oldhousen00b wrote:Thank you everyone! So much helpful information
Gothichome wrote:If your posting the same questions on other good old home sites you will find the information given will start to sound the same.
That's the surest way to separate the wheat from the chaff when you go to the internet for advice on niche matters - the advice that keeps repeating is generally the good advice!
Well I certainly hope things work out and you do purchase an old home, if not the stone home, another home that excites you both.
"The house is about 50 feet or so from a creek. Between the house and the creek there is the septic system, which is marked with a manhole cover."
100 years ago maybe they would let you build a septic 25 feet from the creek, but that's not a suitable field , It's obviously contaminating the creek with effluent from the house. It sounds like you would need to budget for a sewage reservoir and the cost of disposal of sewage on a continuing basis. If there are others upstream hooked up in a similar way that might mean you also dont have access to safe drinking water because of contamination. I'd be careful about buying in to that situation. Water and sewer are really important.
another thing to be wary of is the property line on the creek side. Here in Canada you can't own a waterway. I'm assuming you have similar laws. Now creeks move, and during a flood they can even change course. also the property line is usually not the body of water but the high water mark" or maybe some distance from the high water mark.
depending on grade , and what happens with the river over time , well people have been known to gain or loose land. we own some lake front and there was a modification to the dam and that affected the lake level, thus our property line moved. I remember seeing a farmer that was extremely unhappy because a big chunk of his hay field ( several acres) was lost due to the river changing course due to a flood. I guess you'd call this an "act of god"
for our property it meant little as we have lots of land and the house is a good 50 feet higher than the lake. On some properties such a thing can be a devastating blow. I'd' just be really aware.
you might also be concerned about any buried oil tanks because if there are any and they were full , but leaked at some point, then you could buy such liability as part and parcel along with the place. sometimes people hire a guy to use sonar to find old dead oil tanks. Often out on a farm any oil tank may have also been above ground. If you look in the basements for signs of an oil line, like a hole in the foundation, sometimes you can play detective. Another way out is to add a clause to the sale that says the seller is responsible for cost of removal if there is an oil tank found.
