Bye, bye, home. Just my luck.

mikea

mikea

Touchdown! Greaser!
Gone West
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Feb 12, 2005
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Lake County, IL
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iWin
No I didn't loose my job.

My neighbor just yelled out to me over the thunder of the avalanche of snow we're getting. When I parked for 10 minutes I had to push off 2 inches of new snow.

I had imagined this. It's happening.

At the last village council meeting they casually showed a map for the proposed widening of the highway that will only take a few homes, including,...oh, ...mine.

crying-smiley.jpg
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

What Kevin said. Tell tham that you'll expect them to build you a new one on the airport property!
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

gprellwitz said:
What Kevin said. Tell tham that you'll expect them to build you a new one on the airport property!
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Oh, yeah. Like I can tell them anything.

As I told my neighbor if it was Chicago I would had an army of inspectors here already and some subtle contact from ONE investor making me an offer...telling me I better take the offer.

I haven't even unpacked yet.
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

U could chain yourself to the house and play chicken with the bulldozer.
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

Oh wow. I'm really sorry to hear this. I hope they make it worth your while. Is there another place nearby? Did you get really favorable mortgage rates - can you get the same or better with the new place?
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

Pi1otguy said:
U could chain yourself to the house and play chicken with the bulldozer.
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At least it's Lake County and not Cook County. We know what Mayor Daily is capable of bulldozing in Cook County, and I wouldn't take odds that chaining yourself to the house would stop that madman.

I'm sorry about this, Mike.

Leave it to these SOBs to undertake condemnations when property values are low.
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

At least they'll pay you fair market value. Oh, sorry. :redface:

Here, they took a friend's house and only compensated the house's value if they bought another house of equal or greater value. In other words, they couldn't buy a cheaper house and pocket the difference, or become renters and pocket the whole amount.
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

woodstock said:
Oh wow. I'm really sorry to hear this. I hope they make it worth your while. Is there another place nearby? Did you get really favorable mortgage rates - can you get the same or better with the new place?
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I'm about to refi.

There is no place like this one. It predates all of the other houses by 30 years.

Don't you think the government can, same as a bank, say "Here's what you paid +10%" :mad:

Having talked to the IDOT guy about taking down a dead tree, I know they don't have any money. The state doesn't have any money. Nice that my county taxes will go towards taking my own house.

I'm trying to call the neighbor across the street.

I called my lawyer.
 
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Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

You might get lucky. The appraisal process looks backwards in time at sales comparables.... which just might be higher than your current value because house values are generally declining today. In other words, it is possible they will offer more than your house is worth.

Yes, it does happen. I was the lucky one with a corporate relo package that worked like this.

-Skip
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

Bury human remains on your property, make sure they are descended from indigenous tribes. Also, round up a few specimen of endangered species and put them on your property.
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

Richard said:
Bury human remains on your property, make sure they are descended from indigenous tribes. Also, round up a few specimen of endangered species and put them on your property.
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Yeah. Apply for designation as an historic landmark!

MINE goes back to 1960!
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

When I saw the title I was thinking something more along the lines of this.....


Anyway sorry to hear about your house woes....

Pete
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

Skip Miller said:
You might get lucky. The appraisal process looks backwards in time at sales comparables.... which just might be higher than your current value because house values are generally declining today. In other words, it is possible they will offer more than your house is worth. Skip
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That stinks, Mike; sorry. My step-son's wife owned a house in New Hampshire. The city wanted her house and numerous others. She held out longer than the others; the city finally came up with an offer far superior to the original and she sold. The main runway at Manchester, New Hampshire Airport is now longer than it used to be.

HR
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

Well, that just sucks Mike. Sorry to hear it. Is this final, or are there still hearings?

I had a friend have the same thing happen here when they widened a road he back up to. Lots of neighborhood meetings, a legal challenge, but it came down to the transportation needs of the state. Fair market value did improve a bit from initial offers and folks did get a displacement reimbursement of some sort for having to find another place, pack, move and unpack. At least you should have other places to go. This happened to him in a pretty tight market and he had to purchase something much more expensive than what his old house went for.


Best,

Dave
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

vontresc said:
When I saw the title I was thinking something more along the lines of this.....


Anyway sorry to hear about your house woes....

Pete
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That was on the White River, aka the one that goes by Gaston's.
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

Dave Siciliano said:
Well, that just sucks Mike. Sorry to hear it. Is this final, or are there still hearings?

