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bevins8913

Junior Member
We have been building a house in Idaho for a few months now, we financed the lot around 10 years ago which is a 10 acre piece of property in which we are building the house on, the land is not paid off and we still owe around $20,000 on the property. We found a builder who would take on the build for us in late 2015. The 10 acres was supposed to be paid off prior to the build getting started which was stated in the contract with the builder, the land has not been paid off, we have still been making the land payments every month and the land is still in our name. The house is now completed and we were supposed to move in by the end of this month. The issue we are running into is the house appraised for less than the builder is asking, a roughly $9,000 difference. The house would either need to appraised for more or the builder would need to lower his price. My concern is if neither happen, what are our option since the land that the house was built on is still in our name? Can they take away the house? Since the house was built on our land, would we essentially own the house? Or would we loose the land?
 


quincy

Senior Member
We have been building a house in Idaho for a few months now, we financed the lot around 10 years ago which is a 10 acre piece of property in which we are building the house on, the land is not paid off and we still owe around $20,000 on the property. We found a builder who would take on the build for us in late 2015. The 10 acres was supposed to be paid off prior to the build getting started which was stated in the contract with the builder, the land has not been paid off, we have still been making the land payments every month and the land is still in our name. The house is now completed and we were supposed to move in by the end of this month. The issue we are running into is the house appraised for less than the builder is asking, a roughly $9,000 difference. The house would either need to appraised for more or the builder would need to lower his price. My concern is if neither happen, what are our option since the land that the house was built on is still in our name? Can they take away the house? Since the house was built on our land, would we essentially own the house? Or would we loose the land?
Your other three identical threads have been deleted. You only need to post your legal question/concern once on this forum. We can find you. :)

Someone should be by to address your questions in awhile.
 

John Se

Member
the appraisal only matters to the bank and establishes the max amount they will loan on the house. If you only want to have 80% LTV then you can only borrow 72 against the whole thing. You may be able to exceed the 80% by paying Private Mortgage Insurance. (PMI). Surely your builder wants to get paid and you can lose the house that way. What does your bank say?. At the end of the day you just need to come up with more cash. Reality. The appraisal wont change and the builder likely wont lower his price.
 

LdiJ

Senior Member
the appraisal only matters to the bank and establishes the max amount they will loan on the house. If you only want to have 80% LTV then you can only borrow 72 against the whole thing. You may be able to exceed the 80% by paying Private Mortgage Insurance. (PMI). Surely your builder wants to get paid and you can lose the house that way. What does your bank say?. At the end of the day you just need to come up with more cash. Reality. The appraisal wont change and the builder likely wont lower his price.
While I agree to a certain point with this we are talking about a 10 acre piece of property, and the builder would be hard pressed to claim the entire 10 acres, and would have a very hard time selling the house with the land ownership an issue.

OP, have you tried refinancing the land and house together to see if you can come up with enough to cover paying off the land and the builder's price for the house? Other than that, I see this getting pretty complicated.
 

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