Should I buy the vacant lot next to a Flip house in MA?

[Steven Tierney]

(I apologize in advance for the long post)

Some background:

I'm interested in a property as a rehab project located in a seaside town here in Massachusetts.  The average lot size as you get closer to the water is greatly reduced compared to the rest of the town, however property values remain high due to the proximity to the ocean.  The current owner of the home only bought the parcel of land which the home sits on, and not the adjacent vacant ( and "undevelopable" as classified by the town due to not meeting zoning requirements) parcel of land that the previous owner also owned in conjunction with the house parcel.  Each parcel is approximately 1/8 of an acre, however, the undevelopable parcel has a significantly lower assessed value due to its classification.  The vacant lot is basically used as if it was part of the lot with the home on it (driveway on vacant lot), but in fact the owners are different, and legally that isn't allowed.   

Here are my questions:

Should I reach out to the owner of the vacant lot (who lives in Florida full time) and see if they'd be interested in selling it (I honestly don't know what purpose it serves for them)? If they are interested, should I buy that vacant parcel, and if/when I get into the rehab property, sell both parcels together on MLS as part of the house rehab deal? Combined both parcels would only be about 1/4 of an acre, but I'd be doubling the lot size in a tight part of town, and could legally market the property on MLS as having a decent size side yard to potential buyers.

If you don't hate me already for the long post, please keep reading:

If the little vacant parcel is assessed by the town at "X" and it serves no purpose as an undevelopable lot to the current out of state owner, what % of X do you think I should offer them for it? Let's say I proceed with this, should I generally consider this part of my rehab costs? How would I adjust my estimated ARV due to the addition of this parcel to the deal? Lastly, let's say I don't get the extra lot... it's always been "used" as if it were part of the house lot... What would you do?? I'm worried the people from Florida might decide to use it one day as a place to park their RV, or go camping or something weird...

You guys are great, Let me know what you think, much appreciated!

And let me know if this should be posted elsewhere on here!

[Matt Devincenzo]

@Steven Tierney I do this stuff as a Civil Engineer, so I'll try to give the cliff notes version of how to research. This may not be exact since I do it out here in CA, but the general steps should be correct, you just need to find out which office has each item.

This is assuming of course you decide to search for an easement instead of purchase ect.

1) Easements are shown on the title report(not just an O&E report but an actual title report), so order one for the lot next door and see if anything shows up. Many easements are "non-plottable" meaning they don't have a given course that you can plot on a map and say "it is right here". An example would be an electric utility pole that has a 3' easement on all sides, well if the pole is move then the easement moves with it. I would imagine this driveway (if it has an easement) may also have a general easement like that. Those usually show up in a different section of the title report from plottable easements that have a fixed location based on a surveyed course. 

2) If it's on the title report go pull that book/page # and you have your easement document, along with any drawing or exhibit that identifies it.

3) If it doesn't show up, that doesn't mean something isn't recorded. We get title reports all the time that are "missing" old easements. It's not a big deal, when we find the old document we provide it to the title company and they update the report. To find it there are 2-3 places to look.

1. Go to the county and search for records (those same book/page indexes) for the lot's parcel number. This should give anything recorded against the lot. You'll have to view each item and see if any of them have what you need.

2. Go to the City and look through their files there. The City has the old plans and permits that were pulled, so here you'd be looking for a plan that maybe built the home and shows the driveway. Sometimes the easement was placed on that plan, but not recorded with the County like it should have.

3. Again at the City they have the record maps. The maps would have been done anytime someone subdivided up land. So maybe a map was done when they separated the lots for the last purchase. Again the driveway easement may have been shown on there and just never recorded with the county. 

4) Assuming nothing is shown on any of those then no "legal" easement exists currently. That doesn't mean that it doesn't "actually" exist. If the driveway predated the sale of the home separate from the lot it is on, an "assumed" access easement may be in place. What I mean is the previous owner sold knowing that the driveway was there and proceeded with the sale anyway in essence "granting" the buyer a right to park there. So you could ask to record an easement today and see if the lot owner will cooperate. If not then talk to a local RE attorney and see what would be needed to establish your right to the driveway. Like I said the right may have been "granted" due to the circumstances of the sale, and the RE attorney can help with what may be required to formalize the right through paperwork. This can be done without the cooperation of the lot owner. Since they allowed the sale, and it was "open and notorious" in nature they have in essence already shown that it is allowable and now you would just be solidifying that through filing paperwork.

Hope that helps and let me know if you need any more ideas on how to proceed.