In some jurisdictions without a certificate of occupancy it is illegal to live in the house.
Up here that is not a problem, but smoke detectors are manditory - and now CO detectors as well.
Required to get insurance, and you will be fined if they are not installed and working at an inspection - this is most important for rental properties where inspection is manditory as well.
Thanks, I guess they don't have that here, Maryland or Baltimore County.
Probably for renting a house they do, but not buying.
Related to cash: I had applied for a mortgage and should have had it before the closing, but the annoying mortgate guy asked for new stuff. So I borrowed 50,000 from my brother (who doesn't usually have so much (30 years ago) liquid, but was hoping to find and buy a medical practice.)
I think someone explicitly told me no personal checks, but I asked my brother for a certified check, but he ignored me and I showed up with my brother's check from the Dreyfus Fund, which may have sounded impressive
30 years ago but is really just a personal check. They took it without a comment. Maybe any personal check woudl have gotten the same response?Because there was no bank there, there was no one to require homeowners insurance. I got it on my own a little later Then I got a mortgage about 90 days later, but then the bank must have assumed I had homeowners insurance, because they didn't ask, didn't say a word.
Because of an obnoxious law-violating seller's real estate agent, I'd hired a lawyer, and back at that first closing, he didn't do anything about title insurance and I left without any. When I questioned him, he said I didn't need it (EVen though my lot was oddly shaped broken out of a much bigger parcel, also oddly shaped, and only created 4 years earlier. In fact it had turned out that the whole HOA didn't own what it thought it owned and had to swap land with an adjacent propery owner. The real reason the lawyer didn't get me insurance is that he was charging a flat price. Ugh)
And I knew a lot, at least book learning, about property law. I can't imagine how someone buying the first house in his family, when his parents rented, must feel when he goes through this. Chewed up and spit out, I'll bet.
The lawyers have it set so that if they make a mistake, it is the home owner/buyer that pays the price, not them.
In a town next to me a developer had about 15 home owners paying him for about 10 or more years. He was not using that money to pay off the bank loan, and the home owners found out they had not really payed off anything on their houses and had to start all over.
While probably not needed, I think I would get the title insurance. I did on the last house I bought even though I payed cash for it.
Lol...
There are no zoning laws. I have never seen an oil pump next to someone's home though. There are some old derricks about 50 years old still pumping in areas you wouldn't expect to see, but they are a novelty if you see one. Very few properties are sold with mineral rights in Harris County. The few I've seen still operational are in Humble, TX (pronounced "umm-bulll") which was where present day Exxon got started. They are small pumps, could fit inside of a two car garage probably.
I think there was a discussion about Houston in this NG last year. No zoning has had no detrimental effects as one might expect. Being the 4th largest US city, some may have a mental picture that things look all chaotic. It doesn't look any different from any other big city with zoning. It turns out the city "zones" itself without government interference. People organically setup residential areas away from industrial areas (go figure!).
I honestly don't know where I could go for full-service refueling. I usually pay at the pump with a credit/debt card and stick my gas cap in between the handle and lever actuator while its fueling. I'll walk into the store if I need something during the process, or wash the windshield while its gassing up. It never gets icy or snowing, and if its raining all the pumps are under a covered roof anyway.
Gas prices are about $1.80 right now, so I get a less expensive bill than you more than likely (I'm not going to Google prices in NJ just for this discussion). I don't have to tip the attendant either! Since I'm used to doing it myself, I don't know what I'm missing anyway. The gas pumps even have little 10" TV screens that show the news or some other mindless entertainment while the pump is on. I can only imagine an elderly person visiting one of the other 48 states that don't offer full-service trying to figure out these computerized pumps. It probably would be confusing if they have not been outside of NJ in decades trying to work a computer that just happens to dispense petrol!
North or South Jersey? My relatives live south (apple & peach orchards), not the north (cripts & bloods) - we have plenty of those types here too of course ;-) I do miss those Jersey tomatoes and hoagies though.
Sounds like your lawyer screwed you. You were exposed big-time until you finally got the insurance! The fact he didn't have a survey done is also scary. You probably could have sued him for errors and omissions . At least maybe you would have got your money back from him. Even though it was a cash deal, a Realtor wouldn't have missed that - probably worth the 6%.
After reading all the posts questioning the age of smoke detectors, I decided to replace my hard wired units original to the house. I was concerned about the inter connection and how it is done, but turns out, it is just another wire with a wire nut in the box. Easy to do. My new units arrived yesterday and I'll put them in this weekend.
I'd like to find smoke alarms that have a pre-warning that comes on for 15 secs or so before the main blast goes off, so that you at least know the big one is coming instead of being totally shocked by it. They do that with burglar alarms. In my house, even 15 secs would give me enough time to head off 90% of the false alarms, ie some smoke from cooking. I'm sure soom loon will chime in with "but that
15 secs could make the difference between life and death..." I don't care. The chances of that making a difference is just about nil. And I'd rather forgo the chance of having a heart attack from being startled out of the blue by some non-fire.
