I have been bonding with the seller of a desirable park (good metro, no POHS, city utilities) for a while now, and today she told me that the city is trying to have her park shut down, mainly because many of the homes have unpermitted additions. I told her that parks are legal non-conforming entities, and the city can huff and puff but ultimately cannot do anything. I also told her that she needs to contact a municipal lawyer who has experience suing cities who try to do this, and she told me she would. Does anyone else have experience with something like this happening? What happened? Thoughts?
Similar, but not exactly the same. I ultimately walked from the deal, but there were lots of other problems also. I knew I’d likely win, but didn’t care to get into that mess.
In your case, I’d use it as a bargaining tool if you still want the park. It legitimately lowers the value, legal fees are freakin’ steep!!
If you like everything else about the deal, hire a municipal lawyer to talk to the city attorney and get the true position. Additions have no bearing on grandfathering, and that seems to be a claim that the city would not actually want to waste time or money on. Worst case, removing additions would not kill the park – just the additions.
I would attempt to work with the city. Ultimately they do not want to shut down the park they either want the home owners to get the additions up to code and permitted or removed. Easiest route would be to have all unpermitted additions removed since the cost to upgrade to code is likely more costly.
Removing the additions would also maybe go a long way toward cleaning up the appearance of the community.
Yes… my father did briefly. And yes… they can though not entirely. They can address individual homes for unpermitted additions and decks. Park owner should have stayed ahead of that situation.