READ THE FINE PRINT

Recently in a deal I did, I found a plat note that indicated an off-site improvement fee (to the tune of $1,640) would be due to the City of Montrose upon sale or transfer or the lot or home on the lot. 

The title company didn’t bring this to my attention, actually I had to request a cleaner copy of the Plat from them in order to read the note. 

I luckily (based on intuition) had called the city to see if they had any SIDs or STDs (Special Improvement Districts or Special Taxing Districts).  The Planning office called back and quoted the Plat Note that I didn’t have a legible copy of yet.  That is how I caught it.

Fortunately for my Buyer, there was a buyer prior to him from the original subdivision that technically owed the fee, so it will come out of the Sellers side of the transaction at closing.

The moral of the story is especially in today’s less than ideal economy and with newer subdivisions on the edges of town, be sure to do thorough due diligence and…

Read the Fine Print on the subdivision plat and the covenants for the neighborhood.

Tags: City of Montrose, Fine Print, Neighborhood Covenants, off-site improvement fee, Plats, Real Estate Contracts, Real Estate Law, SID, STD

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 12:02 am and is filed under Covenants, Title Search. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.