Bought I new house I think

On 2014-12-26 8:15 PM, Jack Campin wrote:
It turned out that he registered the property transfer improperly and
hadn't taken into account the fact that the fences didn't exactly follow
the property line. This caused a little delay when I sold the house, but
fortunately the registration was only a formality and the neighbours
were obliging about the discrepancy in the fencing (which was at the
most a matter of less than a foot, if I recall correctly, and mostly
less). Technically, since the fences much predated my occupancy, they
had been there long enough to be recognized as the legal boundary, but
I'm glad I didn't have to get the lawyers involved in that over such a
small discrepancy.

Scotland has been so thoroughly surveyed and mapped for so long
that nobody would ever think a fence or wall had anything to do
with property lines - it's all on a chart in Register House.

I saw a photo in the Te Papa museum in Wellington that made me
think. It was of a fence that had been crossed at right angles
by an active fault. The line of the fence had a jag in it several
yards long where a quake had shifted half the farm relative to
the other half. I'm sure New Zealand lawyers have decided this,
but it isn't obvious to me whether you go by pegs in the ground
or latitude and longitude when deciding where boundaries are.

Everything is surveyed, well, in the city, it is, but people don't
always consult their surveys when erecting fences, and unchallenged
occupation of a bit of land for long enough can be considered a transfer
of ownership under some circumstances. The housing in the older part of
my city can come with really complicated issues. I think most of the
leasehold land has now been converted to freehold - the houses on it
often belonged to poorer people who couldn't afford to pay current rates
to buy it. A lot of the leases were 99 year ones which were about to run
out, and some of the leaseholders were descendants of the originals who
could be very hard and expensive to track down. On the other hand, one
leaseholder had a 999 year lease - some old lawyer's pen must have
slipped. And the people who had informal agreements about the common use
of narrow spaces between houses to access back yards - which then cause
problems for new owners who disagree on it. One family I know had a
house that had been passed down three generations with no surveys or
anything - and a plethora of little agreements about transferring tiny
bits of land among neighbours written up on scraps of paper saying
things like "I give Joe Smith the land up as far as the chicken house"
when the chicken house hasn't been in existence in living memory. The
fence rule is almost minor compared to some of the complexities you can
get into with some older properties.

And when you get into property that was practically worthless not so
long ago, but is now quite valuable because of the expansion of the
city, plus families who for a generation or two have been inheriting
without worrying about wills and formal land transfers, you can really
get into some convoluted disputes. Especially if some connection of the
family is actually living on the land which arguably belongs to someone
else, or the previous owner can be claimed to have been suffering from
dementia or undue influence when verbally contracting to hand over the land.

I'm in favour of having anything like that written down and checked out
by a lawyer, myself, but lots of people don't do that.

--
Cheryl

"jmcquown" wrote in message
...
On 12/26/2014 10:55 AM, dgk wrote:
I was in Florida visiting family and probably bought a house in the
same development as my mother and cousin.The paperwork has to be
completed and the mortgage needs to be done, but I'm not expecting any
big issues. I may retire but perhaps will be able to work out a deal
with my place to continue working from Florida three days a week. I'm
a computer programmer so it doesn't really matter where I am.

I paid a lot of attention to how it would work for the cats. There is
a restriction of 2 pets per household but no one thinks that having
three will be a problem - certainly not unless I let them out. And
eventually I will let them out, somehow, since currently they can go
out into my fenced-in backyard and they like being outside.

My mom's neighbor has two cats and they do go out, but it's in a
pretty isolated part of the development so no one complains. I may
need to have some sort of patio built - without a floor, so they can
have plants to go under and grass to chew (and upchuck). But the
development takes care of most gardening stuff so if I do that then
I'll have to maintain it. I don't like that idea. I'll come up with
something..

Maybe I can let them roam free but I'm a bit worried about my
neighbors getting upset. I'll have to meet them and see how they'd
feel about it. The cats should stay close to home and they do have
tracking collars. I'm also concerned about the hawks of some kind that
patrol the skies over Florida. They're probably too small to attack a
cat but I'd rather not take the chance.

I certainly have to keep them in for a few months until they settle in
and realize that this is now home.

And I need to figure out where the cat litter will go - I have a
Litter Robot so it's pretty clean but there is also some noise when it
rotates. Plus they're used to their hiding places (under my bed or in
the basement) and they'll have to figure out new ones.

Well, I haven't bought it yet and even if I do it will take months to
get everything ready and sell my current house. I know that I'm going
to rent a van and take the things that are valuable or that I really
care about, so that's going to include the cats. It should be quite
the adventure.

Best of luck for it all to go smoothly.

