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Reckon this chapter in my life may end up being called "the tree"...
...first time home buyers that have steered clear of most issues, and looking to plant some roots, that includes a sizable tree. The wife has a connection with tree's and who can blame her. All her houses have had a massive tree of some description near the house... naturally she wants to replicate it in our new home.
We found the perfect location for our perfect little house; a round house from Deltec on the headland of a ridge with almost 100% true 360 degree view. The lot makes up the capping end of the ridge hill, and it should have an amazing potential in the future. My "field of dreams" has a slope to it, but I reckon I can get over that... it's 25.1 acres of happiness.
Enter "the covenants"... there are no trees on this subdivision, and to protect the fantastic views the road has has, there are covenants about "no trees above 8 feet when fully grown". Fair enough. Now, we understand the will to protect the view (we want the view too), but 8 feet is barely the future leviathan that my wife needs to make this house her home and I'm unsure as to how to approach it.
It is in the covenants that we can put trees down the hill at the far side of the lot, but we're certain that we could keep everyone happy by planting the lone 30 foot tree 20 feet down the hill with the promise that the house will be the highest thing in the lot. We also have the intent of only having one story visible to the other neighbors as opposed to the typical two for the area. And could probably even agree to keeping a garage in-line with the house or next to it on the side of the hill to place no further burden to the neighbor's views... just that we want that nicely large tree near-ish the house.
Can covenants be wiggled pre-sale?... should we just move in, do reasonable things, making obvious consessions and see what happens?... the covenants say that things can change with 75% agreement of neighbors in the subdivision (there's 4 houses there already), would we have to chase these people down or just put pressure on the seller to do this?...
A scuttlebutt says that he hasn't been able to move this land due to its size/price for the area and is actually considering cutting it up again for a trailer park. So part of me thinks that if we put in an offer that he may organise the change/concession. The wife wants to go to the neighbors and say "it's either a single lovely tree or a trailerpark"
...don't know what the norm is, or how to push it along.
I think your wife's idea-- "tree or trailerpark"-- makes a lot of sense.
And I'm with her. The idea of a place that doesn't allow trees is bizarre and abhorrent to me. The only listings I look at as a buyer are ones where I don't see a clean roof line because of trees.
The funny thing is, I Googled "Deltec" to see what the heck it was that it didn't allow trees and saw it's "The Original Green Builder"-- HA! A "green" builder whose subdivision doesn't believe in TREES? Mind boggling.
I think your wife's idea-- "tree or trailerpark"-- makes a lot of sense.
And I'm with her. The idea of a place that doesn't allow trees is bizarre and abhorrent to me. The only listings I look at as a buyer are ones where I don't see a clean roof line because of trees.
The funny thing is, I Googled "Deltec" to see what the heck it was that it didn't allow trees and saw it's "The Original Green Builder"-- HA! A "green" builder whose subdivision doesn't believe in TREES? Mind boggling.
Deltec isn't the subdivision developer... they make the house we want to build on the lot. The subdivision developer is separate and unrelated. It may be a separate conversation, but the covenants just say it needs to be non pre-fab, non modular, etc. Deltec is in panels, but they say they're willing to go into bat for us with regards building technique and custom house value if it becomes an issue
The developer is the one that creates the CC&R's. You could make an offer contingent on the CC&R's being revised by him to allow for trees on your lot. Depending on how many lots he has, he may have controlling interest in the development.
I would certainly get the convenent amended before buying a treeless property. 3 out of 4 should be easy to convience when confronted with the possiblity of a trailer park! How many lots in the subdivision.....if more get sold, your chance go down. How many of those 4 might be impacted by your tree? See what you can do to sweeten the disposition of those most affected.
There's 10 lots, 5 lots are occupied (to amend the 4 previously stated), the lot we're looking at is 3x the price of the other lots (more than 5x the area of the others). 5 lots still to move.
"make an offer contingent on the CC&R's being revised" does sound like fun. But we're understanding of the reason for the covenant... we do only need the CC&R to be revised for one bigass tree
Quote:
Originally Posted by MMichelle
Silverfall gives good advise.
What ever you do - take the CC&Rs seriously -- you must assume they mean what they say.
for sure. we do realise that the covenants are there to protect the value of our house also (assuming we make it there).
Took the advice, and in chats with the realtor, she was all fine with making an offer conditional on the covenant change. And apparently the developer is looking at a covenant change for one of the existing owners, so he seems like he's all up for a tree allowance change. Just need to figure out if I want to give these jokers money or not :P
One other thought? Unless you're hiring a crane and paying A LOT of money, there won't be a big ass tree for many, many, many years. It will be a little ass tree doing its best to grow for a while first. In your negotiations, you might mention this to whomever-- a lot of the current owners may be long gone (or perhaps even buried) before the tree reaches the scale your wife is hoping for.
One other thought? Unless you're hiring a crane and paying A LOT of money, there won't be a big ass tree for many, many, many years. It will be a little ass tree doing its best to grow for a while first. In your negotiations, you might mention this to whomever-- a lot of the current owners may be long gone (or perhaps even buried) before the tree reaches the scale your wife is hoping for.
GOOD LUCK!
yup, for sure. Our plan is for a fast-growing tree that'll do 6-8 feet a year starting at 8 feet... so it's certainly some years away. But the covenants say no taller than 8 feet, so it's essentially against the covenants in the first yet. Either way, it's be horrid if it got to a certain height and things go messy with whoever.
I'd rather learn how to annoy our neighbors in other creative ways than the tree... I fly RC model planes for a start
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