Rural property, especially in remote areas, may not have electricity available. Electricity may be available but you may be required to pay for the line construction. Sometimes the cost is prohibitively expensive, or there can be an adjoining landowner who will not grant the necessary easements to the power company to bring the lines to your property. This is especially important when you plan to build a dwelling on the property at a later date. Get assurance from the utility that they have the necessary rights-of-way to your property and that you can afford the cost of the lines.

Telephone service is the same as electricity. You may be able to get service, but it may be cost prohibitive. Also , cellular phone service may not be available in remote areas.

Water is generally provided from a well. Wells are generally either a shallow well that is 100 feet deep or so, or a deep well that can be over 750 feet deep. If you need water and there is no well on your property, call several local well drillers and ask them how deep other wells in the area have been drilled to get a good water supply. They will not promise how deep, or even if you will be able to find water on your property, but they should be able to give you a good estimate of the cost of obtaining water.
 

Many mountain homesteads are supplied by a spring and reservoir. This type water supply is preferred by many people, but springs do require additional maintenance and more undisturbed land to assure that you have clean water. If there is a spring on your property that you wish to cap for a water supply, refer to your local library for information. If the spring is not on your property, you should obtain a water rights agreement from the adjoining landowner granting access to their spring.

If there is already a water supply on the property, have it tested by a reputable laboratory to determine if there are any impurities in the water.

Septic Systems

In most municipalities, sewer service is available. In rural areas, sewer treatment is handled by a septic tank and drain field. If you are planning to build in the future, make sure that your property is suitable for installation of a septic tank. Call your county health department to have a site assessment done to get a permit for a septic system. They will also take into consideration your water supply and others in the area to assure everyone has a safe water supply.

Rural property is often accessed by a right of way across another’s property. Rights of way are relatively common in rural areas. Generally your title opinion, prepared by an attorney before you purchase the property, will alert you to any problems with access to the property. Generally, you should stay away from property with access problems, unless you are certain of, and fully understand the risk that you are taking.

There are several types of rights of way. The most common types are deeded, surveyed, prescriptive, and the NC cartway laws. Your attorney can discuss the different types of rights of way. Rights of way can also be of different widths based upon what the property will be used for. Development of property requires a right of way sufficient to build a suitable road, often a right of way 50 feet wide or more is required. Many times a seller will only grant a small right of way to limit future development and the number of homes that can be built on a particular property. Make sure you have a sufficient right of way for the intended use of the property that you are purchasing.

Another issue with rights of way, is who pays for the maintenance of the road. Sometimes road maintenance is a very informal affair taken care of by one of the landowners with their personal equipment. Others have a written agreement that specifies the amounts that each owner will pay toward road maintenance and penalties for non-payment. Again, your attorney can tell you if there is an agreement recorded. Otherwise talk to the other landowners and find out what the custom is and how comfortable you are with the other owner’s ability to uphold their responsibility for road maintenance.

You need to know something about the history of any rural property that you purchase. Your attorney can tell you the chain of ownership, generally for the past 35 years. Look for any names in the chain of ownership that signify that the land was ever used for any industrial or commercial use. Also talk to neighbors who have lived in the area for many years and ask them about former landowners and their uses of the property.

Do a visual inspection of the property. Look for any places where there was junk, trash, or abandoned vehicles. It is generally best to have the present owner remove any of these items as a condition of sale. Look for anything out of the ordinary that would signify that trash or tires had been buried. Look for any pipes sticking out of the ground, or evidence of above or underground storage tanks. Again, these hazards are best removed prior to taking title to the property. 

Inspect the inside of any buildings and make sure nothing is stored, especially old bottles and cans. It is amazing how often arsenic compounds, chlordane, and other banned products still lurk around in old farm buildings. These were once common garden chemicals. Your local extension service can advise you on safe disposal of old chemicals. While they are not common, environmental hazards can be a serious problem, so it pays to practice due diligence to avoid this problem before you purchase rural property. If during the course of your tour of the property, you find something that needs further inspection, there are several environmental engineering firms in the area that specialize in environmental hazard assessments.

Some of the most heated encounters I have ever witnessed have been over boundary line disputes, often over just a few feet in a hundred acres. While urban boundaries are generally short and very well established, rural tracts are generally larger acreages, and can have a boundary of several thousand linear feet. 

Surveys can be many years old, or nonexistent. It is up to you as a buyer to make sure that the property described is the property that you are purchasing. If you do not have a survey, there are several things you can do to help assure yourself of the acreage of the property that you are purchasing. First, go to the local tax assessor's office and get a copy of the tax map of the property you are purchasing. Also get a copy of the tax card. This will reveal the acreage the present owner is paying taxes on. Second, find a copy of an aerial photo of the property. You may find this at the tax assessor's office, or the local Farm Service Agency office. Third, obtain a copy of the legal description to the property. Fourth, gather all this information and find someone that has a software program to draw a map of the property from the legal description. At Carolina Farm Credit, we have this program in all our offices and many appraisers have the similar software as well. A surveyor will be able to help also. This software will also calculate the acreage of the property, so that acreage can be compared to the stated acreage in the legal description and tax card.

Once you have the map drawn to the appropriate scale, overlay this map on the aerial photo or tax map and compare the two. Generally the two will reconcile very closely. However, any large discrepancies should raise a red flag and signal that a new survey may be required. This could be expensive as survey costs on large rural tracts of land can cost several thousand dollars. Another thing to consider is the county where you are purchasing property. Old surveys and less-than-perfect legal descriptions are much more common in the more rural areas of western North Carolina than in Buncombe County.

Once you are satisfied that the boundaries are well established, take the map, or survey, and walk the entire boundary of the property. Try to identify all the major corners and make sure that the markers are in place. This is especially important if you have had a new survey completed. It may be advisable to get the adjoining landowners to walk their section with you.

Many tracts of rural land are owner financed. The owner of the property does not want all the money at one time, so they will take a down payment and typically finance the balance for 10 to 30 years. Generally, this is the easiest and lowest cost option because there are few underwriting guidelines and no origination fees with owner financing. Another advantage is that interest rates are often lower than the rates banks offer.

If owner financing is not available on the tract that you purchase, obtaining financing on rural property can be a challenge. Few lenders will offer the same terms and interest rates on loans for vacant rural land that they offer on your primary residence, unless you do a cash-out refinance, with your dwelling as collateral. The main reason for this is that most institutions do not want to originate and keep long-term loans in-house. Expect to have at least 20% or more as a down payment, and expect a variable rate, or fixed rate with a balloon feature at 5 or 10 years.

Another option for financing is The Farm Credit System. The Farm Credit System is a nationwide cooperative that specializes in financing rural property. The local Association is Carolina Farm Credit, ACA. Loans with terms up to 20 years, and 85% loan to value are available. Borrowers may have a choice of variable, adjustable, or fixed rates.

Purchasing and owning a tract of rural land can be a rewarding experience. However, as shown here, it is a different experience from buying a house in town. Hopefully, the information that I have presented here will make the process of purchasing your dream property easier.

David L. Lee is the Asheville Branch Manager of Carolina Farm Credit, ACA, located in Asheville, NC.. Carolina Farm Credit has 40 offices covering western North Carolina. For more information on financing rural property contact David at www.carolinafarmcredit.com.