I am chasing a park where the owner is not ready to sell because the city is trying to shut him down via not renewing licenses, etc…
What would you do?
I’m thinking of calling the city and trying to get the full story from their side…
You would likely become the owner’s best friend if you can help him through the situation. Find out why and what needs to be done to fix the situation. And be cautious about buying a park that the city is trying to shut down.
Not in all cases does a city want to close you down because your park is ugly. A lot of the times they would rather see something else which pays more taxes. Its however a good start to talk with the city to see whats up. This might be a good opportunity to maybe do a lease purchase in order to work with the owner to fix the place up and then buy it.
Good to hear both sides–code violations or not getting along? Some owners take a dislike to any government official. Talk to Mayor or Council Member plus local newspaper articles if there is a push to close. Also see if a local RE Attny specializing in permits/MHP evictions/issues
@TripleNet All great advice so far. I would get some type of understanding or contract with the seller first before you spend all your time getting him out of trouble and then he says thanks and doesn’t sell to you or even worse sells to somebody else.
I would at the least get an LOI with an agreed upon number before you work to hard on it.
Good luck and keep us posted.
Lots of good advice in here. As previously mentioned, first you want to get a contract in place with the owner on attractive terms. This might be the entire reason he’s selling and once you help out, he might lose his motivation. Then, once you have the contract in place with several outs for you as the buyer, you can go talk to the building inspector, zoning, etc. and find out what their issues are. If the issues are with the dept of health, etc, you have to find out what’s going on. If the park is legal and grandfathered, the city can’t just shut you down unless there are health and safety issues at risk.
If it’s something that can be fixed easily, that’s one thing. But keep in mind even if it’s something you can fight, you may incur significant attorney fees to win. You have to ask yourself what is at stake in terms of upside and is that worth the trouble to even get involved. In a perfect world, you could tie it up and then help the owner sort everything out before you buy it but that may not be possible. It all comes down to your risk vs. the reward at the end of the day
Thank you all for such thoughtful advice! The issue is that the owner does not want to sell due to his ongoing issues with the city. I want to talk to the city about exactly what their issues are, but I am worried that either the city won’t speak to me, or calling them could create more pressure on the owner, thus causing him to resent me…
I would try to find out the issue by calling he licensing authority. There’s probably a clerk there that can tell you what’s going on and your conversation likely won’t get back to the seller.