Wetland Inspection?
Thursday, November 19th, 2009 at
3:43 pm
Hi, we are looking to buy 9 acres of land. We love it, our first home Ya!! So today we went to look at it again, and the neighbor guy said the last person didn’t buy the land cause it was going to cost fourteen thousand dollars for someone to come look at the wetlands on the property, does that sound about right???
Tagged with: Inspection • Wetland
Filed under: home inspection
You need to make sure the land is already assigned for development. If not, the 14k is only the beginning.
This certainly is dependent on costs of professional services where you live; I’m guessing they’re referring to a Critical Area Report. This would entail hiring an environmental engineer to visit the property, view proposed plans and ascertain the impact any such development would have on the property.
In my area the report is dependent in part on what you plan to do with the property, as well as the acreage, the reputation of the engineer, etc. $14,000 may not be out of line for this size property. However, if you plan to develop a small portion (say a 2,500 sq. ft. two-story) with a 1,000 sq. ft. driveway, your total impervious surface will only be 2,250 sq.ft. and the total disturbed area will probably be less than 5,000 sq.ft.
If, after that, you plan to put the remainder of the property into a conservation easement (for which you might get money back), your environmental report may be considerably less costly.
I hope this answer helped. Good Luck!