All Forum Posts by: Clint Shelley

have your attorney review the loan docs before you do anything. There should be no surprises or addendums.

Clint 

I do this for my primary and my rental. You don't actually pay more, per se. You just pay half, quicker, which in turn makes 13 payments a year instead of 12. I think it's smart just to beat the clock on the mortgage interest side. I'm not sure if it is best from a pure investor's way of thinking, but to me it feels like a win against the bank. I'm all about psychological victories when it comes to money. 

Clint

fantastic answers @andrewpostell 

I suggest recording your deeds and actually possessing your property (I. E. Act like the true owner). When it comes to this subject, states are usually divided into three types: Race state, Notice state, or a combination of the two. Alabama is a combo state. What's true in one state may not be in another. This is why you can't apply what you read/hear as the gospel. GET Counsel from an attorney in your state. An example of a race state: Seller sells a parcel to Party A and gives a deed. Seller then sells same parcel to Party B. First party to record wins the race. If memory serves me correct, Notice would be served by the first possessor of the property with unrecorded deed and thus would trump the first recorder not in possession. It should be noted that we arent  considering fraud or other nefarious situations, only that there are 2 parties with the same deed. 

This is a very interesting subject. Bottom line is get a good real estate attorney on your team.

Clint Shelley

Land Surveyor

Looks like a cool place. Lots of old southern homes have blue ceilings on the porches. My grandmother always said it helped keep sparrows and wrinns  from nesting under the porches. Blue paint mirrored an open sky she said. Cool feature to keep. Good luck and keep us posted.

Clint

I'm a professional land surveyor in Alabama and do these all the time. Post a copy of the requirements for the city approval and I can tell you what your actually paying for and what those costs would be for my area. That's probably why your seeing prices of all types because the project scope may be so varied. 

Clint

When you buy property, you typical buy every interest in the land the seller has available unless they keep one or many interests. If interests are severed it usually is the mineral rights. Sometimes this can be done by legislation as Paul mentioned. Any title company that doesn't address this for you is garbage. 

Clint

A few more things....if you need to get a policy in place quickly prior to a closing, get it. Then when you have more time, explore getting an updated flood cert and or LOMA. If the new information puts you in a lower risk category, you are entitled to a refund for the difference in premiums for up to one year.  I bet this will change at some point as more natural disasters happen and the government needs more money. Thanks for the kind words.

Clint

@Sam Leon

There has been recent height modernization projects to collect higher quality more accurate elevation data for the entire US and the world for that matter. This is both good and bad. Now at least some zone A which the underwriters like to slap the highest risk insurance on are now at least an AE which is easier to rate. A Zone basically means 100 year flooding will occur at some elevation "we just don't know what that number is". Very un helpful to both property owner and insurance company. How they rate your property is mostly drive by the lowest finished floor. For every 1 foot increment that the lowest floor is below BFE, your rate increases dramatically. Basically if your more than 2 foot below BFE, your screwed! Here is another example about how the certificate helps insurance agent determine your rate. Say your houses is a slab on grade single story house with a finished floor elevation of 105'. Your in a Zone AE where the base flood elevation is known to be 103'. This is really good. However, the certificate also has to show the lowest equipment servicing the residence (in this case, an AC pad) is 102', and the Lowest adjacent grade which is the lowest ground shot at any building corner is 101'. These last 2 items will mean you will still have to have flood insurance, but because your finished floor is above BFE, your flood risk is much lower, so you will have to carry insurance, just not as much as it could be. Take the same scenario with the house on stilts 1000 feet in the air. The risk will still be the same based upon the LAG and the AC pad. In our example, if the pad and the LAG were both above 103', you would still be in the flood zone, but a flood cert and LOMA would be used to get an exemption letter so you wouldn't be force to carry flood insurance. Hopefully this can help shed some more light on this topic.

Clint

Sam,

You don't pay the surveyors to interpret the maps. You pay them to provide and certify the elevations needed to fill out the the flood certs. Your community flood plain manager or a FEMA anaylst will interpret the maps and consider the flood cert against the firm map. Anytime a flood zone is changed the old certs are null because the risk is now different. All flood policies are underwritten by FEMA. If your property is in two zones, you insure against the higher of the risks. If you have a 1000 acre parcel the shows only one corner in the flood zone, your lender will still require a flood cert because your property is affected. At this point you could do one of two things. Cut the affected portion out creating a raw land parcel in the flood zone then say a 999 acre parcel with a house that is not in the flood zone. Overlay this on a firm map then you have a free and clear parcel. This is acreage is rather extreme but I use this example to explain this situation to my clients. Due to zoning laws it's usually cheaper just to do the flood cert and send in a LOMA to try and get an exemption. 25% of all flood claims typically happen in areas outside of the flood zone. I am a surveyor by the way. Hope is helps.

Clint Shelley