Land buying for dummies?

jeepin' jen

jeepin' jen

Slummin' with a sami
Joined
Nov 19, 2007
Location
Salisbury, NC
The time has finally come for @Mulishajoe & I to buy land for our "big girl house. " We're looking at approx. 2 acres in Salisbury. The land is owned by a family friend & is part of a 15 acre tract - the buyer mentioned something about deeding the land to us....but that's jibberish to me.

We are clueless in the area of buying land - so here's where you guys come in! I need direction & some insight on what to expect for fees, hurdles, responsibilities, etc. For example: who pays for the land survey, how much is a survey, do we need a lawyer for paperwork, deed vs buy tax implications???...

Any help would be amazing! ;)
 
I have nothing to add.... But what area? I grew up just off Faith Road....
 
Sounds like they want to give you 2 acres? Call a local surveyor ( to the county or city of said property ), they can answer all of your questions and should be able to give you an estimate of their costs for subdividing the property and putting a house on it, plotplan,permits,access etc.
 
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I am currently buying 14 acres. In my case, I am responsible for all surveying costs and my attorney fees. I believe you will need a full survey done since you are separating your property from a larger piece. The costs for my survey were around $2000. This included the general survey, house and road and well location.

Also on the attorney, You will need to get one to write and file your deed information. My attorney has squared away "right of way" issues and made sure I have no problems in building my house on the piece of property that I wanted.

I hope yours goes better than mine. It has been a nightmare but that was mostly because of a pesky neighbor. Good Luck.
 
Just went through this myself. My parents gave me 2.34 acres.

They can either "gift" you the land, which is limited by a dollar amount (14k), per person, per year. If both parents have their names on the deed, then each can gift 14k to you AND your husband. So, they could actually give you 56k "worth" of land per year. At least, that's how it was explained to me. In my case, the land was worth 40k according to its tax value, so it wasn't worth messing with since I'm single.

The easier route is doing what I did and just have the lawyer draw up the papers to deed you the whole piece at once. That'll leave you needing to do a Gift Tax Return. Everyone will tell you that a lawyer has to do that paperwork as well, but it's not true! A good accountant can do it for about 300 bucks instead of the 4000 - 5000 a lawyer would charge. The important part is making sure the taxes owed at the end is worked out to zero. Also, if you don't do that paper work and the government catches it years and year in the future, they will (of course), make you pay a ridiculous amount of back taxes on it.

From all that I came up with, there WILL be a lawyer involved at some point. Someone has to file the name change on the deed and with the Register of Deeds....I'm not sure if you can do that yourself or not, but I think my lawyer fees were only like 250 bucks. Totally worth it. So, for a grand investment of 550 bucks, I got 2.34 acres of land. :D


Hahahahaha, "big girl house" I'm sure he just looooves you saying that!
 
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Croatan_Kid said:
Just went through this myself. My parents gave me 2.34 acres.

They can either "gift" you the land, which is limited by a dollar amount (14k), per person, per year. If both parents have their names on the deed, then each can gift 14k to you AND your husband. So, they could actually give you 56k "worth" of land per year. At least, that's how it was explained to me. In my case, the land was worth 40k according to its tax value, so it wasn't worth messing with since I'm single.

The easier route is doing what I did and just have the lawyer draw up the papers to deed you the whole piece at once. That'll leave you needing to do a Gift Tax Return. Everyone will tell you that a lawyer has to do that paperwork as well, but it's not true! A good accountant can do it for about 300 bucks instead of the 4000 - 5000 a lawyer would charge. The important part is making sure the taxes owed at the end is worked out to zero. Also, if you don't do that paper work and the government catches it years and year in the future, they will (of course), make you pay a ridiculous amount of back taxes on it.

From all that I came up with, there WILL be a lawyer involved at some point. Someone has to file the name change on the deed and with the Register of Deeds....I'm not sure if you can do that yourself or not, but I think my lawyer fees were only like 250 bucks. Totally worth it. So, for a grand investment of 550 bucks, I got 2.34 acres of land. :D


Hahahahaha, "big girl house" I'm sure he just looooves you saying that!
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lawyer shouldnt be anywhere near $4k I wouldnt think.
Parents can sell you the land for $1 and there are no tax implications UNTIL you sell the house. But it will be your primary residence stay there 24 months and it doesnt matter anyway.

Zoning may be your hurdle. Depending on location it may be zoned AGC or otherwise require a minimum acreage to build on (I'm fighting a property right now that is 9.34 acres and the county wants AGC-5 meaning 5 acres per house so I cant build a second on it)

Next hurdles..is it in the country or city.
If the country you will be required to get a perk test to esnure a septic system can be installed, if city you will have to check into water and sewer taps.

Right of ways are of course important, make sure you have access.

As crazy as this sounds, treat this as if you do not know your parents. Crazy crap happens. An accident, a lawsuit, they lose the property and now the no big deal is a major deal.


BTW Congrats!!
 
I didn't think so either, but apparently they make a KILLING on doing gift tax returns. I don't know what's so special about the paper work...

I sorta got lucky. I already have county water, a working (and approved) septic system, and no "house" on the land. Just a crappy single wide. My particular transaction didn't require a survey either since it was a complete plot of land and not split from the original amount.


Forgot to mention. My land was originally bought in a 5 acre plot. My grandma split it for my parents in 1993 and at the end of last year, they gave it to me. She still lives next door too. So it's basically the same deal @jeepin' jen is trying to do. Back when my grandparents and parents split the land and re-deeded, you just needed to survey off the parcel you wanted, deed it up, and that was pretty much all there was to it. Things have gotten a little more complicated since then.
 
jeepin' jen said:
The time has finally come for @Mulishajoe & I to buy land for our "big girl house. " We're looking at approx. 2 acres in Salisbury. The land is owned by a family friend & is part of a 15 acre tract - the buyer mentioned something about deeding the land to us....but that's jibberish to me.

We are clueless in the area of buying land - so here's where you guys come in! I need direction & some insight on what to expect for fees, hurdles, responsibilities, etc. For example: who pays for the land survey, how much is a survey, do we need a lawyer for paperwork, deed vs buy tax implications???...

Any help would be amazing! ;)
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jeepin' jen said:
Thanks for the responses - I'll start making calls this week! Hopefully the pesky neighbors won't be a problem since they're my parents!
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So are you buying 2 acres of land from a family friend, or are you parents buying the whole 15 acres and then giving/selling you 2 of the 15 acres?

Duane
 
CLRracer said:
So are you buying 2 acres of land from a family friend, or are you parents buying the whole 15 acres and then giving/selling you 2 of the 15 acres?

Duane
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Sorry for the confusion! We are buying 2 acres from a family friend. My parents will be our neighbors (they purchased from the same friend 15+ years ago).
 
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