Closing costs when paying cash

[Texas Proud]

Just because a house is on a huge lot in a settled neighborhood doesn't mean everything is fine.

For example, what if you had an easement running through your property? I have a 390ft deep lot - but a sewer easement cuts across it in half. So if I ever wanted to build a retaining wall or pool or a new house, if I built close to that easement I'm running the risk (albeit, a small one) of the sewer company someday possibly coming through to replace the sewer, and digging up whatever is within that 10ft wide easement.

Or, if your neighbor happened to have hedges growing into your yard, they could be 10 ft into the lot. Even if you have a 200 ft wide lot, don't you want to know where your legal property begins and ends?

I'd never buy something that costs several hundred thousands of dollars without a survey costing a few hundred dollars, since it's almost as important as title insurance, IMO. Sure, if you had a 10 acre parcel, then it might not be as important to know precisely if your lot is 700ft wide or 705 ft wide....but still, if for nothing else, liability exposure would be nice to know where your legal property boundary begins and where your neighbor's (or public street's) ends.

That is true.... my BIL was doing some work for a lady in the neighborhood... and did some surveying and told the lady the neighbor's fence was on her property by a good margin... when the real survey was done it was 10 feet onto her property.... the funny thing is that it looked like it was the neighbor's property from the street.... probably the fence builders just put it up where it looked right...

She had neighbor move their fence....

 

[pb4uski]

In the area where we had our last home surveys were not common. We had a fenced in pool area that was part of the property as described to us by the real estate agent as part of the property.

There was an adjacent farm and one of the farmer's children had built a house on a corner of the farm. The owner later decided to sell the home so had to subdivide the property and had a survey done. As it turned out, a portion of of the pool area was on the neighbor's land!

Fortunately, the driveway to their house also crossed our property and the topography of the land made it difficult to relocate the driveway on their property.

The end result was that they deeded to me ~1/8th acre that solved the pool area fence issue and in exchange we granted them an easement for the driveway.

 

[Ronstar]

I can't see why anyone would forego a survey when buying something worth hundreds of thousands. Having been in the surveying business for 40 years, I have seen instances where people have paid through their noses to fix problems that could have been avoided if they would have had a survey done. Closing costs for cash sales that I've been involved with included title fees, deed recording fees, prorated real estate taxes, attorney fees, realtor fees, and survey.


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[Texas Proud]

I can't see why anyone would forego a survey when buying something worth hundreds of thousands. Having been in the surveying business for 40 years, I have seen instances where people have paid through their noses to fix problems that could have been avoided if they would have had a survey done. Closing costs for cash sales that I've been involved with included title fees, deed recording fees, prorated real estate taxes, attorney fees, realtor fees, and survey.


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I agree... I would want a survey for any property I bought... Like you I could not think of any good reason not to spend the small amount of money for one...