I inherited my dad’s house which is next door to our farm. It’s a 1300 sq ft 1973 brick ranch on 20 acres. HOW do i go about selling it to someone i LIKE. Someone who would be a good and tidy neighbor …that doesn’t deer hunt? Is there some way to pick-through prospective buyers and be selective, legally?
Deer hunters aren’t a protected class, so I imagine you would be fine excluding them. But that might be a really strange question to ask buyers and if you’re asking a bunch of weird or picky things it might make THEM question whether they really want to live next to YOU.
If possible with your area’s zoning and such, you could split off the land to keep and sell just the house with an acre or so, not enough to hunt on.
Probably your best bet would be to sell it to somebody you already know, although that doesn’t guarantee that they won’t sell it on later.
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It sounds like it would be easier for you to rent the house. This would allow you to make all the rules you want and still have control over what happens there.
Otherwise, once you sell it you have no control over what they do with it.
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Subdivide it. As small as your town or county will go, if deer hunters are your primary concern? At least in my state, there are minimum lot sizes for hunting, farming, home business, etc. You can’t legally restrict what someone else does with the property. But you can make it so small that it is either not of interest to the people or it falls foul of the state, town, or county laws. (yes, technically you can put a deed restriction on a property, however the cost of trying to effectively police and enforce those is not something you want)
I would say that if I was buying a property and the person selling it was going to remain in the area and was placing restrictions on it? I would run away as fast as possible from the deal.
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And build a fence. Their definition of ‘tidy’ and your definition? Not going to match up.
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I don’t know that selling a property with a provision about not hunting on it is possible to enforce. Even if the person doesn’t hunt, they could still lease out to hunters, or other uses you might not want next to you. Have you already posted the land, according to the legal requirements?
just add a deed restriction to the deed that is written by an attorney who knows real estate law restricting future use of the land to not be used for hunting of any type, discharge of any firearm or whatever else you wish as long as it is legal to restrict that use.
if properly executed the restriction would be on record and a part of the property deed
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Yes, but a deed restriction is generally enforced via a law suit by the party that placed the restriction and may or may not be recognized by the courts as ‘equitable’ or constitutional in future years. In other words expensive and guaranteed to reduce any possibility of neighborliness’ which seems to be the desire…
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Sell it to me 
Really though, probably easier to rent just the house and a small yard (maybe with a yard fence to delineate their area if it doesn’t already have one), and use the rest of the property as your own. Then you can be as picky as you want.
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I bought a parcel with a house and barn adjacent to our prior farm to avoid further subdivision and nuance type construction. We rented it for a few years to a farrier with a young family. Eventually they were able to purchase it, with a deed restriction that met my needs. The deed restriction exhausted when we moved. Worked out well for everyone. I agree seeking a remedy would have been tough but knowing about the restriction may get you most of the way.
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Huh! Didn’t know one could have a deed restriction~!
i think by tidy i mean not trashy. Not having dilapidated vehicles in the front yard basically. Small front lawn (1/4 acre) is zoysia, so not much of an issue with overgrown lawn. Roof is new, so that’s not going to look like crap for a decade or two…
But basically, i just don’t want hunters. And MOST people, most men that is, in this area are very invested in hunting deer. Families of hunters tend to be pretty annoying as the kids/grandkids, for some odd reason, never learn where property lines are. I know, i live it…we have some neighbors on one of our property lines (we have a few hundred acres and several neighbors that border our land) can’t seem to stay in their own land. Plus, all the frickin noise! And the disgust of it… it literally makes me ill to my stomach to hear a huge cannon of a gun go off in the evening and know some deer just got shot…perhaps not a clean shot.
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Wow.
That is some pretty serious generalizing.
I must know the super rare, almost extinct responsible hunters.
To me I would rather the deer get shot and killed and provide meat for families to eat than get hit by a car or starve to death during the winter.
Do you have your property lines properly marked (using whatever means your state recognizes for no trespassing)?
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Didn’t know I was a rare breed of deer hunter…or maybe I’m just as horrid. However, trying not to derail the thread here.
Seriously, I would just rent the house out if you can’t subdivide it to a lot too small to allow hunting. I suspect that a ‘no deer hunting’ deed restriction would be extremely expensive to defend if you had to in court. And would have the potential to become remarkably ugly.
In my experience deed restrictions really only work for things like building plots and water rights. And are still hard to defend.
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Actually if you sell the biggest worry for me would be someone subdividing, and selling to a developer, or some other mass influx of people and houses. Or like a friend of mine, he lived out in the boonies, and someone built a huge industrial barn. He didn’t think too much about it until the wind shifted in his direction one day, and he found out it was a commercial hog farm.
If you sell, there is no way that you can stop the person from reselling, or subdividing, if they want to. They have to meet the zoning, but developers have been known to get zoning changes.
yes, i agree with you about subdividing. Most residences here are large acreage, with a small section of this gravel road that did get subdivided. There are five homes all near the road, most have only about an acre or two. This particular residence is the last of that row, and has 20 acres. Then is our place with hundreds, followed by other farms with hundreds. Actually, before this little row of homes there are only like…three residences…all of which also have large acreage. No one here wants anyone else to sell small lots. I wouldn’t break that tradition.
where I am most All others did subdivide then enacted zoning that prohibits the rest (including me ) from subdividing by increasing the minimum lot size … problem for them my lot is the center lot and is of size that can be still subdivided…but I explained to them keep screwing around and rather than seeing horses here there will be 45 plus townhouses
Responsible hunters/irresponsible hunters i don’t care. I hate hunting. And if i can keep it at arms length i will. I’m going to avoid selling to any one who hunts …if I can.
We have perimeter fencing and signs. Does not stop the miscreants who feel they have the right to pursue game here. AND…of the 8 or nine farms that border our property, FIVE of them have located a deerstand on the property line. (oh but of course they will only shoot into their own land…riiiiiiight). I actually have five game cams set up during hunting seasons and have shown the parents footage of their boys trudging through one of our hayfields. I have sheep, some of which are brown. I have cattle and i have horses. I do not want anyone, especially a teenager, coming onto our farm to ‘track down the deer i shot that jumped up and ran off’ . Just because you don’t see the sheep there doesn’t mean they’re not there. I rotate my herds fairly regularly.
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If you sell, the buyer can break that tradition.
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i know. I am prepared to be very choosey about to whom i sell. I don’t know how to find a good neighbor…i’ve never been in this position before. I’ve sold and moved away. Here, i’m actually selling to someone who will be our next door neighbor.
If you are that concerned about who lives there, then you should rent it. It’s like a horse, if you want to control what happens to it in the future, don’t sell.
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