It Pays to Have Good Relations with Neighbors, Officials andContractors

Purchasing and developing rural real estate successfullyrequires the help of many different contractors and officials.  You can change contractors if they do notperform as expected, but it always pays to treat them very kindly and respecttheir expertise. We have developed a long term working relationship with ourgroup of contractors and it has paid big dividends in time, satisfaction andmoney.

Our work of developing rural land for summer, weekend,retirement and family homes or small farms requires a very large number offolks to become involved from the time we decide to purchase a property to the time ofsale. They include, at least, the following:   Real Estate attorney, surveyor, soilscientist (to test for septic site), perhaps a land use planner, the countyzoning officials (there are many officials to work with at these offices),  Environmental scientist (to design the soilerosion and water quality studies, if any road building or other excavating isneeded), banker (to provide financing, possibily, or the bond guarantee for any construction), insurance agent to provide the liabilitycoverage, power company (to put in power lines to home sites), Dept. of Environmental Quality and/or the Army Corps of Engineers (if you havestreams or wetlands), plus others. 

Without working in an atmosphere ofcooperation and friendship you will be put at the bottom on the list and workwill just not get done in a timely manner. 

How do you maintain this atmosphere of cooperation? It starts with your attitude:  toward working together --not as a pushy adversary --to get the work done.  

First, find out what you can expect and what is expected of you. Certain things you need to know like:  how long the process will take-- what is expected of you --- what the time table is for events and deadlines – what willhappen if deadlines are not met.

Being pleasant and cooperative does not mean you shouldnot expect to have the proper work donein an acceptable, timely manner and at the cost agreed upon. But you should take a friendly approach in order to meet objectives more quickly and to overcome more easily the problems thatdo come up.

An example:  We recently had to make a change in a soilerosion plan for a private road we are building.  The planning and designing had been inprocess for a number of months before it was all approved and  we were ready to beginconstruction.  The contractor had allthe equipment in place ready to start ona Monday.  The Thursday before, wediscovered that the plans -unknown to us- included a $35,000 surface treatmentthat is not really a good idea for this kind of private road- plus such a treatment wouldincrease the cost considerably.   Icalled the design firm to see if it could be changed and said they would callthe County Planner to see.  The  Planner was OK with thechange, we just needed to have the prints modified by the designer.
To his credit, the contractor planning to build the road was OK with leaving his equipment on the job site until we could get aresolve.   The bank also was willing to refund the difference in the cost of the performance bond -- $350!  Good news!!  All this took place in lessthan one week, and the contractor was at work building the road!

We had great cooperation from several different working groups in justa few short days. I can tell you that if we were difficult and unfriendly folks towork with, we would wait a long time.  Iknow for sure as the people involved tell me this real often about how theunfriendly folks are moved toward the bottom of the list.