February 28, 2008
In the midst of previewing and finding out information for clients yesterday, we stopped in to the old Shoreline Marina to ask what the going rate for leasing a boat slip is.
Our absolute all time favorite boat mechanic, Dale Runyon is the new owner!!! They are now calling it Bayside Marina and Yacht Club. We knew that it had sold at a foreclosure auction and the rumor around was that it was bought by some local folks.
This is great news. This marina will be run in an outstanding manner. I couldn’t be more pleased for Dale and for the boating community as a whole!
February 27, 2008
Lee and I started our careers in Northern Virginia…lots of builder built neighborhoods, mostly colonials…the A model, the B model and the C model.
Here at Smith Mountain Lake, there are almost no builder built neighborhoods…every house is unique and every lot is unique and there aren’t many colonials and most we have seen don’t “fit” somehow with their surroundings.
Yesterday, we previewed a house that just came on the market…a colonial…and it just fit. What a lovely house in a lovely neighborhood. I admire people who have an eye for making that work…the right house in the right setting. I know it when I see it but to take a raw canvas and start from scratch is not my forte.
Hope we find a buyer for it before somebody else does - it’s a fun house to show!
February 25, 2008
Well, it happened over the weekend. In a market where serious price reductions are yielding contracts, someone had to try the “old trick”…if it doesn’t sell, raise the price!
Yes, someone has RAISED the price of a lake access home from $275K to $279K…daffodils can’t be far behind!
February 22, 2008
So, in 1998, AEP was granted a ten year extension on their license to operate the dam and to acknowledge their “Shoreline Management Program”. ATTENTION! RULE CHANGE!
Part of the SMP was that AEP was a little more organized about how they dealt with docks being built. So they instituted a voluntary permit process whereby you went to the county and got your building permit and you could go to them afterwards to kinda rubber stamp your permit. From 2000 to 2003, they pulled all the county building permits for docks so they have SOME records. I call this group of docks “Transition Docks” rather than some of their governmentese. If you are selling a house with a dock built in this era, chances are that your dock will need to be inspected by them…to make sure that it is built according to what your building permit said you were going to build. This adds another layer to the settlement process…may cause some delays, etc. Just another thing to add to the Realtor’s checklists!
ATTENTION! ANOTHER RULE CHANGE! In 2003, the process changed once again. Now, you can not be issued a county building permit without having an AEP permit FIRST. No uncertainties!
There were several other facets to this that will take some more study and likely some conversations with some of the other attorneys around the lake for more input. I always like it when I hear the same thing from different attorneys rather than one opinion/interpretation from one and another (different) opinion/interpretation from another.
February 21, 2008
We spent the morning yesterday in class (and the afternoon talking about what we heard in the class). This was a class put on by a local attorney and the power company about the new rules about docks and the new contract that we are using that addresses docks.
Whew. People sure can make things more complicated than they actually are, can’t they?
For instance, a dock built before 1998 (two or three rule changes ago…) is now referred to as a “non-permitted existing non-conforming dock”. Got that? It is non-permitted because the power company did not issue a permit for it. No…power company permits were not required back then, merely county building permits. It exists…ok, I’ll give you that one. It is non-conforming because if you would build it today, your paperwork would not be in order. Does any of this change how you own your dock or how you use it? Nooooooo… BUT…if you go to sell your house, at sometime before settlement, the settlement person will ask you to provide documentation that the power company acknowledges that you dock exists. The suggestion was that most listing agents do this as soon as the property is listed for sale.
OK…there are a few more quirks that I will go into as the days go on and I digest the material…and simplify it so that “real folks” (myself included) can understand what they are trying to say in their governmentese!
February 18, 2008
February at the lake is a variable month weatherwise…already this month we have seen 74 degrees (and a nice boat ride with a pack lunch!), a wind storm that downed electric wires causing wildfires in the area (including on top of the mountain) and a small ice storm that kept kids out of school for a few hours.
There are dramatic clouds here now…a front is moving through. We had a little rain last night and the lake is at “full pond” this morning for the first time in a long time. I know better than to think that the drought has broken but it sure is nice to have the lake up for whatever reason!
