Land subdivision after the sale

[Tatiana Gershanovich]

Here is the scenario: We have a house with a big chunk of land. The goal is to subdivide the land, sell the house with only part of the land and keep the remaining. At the same time we don't want to wait while subdivision is approved (can take 1-1.5 years here). So, ideally we would sell the house to a retail buyer with some kind of agreement that only certain amount of land will belong to the house and we will be working to subdivide the land.

Has anybody done something like this? How did you structure it?

[Tommy F.]

@Tatiana Gershanovich, You mention having a big chunk of land with a house on it and the desire of separating the house from the greater portion of land. Depending on where the land is (county & state), the reason I say you must get rezoning approval, at least in my area, is to change the use of the land from its defined use on the Master Land Use Plan.

Suppose you have 11 acres and the house, and you separate the house with one acre from the balance of the tract leaving a 10 acre parcel of vacant land. If the zoning for the original "big chunk" was one house per acre then the newly divided 10 acre parcel will most likely have the same zoning. If you're ok with that, then no rezoning required, but I interpreted your comment to suggest you want a subdivision as in a neighborhood.

Back to the hypothetical 10 acres, if you want to create 20 lots on 10 acres that's zoned for one house per acre, then you likely have to go through the application phase with the county, planning department approval, public hearing, and town/county commission approval for the rezoning that differs from the Master Land Use Plan. Every municipality is different.

Another consideration with the 10 acre example, imagine it being a perfect sqaure on the map for illustration purposes. The county may not allow the entire surface area (square feet) to be used in the calcualtion for the number of houses. They may not allow the square footage of the street surfaces to be included in the calculation, they may not allow set-backs to be used in the calculation and there may be requirements for open space. For example, you may be required to set-aside 10% of the total square footage to be reserved as open space, not buildable. Other considerations are the quality of the land. The hypothetical square may include steep hills or wetlands, not buildable,  and that area can't be used in the formula for determining total houses. Any number of things can be buried in the county sub-division regulations and all of them have the potential to reduce the number and size of lots you want to create.