I am looking at a small park in a town. This park has operated for years. The mayor is telling me if the park is sold to me she will sue because it can’t stay a park? Even though it’s “grandfathered in”?
Wonder what plans the mayor has for the property??? As been mentioned cites have attorneys that are on retainer and fighting to perfect the park’s permitting can be costly. There are plenty of other properties for sale probably move on. You are asking the right questions to the right people!!
Hire a great local municipal attorney if you’re actually considering buying. This is also a sign that the juice isn’t worth the squeeze because of legal costs and headaches. Could also be a major negotiation point with the seller. I’ve seen this before- if you get the legal facts straight and pushback they usually back off. Pick your poison…but good luck here.
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No, she cannot do that, but that would be great if she sues rather than you having to sue her. That puts the onus on her and as soon as she contacts a lawyer, the lawyer will tell her what she is doing is illegal and she will drop the case.
Before you buy the property, I would double check the laws and make sure that she does not have a case. However, I cannot imagine that she has any legal right to prevent the current use of the property.
We went through a similar legal case with a local municipality a few years ago, and we did prevail.
No matter what happens, at a minimum you were going to have a tumultuous relationship with the local government so you have to make sure that this property is worth it. Just as jferrari427 said, at a minimum I would use this as a bargaining point to get a lower price from the seller
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Hire an attorney to review the situation. I had a different scenario where the county environmental sept tried to establish current regulations to my 1970s park which should be grandfathered in. I filed a court case on
My own at the State level and a month later got a call from State deputy attorney general. I explained the situation in 5 minutes and he agreed to drop the case in
My favor.