Wholesale Property and zoning violations

[Jonathan Tavarez]

Hi BP fam,

There is a property I want to put under contract to wholesale but in the registered address there are 2 houses, both are 3 bedrooms and 1 bathroom and the total land is 2 acres. The problem is that the zoning for that area only allows for 1 house in every 3 or so acres (Howard county RC-DEO Maryland) and so the house that was build around 10 years ago was improperly build BUT to add to the story, the current owner got the land and both houses as a REO around 3 years ago and so I'm surprise nothing pop up on the title back then but either way thats what the owner is saying. Usually title problems is the kind of issue that scare investors away and honestly who knows if I can even assign the contract for the property since I'm not sure we can go to closing with this problem.

What are my options here? should I try to wholesale and let the next owner know of the potential problem?  From some research I have done it looks like this could take a long time to resolve and to add to the problem the county is aware of the situation.  Thoughts?