We are well into the "due diligence" part of the pre-closing stuff on our 5-acre lot. In case anyone else is considering buying land, here is a cut/paste from the purchase contract boilerplate that our real estate agent uses:
Quote:
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Conduct at Buyer's sole expense whatever due diligence, inspections, examinations, surveys and testing, if any, Buyer deems appropriate to evaluate the suitability of Property for Buyers intended use, including, but not limited to, zoning, governmental regulations, environmental concerns, availability of utilities and whether the soil on Property will support a septic system of a size and type of desired Buyer (hereinafter collectively referred to as "Buyer's Due Diligence").
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In our case, the seller provided a recent survey and approved state septic permit for an over-sized system. The zoning is good, there are no building moratoriums, and there is even a partial driveway cut in. There's municipal water and gigabit fiber at the curb, and the lot has never been denied a building permit. (All verified before we made our offer.) The paperwork for a grading/clearing permit is simple, as long as the disturbed area is less than one acre. All (but the water/fiber being in the ground) are benefits of buying in a rural, unincorporated part of the county.
The last piece of the utility puzzle that I didn't know was who the electric company is. Believe it or not, there are four different power companies operating in that zip code! Last night, I went through all four companies' online outage maps after some severe thunderstorms apparently rolled through and knocked out power. The power was out on the entire street on one company's outage site, so I figured that they were the one. Called and spoke with one of their line engineers this morning, and he actually had to pull their circuit maps to check because the different companies criss-cross in that area. Long story short, they can provide a 200A service and are fine with an underground handoff at the curb if we are trenching for other utilities.
With any kind of luck, we'll be closing in four weeks or so.....