maybe a couple hundred feet long and is owned by the county. Now here's where it gets interesting. First off, the white section is really hundreds of feet of woods belonging to two different homeowners on another street. Their plots are not squared to ours and meet at an angle to this land. I know the guy who owns the bottom section. I assume this developer owns the top and will just purchase that little corner. The blue line is a creek. And now the kicker ... from the black line near the back of my property to the creek, my land drops off a good 20' down at a 45 degree slope.

So you can't just turn the light green section into a road without some effort. It sounds like the developer wants to slope the road down from right to left, but that creates some issues for my property. Do they put up a wall? Do they slope my property to match? All scenarios sound terrible to me.

Anyway, this is all the information I have at present. All I know is I got a call from the developer asking to speak with me at my convenience. I assume they will do everything in their power to mislead me and trick me into doing what they need. Please don't take offense if you're a developer, but I've been lied to so much that my trust level is pretty low here. What I'd like to know is what rights I have and what options are available to me in this situation, so I can sit down and talk with this people and have some knowledge about what is going on.

I'd very much appreciate any advice anyone on this forum could provide. Thank you! [IMG]

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Reply to
sarthaz
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Get familiar with land prices and you'll do fine and get what's fair. I'd say hire a Real Estate Lawyer, but only do that if their willing to take just a low percentage (no more than 10%) of the proceeds and not bill you their normal charges. Call around and see if anyone bites.

- On the flip side, if the Street Land has been in the County possession for years, then it might be for sale or even on their Judicial Sale list. Only some developers know about this, but you may find you can get it REAL cheap and get twice or more from the developer. It's just an option and a may be a very long shot, but it's just minutes on the County's website.

Reply to
Anonymous

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