I know we are getting off topic here but . . . ,
I like the idea of no zoning laws, and I have heard that not having zoning laws in Houston works fine, although I have never actually been to Houston. I hate over-regulation in general. Some regulation is fine, but it is overdone in every area that I have lived or worked.
Gas prices where I am keep going down. They have been in the low $1.80's and I did see one yesterday at $1.79 -- plus almost no one ever tips the gas attendants here.
South Jersey -- Camden County. Most of the former apple and peach orchards in our county are now housing developments, shopping centers, industrial warehouse and office centers, etc. Your relatives sound like they may be in Burlington, Gloucester, Cumberland, or Ocean County where they still have apple and peach orchards.
I think if someone opens a 7-11 on a lot next to your house or puts up a 50 unit low income apartment building there, or puts a scrap yard next to your professional office, etc, you'd probably change that opinion.
It works in Houston because if anyone decided to put an oil well, or a junkyard, or any other unsavory land use next to high end residential he'd get shot - and he knows it.
That's "self zoning" in action!!!
I am curious how this "no zoning" concept works in the places where apparently it exists. From everything I know about human nature, it would lead to a real mess.
Depends on the town. A couple of small rural town near me have done rather well without zoning. Of course, anything happening needs a permit and anything that is a problem is pounced on by the residents.
I don't think those tactics would have worked for the past 100 years in any big city.
I think another factor would be if they are already pretty much developed over the last century+. If you have a small town that's mostly residential, another section that's commercial, very little open space, it's one thing. It's kind of defacto zoned, so if you had no zoning I could see how that might work. At the other extreme, you could have a township that's 64 square miles, with only 20% of it developed.
I meant to say t hat I did get title insurance. After all it's a
6-sided lot carved out of another 6 or 8-sided parcel, neither of whose boundaries have never been fought over in court.When the guy next to me started claiming part of my land, I called the title company and they emailed me the plat, which I already had on paper. And which I'm 98% sure I now can get myself digitally from the county clerk's office. Their version can be enlarged much beyond my ability to read the paper version. I suppose if he ever really tried to claim it, they would send a lawyer to talk to his lawyer and defend me in court if needed, but i didn't ask them if that was true. (the policy is in my file cabinet.) .
Yes, indeed. He's one of about 6 people I should have told off, but never did. I always think I'll get over it. But I never went back to him for anything (which is not saying much since I didn't need a lawyer for another 20 years.)
There was a survey by the previous owner, but he didn't give me all his papers until the inspection, an hour before the closing (I went back to Brooklyn between signing the contract and closing day, but I think for him it woudl have been a mistake to give them to me until the closing.)
But it took me 25 years to understand that it was only a location survey, just for the purpose of putting in the fence. So their are several dimiensions given, but they're all with respect to my house. I even borrowed a metal detector to look for brass pegs, which I coudln't find (not even where the corner of my lot is also the corner of HOA's parcel) and later realized are not put in for location surveys. AFAIK.
What were my damages? He never promised orally or in writing to get me title insurance or to pay for it. It wasn't discussed at all.
Well the seller's realtor got 6% from the seller, I think it was that much. The seller wasn't quite complaining, but he did point out that he had to cash a certificate of deposit to sell the house, because he only asked and I only paid what he had put in and what he owed on the mortgage**. To pay the real estate agent, he had to cash the CD. I think he might have said this in part to explain why he didn't come down on the price at all, even though of course he had no obligation to do so.
**Since he had no equity, he said he was looking at it like he paid rent for 4 years for a very nice place. And he did a lot of planting and gardening, and I know he enjoyed that a lot. The neighbors called him the berryman.He was moving back to Lousiana, because he thought Baltimrore was too cold. While I was planning to clean every little thing out of my apartment in Brooklyn, I told him he didn't have to remove anything from the house if he didnt' want it, and I would either use it or take it to Goodwill, that I woudlnt' throw anything away. He said if he got his tansfer to the branch in Lousiana in time, he would move there and leave for me the dining room table and a couple other things. And if he didn't, he'd rent an apartment in Baltimore until the transfer came and leave me all the gardening tools, some opened paint, and there was a bunch of other stuff too, all of which I liked. I probably took a couple things to Goodwill, but I know that as I promised, I didn't throw anything in the trash.
That could be 4 or 5 smoke detectors just for the second floor of a modest 3-bedroom townhouse.
Yes, that is correct -- that is the requirement in those towns -- one detector inside each bedroom; and one on the outside of the bedrooms within about 10 feet of each bedroom door.
Seems like overkill, but does make some sense. If you sleep with the doors closed the fire could get going rather strongly in a bedroom before the alarm sounded, potentially killing the occupants of that room. I don't know the statistics, but space heaters and smoking probably start far more fires than anything out in the hallway.
On 22 Jan 2015, Ed Pawlowski wrote in alt.home.repair:
Me, too. It hadn't occurred to me that they needed periodic replacement, since I know they still go off occasionally when there's a cooking incident. But they're about 35 years old and it seems a good idea. I just hope the new ones aren't over-sensitive.
The market takes care of that by itself. Its too expensive to put a scrap yard next to a professional office.
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