Just an opinion, but if you are a homeowner without fire protection, and you call the fire department for them to put out a fire at your house, you agreed to the fee.
Owners aren’t always the ones to call in a fire. Neighbors often do. But basically, the FD has to accept that they won’t get paid in some/many of these cases.
If a neighbor calls in the fire, they need only provide fire suppression to prevent the spread of the fire. If they attempt to save the house at the owner’s request, they should be able to lien the property.
I don’t accept that FD or the legit taxpayers who fund them have to suck up scumbag freeriders. That is to say, they should “accept” that they won’t get paid, to the same degree that the homeowners should “accept” that their house is going to burn down because they aren’t entitled to firefighting services except to the minimal extent required to prevent the spread of such fire to the property of others.
You can place liens all you want, but if a family is living in a rural area in an old mobile home on a rented pad, and that mobile home burns down, chances are that family isn’t going to have $3,500 to pay that lien. I’ll wager that family will NEVER have $3,500 to pay off the lien.
The report I cited says county-wide fire protection would cost $554,000 and cover 13,182 households.
That’s $42 per home – and that seems to be too much for the taxpayers to swallow.
They had that system, after dealing with freeloading homeowners. Now they’re going back to that system that enables freeloading homeowners due (I’m guessing) to public pressure. They’re not going to collect on all those calls – it didn’t work before and it’s not going to work now. But they may be willing to accept that.
>>How much is the insurance going to cost if you don’t have fire protection? <<
The protection service marketing materials mentions that some insurers provide a discount subscribing to fire protection but no specifics beyond that and I’m too lazy to investigate further.
My home insurance policy is with State Farm. I’d assume (yeah, big risk there) that if the home insurance company required fire protection they would demand and verify just like mortgage companies. On the other hand, it would be profitable for them to take all those insurance premiums and then not pay when the house burns down.
>>And, if you’re around when the house burns and are on record as telling the firefighters to not bother, I’m pretty sure your insurance company will have other issues with you.<<
I understand that if I drop a match on the floor, I have a (moral, probably legal) responsibility to not let it burn the house down. And I am willing to negotiate, on-site, during the fire, with the first responders. But that could take a few hours…especially when I’m pondering whether to do spring cleaning or just let it burn.
But why should I have to buy double protection…paying firefighters and paying the insurance company? If I authorize fire service on-site (during a fire) will the insurance company reimburse the cost of fire service? Not arguing with you, just trying to flesh out all the angles to this thing.
>> Although, realistically, our house would be destroyed in a fire (distance plus lack of hydrants<<
A good and relevant point. If I live far from a firehouse or fire hydrant, that should certainly be a factor.
BTW, for the record, I’m cool with socialized fire protection for some of the same reasons that I also prefer UHC…for example, avoiding all this analysis.
I believe that the coverage of the most recent newsworthy fire in Obion County indicated that insurance was required in order to get service from South Fulton.
I believe it’s the other way around. Insurance companies won’t write a policy unless you’ve contracted for the service, if it’s available.
So in the US, if you live outside of an incorporated town, do you pay less tax? It’s quite hard for this Brit to get his head round, because in England, fire, police, rubbish collection etc is paid for out of council tax, which you pay to a local authority that covers the whole district, regardless of whether you’re in a town or out in the boonies.
(“Boonies” is relative in a country as densely populated as the UK, of course.)
With the caveat that things are different from state to state or even county to county, yes, you typically pass less in taxes versus incorporated towns in the same county.
Towns will often have a small property tax as well as some sales taxes.
In this particular case, the county’s administrators and residents favor the optional fee, rather than a tax. It’s not an unpopular stance in that part of Tennessee. Of course, people in other states may feel differently. I personally think it’s an asinine policy, but I don’t live there.
Generally, incorporated towns have higher taxes, and provide more services. The outlying areas may or may not have garbage service, town water, and sewer. Police services are almost always provided via the County Sheriff, if the town does not have its own police force. Fire is a bit sketchier, but this pay-for-service model is fairly unusual, I think most places across the country have governmental or a volunteer fire service, and don’t require residents to sign up.
in the USA (this will very on date of settlement and original colony [western areas or who settled it might differ]) you have cities and villages which are incorporated. there might be unincorporated population clusters that might be called a town, these might not provide any services. there are townships (an area that might be 6 miles on a side) people will often confusingly call these towns.
townships, villages and small cities might have volunteer fire services (otherwise employed citizens are the firefighters). some townships have a small population where the cost and ability to staff a fire service isn’t possible. the township may contract with cities and villages or adjacent townships to provide fire service. since the area is large they may have agreements with a couple different services to cover small areas of the township. agreements between government bodies could be made to create fire districts and tax them, though setting them up and administering them might be too complex for those involved. an administrative agreement between government bodies and establishing a fee may be less complex. fees might be mandatory (effectively like a tax) or on a subscriber or per use basis as the case here.
townships may have contracts with private companies to provide ambulance and rubbish services to different parts of the township area.
In the 2000 census, about 40% of the US population was found to live in unincorporated areas. An unincorporated area has no municipal government and thus no way to draw taxes locally. They provide services (or don’t) in a hodgepodge of different ways dependent on things like historical settlement patterns and state law.
That’s 100 million people, or twice the population of England.
Or if you are talking about New Jersey, property tax is more then people in other states pay for their mortgage.
The last person to be in the news for losing a home in Obion County said that she wasn’t allowed to pay the fee:
Not in these parts. And given that the mortgage company isn’t too impressed with the value of fire protection (to either buy or require it), maybe I shouldn’t be either.
This is only sometimes true. Unincorporated parts of counties in many states are broken into what are termed towns in New England and New York State (what are called towns elsewhere being villages here) and townships elsewhere. Many of these, especially in the Northeast and Middle Atlantic states, have municipal governments providing a few but not all of the services that cities and larger towns (in the incorporated-place sense) do. Generally but not always this will include a tax assessment for equipment and maintenance of the local volunteer fire department(s).
In New York every square inch of the state that is not within a city or an Indian reservation is a part of some town. I’m fairly sure this is true for the New England states as well.
Here in North Carolina townships exist as paper entities only, to aid in mapping and census work. But the county collects taxes to support the VFDs.
Police services are provided by the state police force (state troopers, highway patrol, etc.) and by the county sheriffs’ departments. Some of the larger suburban towns (space-filling sense) in the Northeast have their own police forces, as of course do cities and towns (incorporated sense) or villages.
You are of course correct, though, that much of the country has no local government smaller than the county level outside incorporated places. But it’s not always true.
Note also that in this case the town offered to provide fire service to the surrounding rural areas but the rural residents voted against it because their taxes would go up.
A court would almost certainly rule that you had an implied contract. Just like if you were unconscious on the sidewalk and the EMTs took you to the emergency room. You can’t later get out of paying by saying that you never agreed to the medical services. The law assumes that you would agree to emergency services being done for your benefit where there could be loss of life or property.