I had a friend have the same thing happen here when they widened a road he back up to. Lots of neighborhood meetings, a legal challenge, but it came down to the transportation needs of the state. Fair market value did improve a bit from initial offers and folks did get a displacement reimbursement of some sort for having to find another place, pack, move and unpack. At least you should have other places to go. This happened to him in a pretty tight market and he had to purchase something much more expensive than what his old house went for.


Best,

Dave
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What I want is to stay.

Other than that they can find a house as big, on as big a lot and write a check for that. The closest is the sister house down the road but the plan would include tearing down that one, too.
 
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Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

Sorry, Mike. Eminent domain (is it imminent or eminent....I assume eminent) is a *****, and I hate that the government has that ability.

FWIW - you'll probably still be able to buy a house out of the deal.
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

mikea said:
No I didn't loose my job.

My neighbor just yelled out to me over the thunder of the avalanche of snow we're getting. When I parked for 10 minutes I had to push off 2 inches of new snow.

I had imagined this. It's happening.

At the last village council meeting they casually showed a map for the proposed widening of the highway that will only take a few homes, including,...oh, ...mine.

crying-smiley.jpg
Click to expand...

I knew it had to be Route 120....I'm like 5 miles east of you....sorry to hear it. This entire county is a real @*_#$# mess these days with traffic woes. I can't see this helping.
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

I'm really sorry to hear that, Mike. I hope you'll make it as difficult as possible for them. There are ways to drag these things out for years.

I'm a Libertarian, and I don't believe "eminent domain" should apply unless there is a truly compelling need. Even then property owners should be compensated at much more than market value. I believe it should be very difficult -- bordering on impossible -- for the government to seize private property.

Rich
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

look into the cost of moving the house
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

Mike, I don't know what to say, other than I'm sorry to hear that. At least they won't be taking your puppy.

A friend of mine in Ohio is dealing with having an interstate possibly coming through the middle of his farm and grass strip that his family has owned for generations. :dunno:
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

955 said:
I knew it had to be Route 120....I'm like 5 miles east of you....sorry to hear it. This entire county is a real @*_#$# mess these days with traffic woes. I can't see this helping.
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Highway planners know full well that adding lanes only adds another lane of cars that aren't moving.

I gather they decided to do the bypass, too. I couldn't see how they could get that where it was supposed to go without taking out a bunch of NEW houses.
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

Sorry to hear this Mike. When I was a kid they took out a section of our neighborhood when widening the NJ Turnpike. Luckily our house was not affected but I remember the controversy. They also cut off easy access to the neighborhood so the only way to get to where I lived was by driving through a maze of residential streets.
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

gkainz said:
look into the cost of moving the house
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My Grampa did just that, back in the 60s. He was a builder, and had built their house. Route 20 came through and he moved it about 2-3 blocks back. Down a hill. I am sure we have old film footage of it somewhere, if it's still useable that is.
 
One impact is all of my daydream home improvements are out the window. I have to decide which are worth doing if I can enjoy them for just a few years. The garage is out. The doggie door still makes sense. :P

My lawyer buddy says the state won't want to take the entire lot if they can avoid it. I'm imagining if they really intend 4 lanes + median, they will need a hundred feet.
 
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Mike, I'm sorry to hear this after reading of the effort you've put into this home. It's quite clear these days... a man's home is the government's to take without payment of value due.
 
mikea said:
One impact is all of my daydream home improvement are out the window. I have to decide which are worth doing if I can enjoy them for just a few years. The garage is out. The doggie door still makes sense. :P

My lawyer buddy says the state won't want to take the entire lot if they can avoid it. I'm imagining if they really intend 4 lanes + median, they will need a hundred feet.
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I called the lady who built the house. Turns out that by law the house has to be 50 feet from the road. The corner of the back deck is as close as it can be.

She still owns the properties across the street. She'll get on it with us.

I checked the state department of transportation. They have plans listed through 2013 and this work ain't on it.

I think they're a long way off, but still, how can make improvements not knowing if/when they'll toss me out?
 
Re: Bye, bye home. Just my luck

mikea said:
Not likely. It's a "hillside house". Half of it is underground.
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They'll probably end up grading it out anyway, so move the hill with it.:D
You can also build the missing section of foundation & structure.
 
Well, that really sucks, Mike.

But as I'm catching up on posts, how's Pancho doing on his meds?

Kaye
 
Look Mike, I have no idea what the law is in Ill but if this were in PA a few things would happen.

