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Law requiring residential site plan - EPA?
Hi I'm a DC Nestie looking for some advice. My mom lives in NH & is selling her house. She was supposed to close today, but yesterday the buyer's mortgage company said they wouldn't give the buyer the loan until my mom provided a site plan. According to my mom (who doesn't undestand what's going on & badly explained what little she does understand) a new EPA law was recently passed in NH which requires the seller of a home on a lake to provide to the buyer a site plan showing the location of the home, oil tank & septic tank on the property & it's proximity to the water line.
Is there really such a law in NH? Can anyone provide any other details? I'd really like to read the law for myself - if anyone can point me to it.
Also, shouldn't her realtor have known about this??
Re: Law requiring residential site plan - EPA?
http://des.nh.gov/organization/divisions/water/wetlands/cspa/documents/cspa_standards_summary.pdf
This is what I found through google - the very last section. Sorry I can't be more help, I hadn't heard of this.
I have heard of a As built site plan for flood zones for waterfront property, being required. As a buyer of waterfront, I would want this personally to make sure the house was out of a flood zone for insurance reasons and to make sure every spring I wasn't knee deep in water.
Not sure about an EPA law though that would be different. But I am not a real estate lawyer or realtor.
She should be able to go to her town office and get a copy of the As built.
*I googled and this was the best I came up with. look under lakes & ponds
http://www.prudentialdinsmore.com/i_central/
It is the Department of Environmental Services (DES) Shoreland Protection Act that requires this. In short, it is in place to protect NH's waters (lakes, rivers, etc) from pollution from sewage. "New" in terms of things like this doesn't necessarily have the same meaning as new to everything else. It has been around for a few years... The first time I personally ran into it was 3 years ago, but I know it was around before then too.
It should be a pretty simply fix that only costs a few hundred dollars. I typically recommend Norway Plains around here, but not sure where your mom is. If the house is new enough (again new here could mean 30yrs) all the info is probably really easy to get and your mom can probably close by the end of the week.
Should the Realtor have known? I guess, but this is something that is specific to waterfront homes that fall under the Shoreland Protection Act and I don't believe all waterfront homes fall under this (I would have to re-check myself if I had a waterfront listing). This is definitely not one of those things you run into everyday in real estate and keep in mind that not only did this get by your moms agent, but the buyer agent, lender, and title company. It is very likely that this is the first time any one of them has run into this and between all of them that is a lot of transactions. So unless your mom's agent works for an agency that does a lot of or specializes in waterfront homes, I wouldn't really blame anyone. Also, it is not a deal breaker, just a temporary set back.
HTH ~ I haven't been around in a long time and I'm glad I swung by on a day I had something to offer