is home insurance required to have when buying a house in baltimore city? (North Beach: lease)

[thealfa]

I missed out on a $5K house in a shady part of town. Had I bought it, I would use it to experiment with fixing it (this is usually how you learn, by actually doing the work).

Back to the subject:

I notice a lot of houses that looked like it got burned or the door or windows got busted and replaced with wood (it looks boarded up but people live in them). I'm guessing these homeowners are either poor or just don't have home insurance to pay for the replacement of a busted door or windows. Is it mandatory to have home insurance in Baltimore city or is this optional? This is just a question. I know it's always wise to have insurance.

[MrRational]

Originally Posted by thealfa

Is it mandatory to have home insurance in Baltimore city or is this optional?
This is just a question. I know it's always wise to have insurance.

The only party that requires you to have insurance (anywhere) would be a lender.
If your equity is low enough they'll also insist on the escrow payment to assure it.

The common law assumption is that only a fool won't take reasonable care to protect
themselves from possible risks like FIRE. But (afaik) not even your next door, common wall
neighbor can FORCE you to have insurance.

[SunnyTXsmile]

Originally Posted by MrRational

The only party that requires you to have insurance (anywhere) would be a lender.
If your equity is low enough they'll also insist on the escrow payment to assure it.

The common law assumption is that only a fool won't take reasonable care to protect
themselves from possible risks like FIRE. But (afaik) not even your next door, common wall
neighbor can FORCE you to have insurance.

You saved me from having to type it. This. ^^^

[North Beach Person]

The only time you wouldn't have to have property insurance is if you did an all cash deal with no secured loan on the property.

Some people will drop their homeowner's insurance when they pay off their mortgage. I know quite a few people who drop their flood insurance (see where I live) and regret it the next time a tropical storm hits.

[SunnyTXsmile]

Originally Posted by North Beach Person

The only time you wouldn't have to have property insurance is if you did an all cash deal with no secured loan on the property.

Some people will drop their homeowner's insurance when they pay off their mortgage. I know quite a few people who drop their flood insurance (see where I live) and regret it the next time a tropical storm hits.

Do they really? For a house anywhere on the Chesapeake, that's the one type of insurance I absolutely wouldn't drop (and I'm not even a fan of insurance lol).

[North Beach Person]

Originally Posted by SunnyTXsmile

Do they really? For a house anywhere on the Chesapeake, that's the one type of insurance I absolutely wouldn't drop (and I'm not even a fan of insurance lol).

Yep. One guy I've mentioned before on here (other Forums) was flooded out at least 4 times between 1988 and 2003. He'd cancelled his insurance because at $550/year it was too expensive. He was right on the Bay at an elevation above mean high tide of about 2 ft. Each event (and the 4 times were tropical storms, not the random nuisance flooding from higher than normal tides) it cost him $50K-$100K. After Isabel in 2003 he had the opportunity to get a grant to raise his house and he farted around deciding until the time ran out. He then decided to raise the house and asked me to help him get the grant. There was no way to do it so he's stayed mad at me. He did raise it for $80K.

[davecj]

You need it to register your property for a lead paint test if you're going to lease it. That said, there are still homes for $5000 and less around town.

[misterlou]

Owning an abandoned house can expose you to all sorts of liabilities. It's not something to enter into without very serious consideration of possible downsides that involve City regulations and code enforcement, nuisance laws, premises liability, and your safety while working on the building. If you feel like it's something you positively have to do then you should consider forming a business entity (Inc or LLC) and then having the entity buy the property.

The reason why there are so many empty buildings in Baltimore is that they actually have negative value. They aren't useable, would cost more than they're worth to fix, and there's no market for housing in much of the city. The cost of tearing down and hauling away what's there is greater than the potential value of the empty lot. And so the decay perpetuates itself.

There's no sign of the free market wanting to restore Baltimore's abandos. I can foresee a day when the City gets tough on owners of abandoned housing and tries to force them to make improvements or pay serious penalties. That's where having some liability shield would be super handy.

Good luck out there. Be safe.

[remstone]

Originally Posted by misterlou

Owning an abandoned house can expose you to all sorts of liabilities ...

Dude, how many old and quiet threads are you going to re-open with your non sequiturs just to moan about your bad year in Baltimore? It didn't work for you, waaah, we get it already.

And then here, even when you're kinda right (lots of buildings are worth negative money, duh) you're wrong that the city could ever "get tough" on owners. In Rem vs In Personam for a vacant building. The city could take tons of buildings through the courts if they wanted to. And they did for a while with Project 5000, and most of them stayed as worthless as they were before. Meanwhile they are pretty tough these days with code enforcement in the neighborhoods that are salvageable.

I hope you won't have six messages of this a day going forward.