When you purchase multi-family, make sure that it is indeed zoned multi-family. Here is something that has happened to me personally, on a 5 unit property I purchased 4 years ago.
I purchased a 5 unit property 4 years ago. At that time, we received paperwork from a court case from 20 years ago that stated even though the property was zoned single family, that the property owner was allowed to keep in multi-family, as the zoning board knew about this issue for over 30 years.
Previous owner also owned the property around this building, but had sold off to individual property owners 20-30 years ago. So the 5 unit building we own, is set around nice single family homes. We keep the property nice, but none of the neighbors like it there. As soon as the previous owner sold the property to me, this zoning issue suddenly showed up again. I am guessing the other owners decided now would be a time to try to get it changed once again. This went on for over a year, and then eveything was dropped, as we had the previous court case to back us up.
Now two years later, someone filed a complaint again! I am sure it is one of the same original people. This time they issued a citiation to use witout even giving us a chance to defend it.
My business partner is sending them all the paperwork from the trial 20 years ago that show Marion County Zoning losing this case against owner...
Long and short, make sure the zoning is correct before purchase. Even though we were granted a variance 20 years ago, this is still a time drainer and makes it a little harder to sleep at night:(. 3k/month coming in and suddenly we still have a mortgage payment but no building to support it is the real issue.
Comments(2)