Jill

Regarding neighbors and cats, the problems come when outside-roaming cats
"dump" on neighbors' property.
I don't know how you can keep that from happening, unless they (your cats,
that is) can be 'convinced' to stay in their own yard.
Cats can jump fences, but perhaps setting up a sound that startles them, or
well, I guess not small electric current,....maybe cat repellant at the
boarders of your property, to keep them in? Either the above, or as you
said,'patio built - without a floor' would keep the neighbors friendly.

Just some thoughts, good luck on your coming adventure and new home.

Sylvia

"Cheryl" wrote in message
...
On 2014-12-26 7:12 PM, Jack Campin wrote:
You "probably" bought a house ? Don't you know for certain
If the US is anything like Canada, a house purchase is only really
official after all the final documents are signed [...]
So you buy a house, and still lose it if something goes wrong before
closing. You think you've bought it, but you really haven't.

England is like that too, but Scotland isn't. House sales here are
typically cast-iron final within hours of the offer being made.

This can come as a shock to people moving from England who think
they can back out of the deal.

I must say the agent I dealt with was very good and thorough about
explaining all the legal obligations. I bought the previous place
privately (without an agent) although I hired a lawyer to look over the
contract and take care of the title search and similar duties.

It turned out that he registered the property transfer improperly and
hadn't taken into account the fact that the fences didn't exactly follow
the property line. This caused a little delay when I sold the house, but
fortunately the registration was only a formality and the neighbours were
obliging about the discrepancy in the fencing (which was at the most a
matter of less than a foot, if I recall correctly, and mostly less).
Technically, since the fences much predated my occupancy, they had been
there long enough to be recognized as the legal boundary, but I'm glad I
didn't have to get the lawyers involved in that over such a small
discrepancy.

I'd gotten information on the relevant law when one of the other
neighbours, a developer who caused me a lot of problems, tried to make me
move one of the fences at my own expense. He couldn't do it.

--

I know that problem. My dreadful neighbours and their wall that was well
over into my property. I could make them remove it if I took them to court,
but it will cost a lot in legal fees so I've decided it's not worth it. We
just decide to hate each other instead, which is a real shame.

I caught the woman of the house sweeping her yard and the stuff being swept
into my garden through a hole in the fence. Unfortunately she hadn't
noticed me *right there" to see it. She nearly jumped out of her skin when
I said "you can just sweep that back right into your own garden.." and she
did.
I've never had neighbours like this who try to blackmail me into what they
want by blocking my car in. That didn't work, so then they cut my trees
down, that didn't work either.

I don't know what to do about them. Apart from bomb their house.
Well of course I can't but hey, it's tempting.

On 12/28/2014 2:48 PM, Judith Latham wrote:
In article ,
dgk wrote:
I was in Florida visiting family and probably bought a house in the
same development as my mother and cousin.The paperwork has to be
completed and the mortgage needs to be done, but I'm not expecting any
big issues. I may retire but perhaps will be able to work out a deal
with my place to continue working from Florida three days a week. I'm
a computer programmer so it doesn't really matter where I am.

I paid a lot of attention to how it would work for the cats. There is
a restriction of 2 pets per household but no one thinks that having
three will be a problem - certainly not unless I let them out. And
eventually I will let them out, somehow, since currently they can go
out into my fenced-in backyard and they like being outside.

snipped.....

And I need to figure out where the cat litter will go - I have a
Litter Robot so it's pretty clean but there is also some noise when it
rotates. Plus they're used to their hiding places (under my bed or in
the basement) and they'll have to figure out new ones.

Well, I haven't bought it yet and even if I do it will take months to
get everything ready and sell my current house. I know that I'm going
to rent a van and take the things that are valuable or that I really
care about, so that's going to include the cats. It should be quite
the adventure.

I hope all goes well and all your concerns work out ok. It's always
worrying and stressful buying and selling houses then to move house but
then it's also exciting.

Judith (Who hasn't moved home since 1982.)

I hope it all goes smoothly, too.

I hope never to have to move house again. I suppose my dislike of
moving stems from childhood. My father was a career Marine and until he
retired the longest we ever lived in one place was two years.
Constantly changing schools, leaving my friends, always being dropped
into a new school mid-year... hated it!

I moved apartments a few times as an adult but those were short treks to
another area of town, not long hauls across multiple states. Now I'm in
South Carolina and while it wouldn't be my first choice (we lived in
this area once before when I was 12 years old) I am *not* moving again
unless something forces me to.

Just the thought of packing everything up again, selling this house and
finding a new one (where?) makes me cringe. Not to mention there are so
many homes on the market in this area, it could take *years* to sell the
house.

My house is strictly functional, no bells and whistles like stainless
kitchen appliances and granite countertops like one sees on television
shows. And for some reason my mother had white carpet installed...
well, it was white once upon a time.