1) The DOT announces they want to condem your property or at least a part of it. In which case no one is going to buy your home. Some times the DOT says they are going to condem the house and either never gets around to it or if they do takes years and years to move on it. In which case they have caused the value of your home to fall.

2) If they do condem it at least here they will offer you a set amount of money for the home. Their first offer is NEVER their best offer. If the home owner can't agree with the state on a price it will go before a board of view usually comprised of an attorney a realtor and another person. The board of view can then set the price.

My point is spend the money to consult with a lawyer familiar with this type of work. he/she can tell you what your rights are and what the process is. If find if you are reprsented the State is more likely to take you seriously.
 
gibbons said:
There are Vogons everywhere. Run Ford, run.
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I thought of that. In this case I took an interest in local affairs, and only slightly late. They'll have meetings through June.

The previous owner tipped me off on the web site for the planning committee. There are no such maps there - the key plan is the one I knew - to build a bypass - but I made the mistake of reading the public input, where there are kinds of people living to the west telling them to widen the road and do it NOW. After all they're building more houses up there!

There is more demand to save the marsh with the blue heron rookery than anybody's actual house.

Oh! The good news is the bypass is specially routed the required 2200 feet from the airport.

The plans are called 2020 and 2030, so I should be Ok for a while.
 
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AdamZ said:
Look Mike, I have no idea what the law is in Ill but if this were in PA a few things would happen.

1) The DOT announces they want to condem your property or at least a part of it. In which case no one is going to buy your home. Some times the DOT says they are going to condem the house and either never gets around to it or if they do takes years and years to move on it. In which case they have caused the value of your home to fall.

2) If they do condem it at least here they will offer you a set amount of money for the home. Their first offer is NEVER their best offer. If the home owner can't agree with the state on a price it will go before a board of view usually comprised of an attorney a realtor and another person. The board of view can then set the price.

My point is spend the money to consult with a lawyer familiar with this type of work. he/she can tell you what your rights are and what the process is. If find if you are reprsented the State is more likely to take you seriously.
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Thanks, Adam, I thought you could still sue and go before a judge to get a reasonable valuation.

I didn't think that getting a notice would mean the increase in value stops.

I figured that speculators would want to buy to get in on the deal. What ever happened to, "I found out they have secret plans to put in a highway?" Oh. That's if you would suddenly have highway frontage.
 
A phenomenon that we have going on currently in our area is the CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations) ruining the property values and life styles of the local residents. This is happening to our mechanic (a GREAT guy) who bought a small farm and put in a nice grass strip just three miles down the road. A large corporate hog farm recently moved into his mile-section and has adversely affected his life and property value. He fought it legally and honorably, and not only did he lose, but he also had his house shot at. We voted to have zoning in our township to keep the CAFOs out and they still got to move in! It's a mess. And there is nothing he can do about it now but move. Same thing could happen to us.
 
Well, time for the neighborhood to retain an eminent domain specialist attorney. You can't necessarily win.

The bad thing relates to timing: you'll get less value for the property if the market continues to drop and stays low during the process. The government will see that as a good thing - you will not. The important timing is not when they plan to build, it's when they plan to buy.

I've been fighting a similar battle against the big power utilities. They want to run a new, major power line from Pennsylvania and West Virginia into the DC area. One of the proposed routes went across some property I own atop a mountain. They planned the route about 1 mile from the existing power line. I've been to various public hearings - the latest proposal places the new power line adjacent to the existing power line where it crosses the mountain. It hurts one of my neighbors (who already has the line crossing his property) but spares me any my closest neighbors.

If they're dead-set on this, I guess they'll either take your home or one of the neighbors homes... Are there any alternatives - like a bypass - that make sense? If the State is cramming this down, the local town may be on your side, especially if they lose big tax $$$ as a result of having many houses torn down.

BTW, as for a 50' setback, I'd bet that the setback will readily be waived if it saves the township the full cost of buying the home - and if it saves the township the property taxes from you. Of course, losing the setback will most likely be something YOU don't want to happen....
 
Kaye said:
Well, that really sucks, Mike.

But as I'm catching up on posts, how's Pancho doing on his meds?

Kaye
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She's doing better. The decongestant/antibiotics work as long as it's not too long since the last dose.

She has some apnea episodes, but she stopped wheezing right away.

She's sleeping well here and there, although I still caught her still trying to sleep standing up this morning.

Currently she's fine doing the usual "watch daddy's every move" thing. I think the medicine wires her a bit so she doesn't sleep as much.
 
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