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From: Norminn

ADC wrote:
Be a good neighbor...you may be the one in need next time...

Being a good neighbor is not the same as being a sucker. I would be
very reluctant to give up, permanently, any right to property that I
own. If the owner of the other property is a speculator (which I've had
unhappy experience with), he has no concern with detriment to the
neighborhood or residents. He will make his money and run.

I had a similar experience. I have a lot 125' wide, and next door was a 50' lot
which was unbuildable in my municipality. Lots must be 75' or better street
frontage to build.

The owner of this lot tried to sell me this lot 4 times between 1981 and 1992,
and also to the 3 neighbors on the other side who've come and gone since 1981.

In '92 I had occasion to look up the lot owner as someone had dumped a load of
junk and asphalt on the vacant lot and I wanted it cleaned up. As it happens,
when I got home with the owner's address and phone number, a gentleman was
parked IFO my house, wanting to purchase 25' of my side yard abutting this 50'
lot. He *said* he was the owner and wants to build *his* home in a similar
fashion to mine, only smaller, but not so small as to only fit on the existing
50' parcel.

(But just having been to town hall, unless he closed on the property that day,
I knew that not to be true, and found out it wasn't)

To make a long story short - his plan was to convince me to sell 25' of my land
so he could build and live in a decent size home suitable for the neighborhood,
or else he'll build a home nobody would like and I'll forever have to live next
to a dinky cottage.

Well, this is how speculators work my friend. They lie. He did not buy or own
the land, he was testing the waters. He lived in an exclusive waterfront
community nearby. He could not build on the 50' lot anyway, w/o a variance -
unattainable when 2 property owners abutting the property object (which we
would) only the original owner could build IF the ownership pre-dates zoning
laws, which it didn't.

In the end, I purchased the lot myself for 8000.00, added my extra 25' and
built my own investment home. Not because I wanted to, but because If I didn't,
some greedy speculator would figure out a way.