Why
do I feel fighting the city
isn’t always easy or
in some cases worth it? My new
neighbor is doing some landscaping and repairs to his home that he just
bought
from a bank at the court house steps.
He got a great deal, but the house was
in need of some major repairs and the yard hasn’t been worked on in
probably 20
years. He did everything right. He checked his title for
easements, went to
the city, got permits, got the surveyor to come out mark the lines, and
the
county to come out and put in the lines where he could dig.
Now,
this guy was wonderful about the whole thing. He
had a tree that hung on to our side of the property and he actually
asked if he
could take it down. If we said “No”
he said he was willing to leave it, but I said go for it, it is his
tree and to
be honest, I hated cleaning up after it every fall.
But,
even after doing this, within two days of
starting his landscaping, the city came out and fined him $1,000 for
digging up
where there was a clean water easement.
This easement isn’t recorded anywhere, no one told him about it and
none of the
neighbors even knew of it and some of them were here since the houses
were
built in 1977. (Nobody knew what a clean water easement was in 1977.)
So, no recorded easement and nothing
about it when they came out and told him where he could and couldn’t
dig, but
as soon as he did… $1,000 fine! To me this was a set up from
the beginning.
He could take it to court, but his lawyer says it would cost over
$10,000 to
fight and he could still lose, rather than pay the $1,000 and put in
the new
clean water easement to the code of today’s standards. Of course you
need
another permit for that and it will come to about $3,000 to finish it
to the
city standards.
So,
though I disagree with the city on this one,
sometimes it is just easier to go along with the government rather than
fight
them. But, if you have unlimited funds, then please, by all means,
fight the
government, because this is ridiculous!
Todd Clark - Broker / Sales Coach
Palazzo Realty Group
Phone: (503)524-9494
Fax: (503)622-8739
©2009
Todd Clark -
Fighting the city isn’t always easy or in some cases even worth it!
;)
;)
Come to Fentress County, Tennessee....no zoning and no building codes. Yup, you heard that right. I was writing an offer last week and the buyer wanted to know when the Certificate of Occupancy had been issued. When I explained that COs are not issued here, he asked, "Isn't the building inspected during construction?" When I replied that only the electrical is inspected, his wife wailed, "Well, how do you know it's well built!?"