I have a house in the city of Buffalo. A nice corner lot with some land and large house. About a year ago my neighbors house started on fire. The house was a dump so after the fire he no longer lived there or had any intention of fixing it up.
Moving forward another year they finally tore the thing down. Leaving me with the opportunity to grab this lot and make my yard even larger.
I have been in touch with the owners son and he seems pretty interested in getting rid of this property. My question is how do I go about getting this piece of land?
Is there anything special I need to do since there once was a house on it and now there is not? Obviously when you pay taxes you pay for having a house on it how do i determine what the taxes will be for year?
I do plan on calling the city of buffalo but I was just looking to see if anyone has gone threw this or could help lead me in the right direction.
Knowing Buffalo I’m sure there is some retarded process for getting it reassessed as just a lot instead of a house. No way they’ll want to give up that extra property tax without making it difficult for you.
well, the kicker is you need to have everything re-surveyed to make it into one lot, or keep two separate lots and have the one reassessed ASAP or you’ll get raped for taxes. town hall will be able to answers you seek. double edged sword depending which way you go.
I got a hold of the assessment office and the land will get reassessed once the demolition company sends some paper work over to the city stating they are complete with removing the house. After that the city will reassess the taxes and make the adjustments. That’s good news on my part since its less work for me. The demo crew should be done within the next few days so hopefully it moves along.
Now I just need to get a hold of the taxation dept to see what he owed on taxes.
i have a double lot in the city, and your best bet is to get a real estate lawyer when you’re ready to purchase, and have him draw up all the paper work for it. that way you can decide if it’s beneficial to have two seperate lots or have your property surveryed into one large lot.
regardless, you will have to pay fees/taxes for it similar to closing on a home, and you’ll have yearly taxes for the new lot.
My parents did this with their home, the lot next to us had a trailor on it. They bought it for rental property but all tenants became douche bags. We ended up dozing it and now its just extra land for the house.
FYI they kept it 2 different properties (house & lot) because the taxes for 1 was far more than when seperated.
I have looked into this a little more and I have a few options. Taxes on an empty lot seem to be just shy of $50 for the year in this area. So thats is what I am hoping for once they reassess it.
If that is the case I do plan on buying it and could have 2 seperate pieces of property OR I could purchase the lot then have my land re surveyed at no cost to me and have one large lot. But it may very well be in my favor to have 2 lots.
At this point I am wating for the demo crew to be done and notify the city so they can reassess the land without a house on it and adjust the taxes.
tell him to not pay the taxes on it and just give it back to the city.When it goes up for tax auction you will be able to grab it cheap as it serves no one any purpose except the people who own land next to it
He already owes a year of back taxes on it which isn’t much, I mean were talking under $400. He was considering getting rid of it for the back taxes on it since he wants nothing to do with it.
I’m giving him some time to think of a number he is interested in getting since he has no clue what he wants for the property then ill go from there. The city’s assessed value of the land is only $1300 so i do not plan on paying more then that.
My guess is if you roll the property into the land your house in on that would bump your assessment more than $50. Probably best to just keep it as two properties.
HaHa I didn’t burn the house down. The place was a shit hole. It was only a matter of time. I was lucky enough where his house didn’t set mine on fire considering his house was only a few feet away.
man i wish this would happen to me… good luck, sounds awesome. I’ve seen this happen a lot in my area (kenmore) anytime a house burns down the neighbor grabs it for the land… kenmore 100 years from now might be more spacious than the less city-like burbs (amherst/willyville/tonawanda etc)
Here is the lot I am looking to purchase My house is the tan one on the right. I also have roughly the same size lot on the far right of my house. My dad snapped some pics when he came over last weekend. These are the only ones I have since I cant get home from work before the sun goes down.
They have put down a nice layer of new soil and is pretty level considering its winter. Ill try and get more pictures if I get home early enough.
