Does your specific area have minimum lot sizes and dimensions? If so, what are they? What are their setback requirements? Is there a maximum lot coverage (by buildings and/or impervious surfaces)?
Would selling that strip to your neighbor make your lot less than that area or than those dimensions, if such restrictions exist?
Would selling that strip prevent you from yourself building anything you’re likely to want to build in the future? (This might be an issue even if your area has no land use regulations.)
Don’t assume your real estate agent knows what they’re talking about. A few years ago when I needed to sell a property I interviewed two RE agents before deciding who to choose. They both gave estimates of what they thought the place would fetch and what they would recommend as an opening price. The numbers from one were over $250,000 more than the other.
We went with the agent who gave the higher estimate, and she turned out be correct in her estimate of what the place would sell for. We sold rather quickly at very near the initial asking price.
To this day I marvel at how clueless the other agent was, and I wonder what financial losses she might have caused to any sellers who selected her and took her (obviously terrible) advice.
Moral of the story: Not all RE agents are geniuses. Don’t believe what one person has to say, talk to several and see if they say different things.
This. Plus you currently have a nice buffer (with trees!) between you and the neighbor, who could always sell a year or five from now—and you might possibly get a new neighbor with a teenager who plays drums in the garage.
If it were me, I would likely not go forward with this.
Totally outside my area of knowledge but wondering how stupid this idea is …
Could they not change ownership but create instead a long term lease of that portion of property? Neighbor can use the property and if lease is dissolved, say if Hey Homie sells, has to be recompensed for some depreciated value of the garage that he has paid to be built?
Twenty years ago we discovered that our driveway cut through a section of our neighbors property. We ended up paying an amount many, many times the per acre value of land. E.g. the lots were 1.5 to 2 acres. And the land value was assessed at 150k-200k. So $2.25 a square foot. Mostly because 90+% of the lots are not buildable for hydrological reasons.
We ended up paying almost $15,000 (including survey and legal fees) for a 150 square foot easement. Because we couldn’t sell our house without the easement.
OP, you build the garage on your property, then lease it to the neighbor for his use. You retain control over your land and the building usage, so if something doesn’t work out, you’ve still got the final word on what happens.
I would no how, no way carve off a piece of my property and sell it to my neighbor, no matter how much I liked them. Such a scheme is often a can of worms best left unopened. By the time you trawl through the lot line issues, sub-standard non-buildable lot issues, loss of control over property you’ve always owned, compliance with county regulations (and there may be many!), potential easement concerns… all to save a little bit of mowing? No, thanks.
Something similar happened with my parents. A builder had bought three lots side by side, but due to a surveying error, he built a house on lot #1 that encroached onto lot #2 by 6 feet. He was sure he could get a variance to build on the narrower lot, but the city wouldn’t grant it. Meanwhile, my parents had bought lot #3 and my father was in no mood to take lot #2 off the builder’s hands.The builder ended up turning lot #2 over to the city and my family and the family in house #1 ended up taking care of lot #2 to keep it from becoming a weed-infested dumping ground.
I think this statement alone means you should walk away. It sounds like he wants you to do all the work, which is significant, and take on all the costs, which are significant, in order to make the sale. I’m getting the impression that he is not cognizant of how much money and effort it will take to get the lot line moved. Not surprising, as I’m sure we’ve all learned a lot about what might be required from this thread that we didn’t know before. I get the sense that in his mind, all he has to do is give you $5k and then he can start pouring the foundation the next day.
Yes, twenty years ago, the surveying and legal costs of setting up our easement was almost $5000. While this sounds like a lot lower cost of living area, it’s still going to be serious money to do this right.
And yes, a lot of the cost was to make sure neither lots became non-conforming as a result. If fact that is why we had an easement, not a sale. The lot line was really crooked because it needed to cut right in front of our house to give the neighbors lot the required 100’ of road frontage. The developer of the subdivision probably knew that he was putting our driveway on the neighbors’ land, but that was the only way he could put four houses at the end of the cut-de-sac. And indeed why the street was such a weird shape (basically a comma shape for no apparent reason).
This is just an example of the kinds of things you can run into. Even if you keep the land and build a garage that they lease from you, you’re complicating the title on both the lots. Potential buyers hate these kinds of entanglements. How do you even negotiate a rent for a building that has a captive landlord and tenant, once one of the houses changes owners.
Suppose the minimum lot width is 100 feet and @HeyHomie has exactly 200 feet width. Then you’re right; as it stands HeyHomie has a subdividable lot but without that 35 feet they don’t, and that’s a big difference.
But suppose that HeyHomie has 240 feet width; or that the legal minimum is 75 feet. In either case, transferring 35 feet to the neighbor won’t make that sort of difference.
Or suppose that HeyHomie has that 200 feet, but the legal minimum is now 150, possibly having been changed or instituted after some narrower lots were created. In that cse, HeyHomie doesn’t have a aubdividable lot whether they sell the neighbor 35 feet or they don’t.
You really have to know both the actual dimensions and the codes. You can’t tell from a picture which shows neither.
I once had a remarkably similar circumstance. In a cul de sac.
I had not tumbled to the idea you suggest, that the 10 foot error in placement of driveways versus lot lines was a way to squeeze an extra lot’s minimum frontage in there, but now in hindsight 20 years later … you nailed it.
One other thing that made me think it could be a double lot is that there’s a missing address between the two houses. His is 59 and his neighbor is 63. I’m assuming his lot is 59 and 61 combined.
Consider a long-term lease. They get to rent a chunk of your land for a suitably long term, say 20 years, with option of renewal, and provision for cancelling if you sell or die etc.
The legal fees will be waaay less than a subdivision (remember this results in two new property registrations with their associated costs). It can be defined by a fence or markers that you hammer into the ground and agree on. You might get some rent annually, but it will be much more clsoely aligned with the pro-rata square footage cost of renting land, and at the end of the lease either the garage is removed at their cost or you keep it and pay them for the joy of getting to keep it.
Probably more paperwork, but this is a different kind of legal magic that does not change the status of land ownership, which means massive savings. If you ver want to sell out, then you get to sell your entire lot (which can be encumbered by the lease or not - its whatever you two agree).
Given the low economic stakes and low overall land value, this is probably better and more proportionate to the overall costs. But absolutely do not do it as a handshake deal. Get a contract written up and markers hammered into the ground and measured in. Good neighbours can turn into dicks, people can forget, fences can fall down.
This might work if the garage can fit on the OP’s property without straddling or getting too close to the property line.
Failing that, no municipality is going to issue a building permit to any structure (including a garage) that straddles or gets too close to a property line, even if there is a lease involved. This violates setback rules.
The outbuilding is a HUGE red flag. Many posts have already mentioned the word “setback”.
It is usually illegal to have any structure touching a propertly line–there is usually a required setback distance. Even if it is only an outbuilding, such as a shed. You may find out that your shed is now illegal, and you can’t sell the property until you demolish it.
What happens if in the future you (or a future buyer) want to improve that shed? Make it a workshop, add a water line to it, install a toilet, etc.
Do not rely on any real estate agent. They are just like used-car salesmen, looking for a quick sale and a 6% commission.
You need to meet with, and pay for , two half-hour meetings, and ask for professional advice. Meet with both a licensed land surveyor AND a real estate lawyer-- both of whom are experienced with the regulations in your county.