The house next door with all the lovely upgrades and hardwood floors was
on the market for at least 5 years. IIRC they wound up dropping the
price by $100,000 USD before it finally sold.

My neighbor (owned by Schwartzie) put her very nice house on the market
almost two years ago. So far no takers.

Jill

"jmcquown" wrote in message ...

Just the thought of packing everything up again, selling this house and
finding a new one (where?) makes me cringe. Not to mention there are so
many homes on the market in this area, it could take *years* to sell the
house.

My house is strictly functional, no bells and whistles like stainless
kitchen appliances and granite countertops like one sees on television
shows. And for some reason my mother had white carpet installed...
well, it was white once upon a time.

The house next door with all the lovely upgrades and hardwood floors was
on the market for at least 5 years. IIRC they wound up dropping the
price by $100,000 USD before it finally sold.

My neighbor (owned by Schwartzie) put her very nice house on the market
almost two years ago. So far no takers.

Jill

~~~~~~~
This makes me realize how fortunate I was when I sold my first house (19
years ago). It sold in two weeks at very close to the asking price. When
my mother moved to Texas to live with me, her house in northeast Ohio sold
in three days. That may sound like it was underpriced, but I don't think it
was. We had three realtors look at the house, and each of their assessments
were nearly the same. Now I am at an age where I really don't need such a
large house, but my concerns are similar to yours. I can hardly bear the
though of house hunting, selling this house, packing everything and moving.
Moreover, this is a very nice house and I live in a nice neighborhood close
to shopping, hospitals, etc. I also have a lot of balance problems, so that
would make moving even more difficult.

MaryL

On 12/28/2014 10:34 PM, MaryL wrote:


"jmcquown" wrote in message ...

Just the thought of packing everything up again, selling this house and
finding a new one (where?) makes me cringe. Not to mention there are so
many homes on the market in this area, it could take *years* to sell the
house.

My house is strictly functional, no bells and whistles like stainless
kitchen appliances and granite countertops like one sees on television
shows. And for some reason my mother had white carpet installed...
well, it was white once upon a time.

The house next door with all the lovely upgrades and hardwood floors was
on the market for at least 5 years. IIRC they wound up dropping the
price by $100,000 USD before it finally sold.

My neighbor (owned by Schwartzie) put her very nice house on the market
almost two years ago. So far no takers.

Jill

~~~~~~~
This makes me realize how fortunate I was when I sold my first house (19
years ago). It sold in two weeks at very close to the asking price.
When my mother moved to Texas to live with me, her house in northeast
Ohio sold in three days. That may sound like it was underpriced, but I
don't think it was. We had three realtors look at the house, and each
of their assessments were nearly the same. Now I am at an age where I
really don't need such a large house, but my concerns are similar to
yours. I can hardly bear the though of house hunting, selling this
house, packing everything and moving. Moreover, this is a very nice
house and I live in a nice neighborhood close to shopping, hospitals,
etc. I also have a lot of balance problems, so that would make moving
even more difficult.

MaryL


I've moved enough. I hate moving, and every time I moved, I hated it
more. I've been here since 1969, in a nice small city, with a hospital,
doctors, and all the services I need. We even have a small theater
where they show a variety of live performances. Our climate is as good
as you find anywhere. When people ask me when I'm going to move I tell
them, "When I'm carried out feet first."

Joy

--
Joy Unlimited
Colorful Crocheted Critters
Photos at http://www.PictureTrail.com/joy9

On 2014-12-29 8:09 AM, Judith Latham wrote:

I have moved home only 4 times. When I was 11 years (1965) we moved a few
streets away when we moved from a council house to one my parents bought,
when I got married at 21 years (1975) we bought a house about 10 miles
away then in 1982 we moved over the road to a detached house. After the
1982 move I vowed then next one would be in my wooden box. It was so
stressful and such hard work. We didn't even have to meet new neighbours
and still it was awful.

I moved a lot when I was in my 20s and 30s, and didn't mind it then - of
course, because I moved so much, I had hardly anything to move! This
time, it was such an effort, because I'd been in the one place for more
than a dozen years and accumulated so much, well, to be honest, junk,
just because I had the space and who knows, I might find a use for it
someday. I told the mortgage person that I was never moving again. She
smiled, and said that she hears that a lot.

One of the many reasons I had for moving now was that I could see the
two-storey arrangement becoming more and more unpleasant to live with as
I aged, and wanted to move before I found it all too hard to handle -
both living in the old place and the move. I was determined to stay in
the same general area, though, because I like it so much. I don't think
I'd ever have gotten up the motivation to move across the country or
down south to a completely new place, as so many people do when they
downsize.

