Land Building Approval Question

[Beth Clerc]

Hi everyone,

Where I live in NY a vacant land parcel needs to have Board of Health Approval (BOHA) in order to build on it.  If you wanted to buy a lot that does not have existing BOHA and were able to get as many tests as possible done ahead of purchasing (perc test, soil test, engineering, surveyor, talking to town building dept. etc.) and they all came back ok I'm wondering if anyone has ever heard of still ending up with an unbuildable lot somehow.  

I have done a few flips in the past but for my own personal residence now I want to buy a vacant lot and do a new construction build.   I'm definitely going to get an agent who is familiar with land but it's new territory for me and I'm still a little nervous about doing all the proper due diligence and still ending up with a useless lot (land in this area is NOT cheap) so it would be a big loss.

Thanks for any thoughts on this.