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A Few Things To Know About Buying Rural Land

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If you're tired of cramped city life and dream of moving to the country, you have the perfect chance to buy vacant land for sale and build a custom house. Your search for a quieter life can be focused mainly on the land, and plans for the house can come later. However, buying undeveloped rural land is a little different than buying a vacant lot in a subdivision. Here are some things you want to think about.

Have The Land Surveyed

A survey is important because it visually defines the borders of the property with markers. You may view a plat of the land, which is a depiction of the plot on a map, but often the borders don't match up exactly with the real land. If there is a fence, creek, woods, or road near the border, you'll want to know for sure if it is on the property for sale or if it belongs to a neighbor or the state.

Another important reason to have a recent survey done is to determine the risk of flooding on the property. The survey determines the elevation of the plot of land, which makes it easy to determine if it will flood when there are heavy rains.

Check For Road Access

One problem you could run into with rural land is access to the property. If you buy a plot that is landlocked by neighboring owners or state-owned land, then there is a risk you could be blocked from your land if you don't have a legal easement. If the property has a current easement, which grants the right to drive over a neighbor's property to get to the land, make sure it is transferable. If there is no easement in place, don't rely on a friendly agreement with your neighbor to get one. Instead, you'll need to work with your real estate agent and attorney to draw up a legal agreement that grants you a transferable easement that allows you to cross neighboring lands to bring in utilities and put in a road.

Learn About The Land Rights

Before you fall in love with a beautiful plot of land and start building your new home in your imagination, it's best to do some research on the rights that will be granted along with the land. For instance, you want the right to put in a well so you won't have to haul in all your water. However, if the property is in a watershed area, you may not be allowed to drill a well or access water from a stream that flows through the property. You may need to block your animals from using the water too. You'll also need to put in a septic system, so make sure you'll be able to get permission from the county to do so on that particular piece of land.

If you're buying a large piece of land that has part of a woods or forest on it, you'll want to know about the timber rights. The last thing you want to learn is that a timber company has the legal right to remove trees from your land in upcoming years. The same applies to mineral rights. If someone else holds mineral rights to your land, they could potentially come in and dig up your land as if they owned the land itself.

Other things you'll want to know about are zoning laws and future development for the region. You don't want to buy a peaceful country paradise only to have it disrupted by a new superhighway or mega shopping center in a few years. Also, make sure there are no liens on the property or easements granted to neighbors you can't live with. Since there are so many important things that come into play when you buy rural land for your dream home, it's a good idea to have a real estate professional guide you through the process rather than pay cash to a private seller. There are situations you probably wouldn't even consider that could potentially cause you to lose access to your home and financial investment if you aren't knowledgeable about rural real estate transactions.


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