--
Cheryl

On Fri, 26 Dec 2014 11:28:09 -0800, Joy wrote:

On 12/26/2014 9:14 AM, Cheryl wrote:
On 2014-12-26 1:25 PM, Christina Websell wrote:
"dgk" wrote in message
...
I was in Florida visiting family and probably bought a house in the
same development as my mother and cousin.

You "probably" bought a house ? Don't you know for certain?
I would know for definite if I bought a house. I knew I bought the one I
have because it took me 25 years to pay it off. You cannot buy a house
accidentally (unless you are a millionaire and won't notice)




If the US is anything like Canada, a house purchase is only really
official after all the final documents are signed - which of course,
means also after all the financing arrangements are finalized. In my
experience last year, there were several steps after I "bought" the
house - made a more or less binding offer, which was accepted - at any
of which the whole deal could have fallen through. Under some
circumstances I would have lost my deposit, but the contract would also
let me out if further investigation revealed faults with the place or
its legal status, or my financing collapsed. Sometimes sellers put
conditions saying that they can cancel the contract if the offer they
have on their new place falls through.

So you buy a house, and still lose it if something goes wrong before
closing. You think you've bought it, but you really haven't.


Exactly.

Yes, I've signed the contract but the seller hasn't as of yet. That
will happen after the lawyers look it over. Then the closing is in
mid-February. After that it actually is mine.

On Sun, 28 Dec 2014 19:48:58 +0000 (GMT), Judith Latham
wrote:

In article ,
dgk wrote:
I was in Florida visiting family and probably bought a house in the
same development as my mother and cousin.The paperwork has to be
completed and the mortgage needs to be done, but I'm not expecting any
big issues. I may retire but perhaps will be able to work out a deal
with my place to continue working from Florida three days a week. I'm
a computer programmer so it doesn't really matter where I am.

I paid a lot of attention to how it would work for the cats. There is
a restriction of 2 pets per household but no one thinks that having
three will be a problem - certainly not unless I let them out. And
eventually I will let them out, somehow, since currently they can go
out into my fenced-in backyard and they like being outside.

snipped.....

And I need to figure out where the cat litter will go - I have a
Litter Robot so it's pretty clean but there is also some noise when it
rotates. Plus they're used to their hiding places (under my bed or in
the basement) and they'll have to figure out new ones.

Well, I haven't bought it yet and even if I do it will take months to
get everything ready and sell my current house. I know that I'm going
to rent a van and take the things that are valuable or that I really
care about, so that's going to include the cats. It should be quite
the adventure.

I hope all goes well and all your concerns work out ok. It's always
worrying and stressful buying and selling houses then to move house but
then it's also exciting.

Judith (Who hasn't moved home since 1982.)


There really should be a law that everyone has to move every 10 years.
I can't believe how much crap I've accumulated that needs to be
disposed of. And how many papers need to be shredded. Luckily my job
has big bins for shredding. We put the papers in a locked bin with a
slit, and the company has them shredded. But I still have to drag
mounds of documents to work, and I usually commute by bike.

On Sun, 28 Dec 2014 15:23:29 -0500, jmcquown
wrote:

On 12/28/2014 2:48 PM, Judith Latham wrote:


I hope it all goes smoothly, too.

I hope never to have to move house again. I suppose my dislike of
moving stems from childhood. My father was a career Marine and until he
retired the longest we ever lived in one place was two years.
Constantly changing schools, leaving my friends, always being dropped
into a new school mid-year... hated it!

I moved apartments a few times as an adult but those were short treks to
another area of town, not long hauls across multiple states. Now I'm in
South Carolina and while it wouldn't be my first choice (we lived in
this area once before when I was 12 years old) I am *not* moving again
unless something forces me to.

Just the thought of packing everything up again, selling this house and
finding a new one (where?) makes me cringe. Not to mention there are so
many homes on the market in this area, it could take *years* to sell the
house.

My house is strictly functional, no bells and whistles like stainless
kitchen appliances and granite countertops like one sees on television
shows. And for some reason my mother had white carpet installed...
well, it was white once upon a time.

The house next door with all the lovely upgrades and hardwood floors was
on the market for at least 5 years. IIRC they wound up dropping the
price by $100,000 USD before it finally sold.

My neighbor (owned by Schwartzie) put her very nice house on the market
almost two years ago. So far no takers.

Jill

Wow, that is slow sales. I thought most areas were improving - Florida
prices are way up.

I moved several times when I was in school and hated it like you do.
Always making new friends. But I make friends easily - it's keeping
them after they find out the real me that's tough!

The house does have granite countertops in beautiful condition. And
the huge living room has a white carpet so bright that you need
sunglasses to look directly at it. Sooner or later that is going to be
replaced by a wood or laminate floor since a few cat vomits will have
an impact.