Property Hunting & What to Know About Existing Buildings

When you are out looking for the perfect piece of property to buy and start your wedding venue business on, be careful about older buildings. It's important to understand that an updated barn might not be the best option for you. Also, Amee talks about ADA requirements and whether an older barn or building is "grandfathered".

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:07

Hi there. Welcome back. So I have to tell you that I do record these podcasts at my house on the farm in Snohomish, just outside of Seattle. So I don't have a fancy studio there isn't a soundproof room anywhere. Um, I know that some, you know, folks that do podcasts or audio books or something like that, we'll go crawl into their closet, shut the door and, um, and try to record in the dark there. And I can't do that. Um, for one of my closets are too small. Um, so I, the reason I'm saying this right now is because, uh, I don't always get a chance to have peace and quiet when I do my recordings. And as the case today, it's beautiful outside it's October and I'm looking out and there's a tractor Outback rolling around on the field, um, here on the, on the property doing its job. I can't go out and ask him to stop. And so if you hear a strange rumble in the background, just know that this is authentic. Um, that's a John Deere mower moment down some comfrey. And, um, I don't think you might pick it up on there, but like I said, I, you never know. Um, we've got a donkey here on the property. His name is Brady and I, he can pick the best time to decide that he needs to tell everybody hello and he's actually quite friendly. Um, but he's also loud. So anyways, um, today, uh, it's not to talk about farm life. Um, it's actually to talk about, um, existing buildings. Um, this was another, uh, question that I got actually, a reader had reached out to me because, um, she had found a property and thought it was like a shoe in to be able to go in and buy. Um, it was in the right location. Um, good County, the County had the right regulations to be able to allow it, um, doing wedding venues. That is, and, um, and then it had, um, outbuildings that, you know, were a little tiny apartments that are perfect for being able to do changing rooms, uh, you know, kitchen areas, spaces to be able to put in a prep kitchen for catering, all that good stuff. And the big thing was this beautiful barn, um, built in probably I think when I looked at the tax records on it for her somewhere around the early 19 hundreds, so gorgeous barn that the current owner had actually already renovated the barn and put in, um, two extra stories inside the barn. So to the novice on the outside, that looks like a great, a great program right there. And you're like, Oh my gosh, the barn is already cleaned up. It's been renovated. I can totally just go right in and just, you know, turnkey this into a wedding venue. And in fact, the real estate agents were promoting it as, you know, a possible, you know, agritourism space for that. So the, the question though, was that obviously there's no ADA out there and that's Americans with disabilities act, which was a law that was put into place in the United States to allow equal access to facilities for people that had limited accessibility, um, wheelchairs, um, crutches, canes, things like that. Um, we're all familiar with ADA bathrooms, um, ramps and elevators and stuff like that. And there's this misconception that old buildings, um, are grandfathered in and don't have to worry about that. And so this person who had reached out to me and said, Hey, the barns and beautiful shape, it looks amazing, but it doesn't have ADA access, but isn't it old enough that we don't need to worry about that. You know? And so talking about that today, because I know a lot of you that have reached out to me are in this position where you don't have your property, you're out hunting for, you know, the most amazing farm so that you can retire on or move out of the city and take your family out to and do what's going on right now, mow fields, um, raised chickens, goats, whatever you want to do, and then make a nice living, renting out to weddings. And so you're looking for these awesome spaces, the problem that we had with, um, this particular barn. And I'm gonna use this as an example, cause this is easiest to learn from is that it would have been better if nothing had been done to it at all. Um, when I looked up the property for this person, um, and it took me no time at all. So if any of you are out there and you're like, Hey, I'm looking at this property here. If the records are online and I can dig them all up, I can usually give you a pretty good view of what's going on, but I'm going to teach you that like what I did. So she gave me the address where this place was located. I got into the County records, I looked at the address, the first thing that I was looking for as I was looking for the permitting on it, I wanted to see if that barn that had, you know, these three stories added to it and interior wise, it actually been permitted for any of that. And if it had been permitted, did it have the permits for the right, um, certificate of occupancy? Now I've talked about certificate of occupancy before I mentioned it in the book, it is a review and an identification of a building to make sure that it is in suitable condition for its intended use. Barns are intended to put hay and horses in. They are not intended to have 150 to 250 people packed in wall to wall up to the rafters. So when you are going to change from a barn, you know, hay and horses to a place where people are going to be in, then you're talking about, and this is, this is in code and this is a part of architecture you're talking about changing its use. And that's a, that's an actual, um, term for that. And when you change the use of it, that's when you actually have to go in and go through a permitting process. So if you have a barn in this case that had two extra stories put in and it wouldn't structure built in the 19 hundreds and no building department at any point in time ever reviewed it to make sure it was built correctly. The exits were there, um, that it might need to be sprinkled, you know, have a sprinkler system installed in any of those things. And you're paying money for this barn and it's not ready to go for the use that you have for it. You're going to be throwing money away. And like I told, this poor woman, I said, it's actually better. That that barn had never been touched. You have a better place to start with than to start with something that had all that work done in it and have none of it be approved. Um, and so ADA and grandfathering doesn't apply to what it is that you guys are looking to be able to do because you are going to go in and you're going to take an old ag structure of barn or a shed or anything like that. And you're going to change its use. And when you go from making it a barn into an assembly space, then all the codes that apply to that, that assembly use go into effect right away. And that means ADA does have to be included in there. So, um, there are, doesn't matter how old it is. Um, it's in fact, the older it is, the more likely you're going to have more, um, things that you're going to have to deal in. And so if you're out there looking for these, um, these great properties don't buy into, I mean, unless, unless you do a permit review and they've actually gotten all the permits for it, and it is approved to be used as a wedding place or an assembly space, don't get caught up in buying property that someone has placed value on it. That actually isn't even realized in the case of this farm, I went back to her and I said, you need to talk to the real estate agent, you know, your agent and find out what's the value of that property really as a farm with none of those improvements in there, because if you buy the farm and then you have to go and get the permitting from the, from the County or municipality to be able to be used, you're going to have to spend all the money. And then if any of the work wasn't done right or correctly, you're going to have to pay for all that money to get it done and get it permitted. There's no reason to be able to buy that property from that guy and give him the value that he never put into. Does that make sense? Maybe it does. Maybe it doesn't. Um, the point is, is, you know, you don't buy on potential. You buy on what you actually have available to you. So no permits to be able to use it as a wedding facility, no matter how Austin the inside of it looks and how well done it seems to be is in, it's not a wedding facility and you're going to have to put the money into it to make it there. And there is no such thing as grandfathering. Um, public accommodations must, um, remove all barriers when it can be readily achievable. Um, and that means, um, ramps, grab bars, curbs, elevators, to get up to multilevel stories. The ADA can be, um, can be quite, um, an expensive endeavor when you want to be able to do something like this. So anyways, um, those are some things to know as you're going through when you're hunting for property. And you're looking for ones that have existing structures. That's why I've said this before. Um, if you're getting into this business right away, uh, look for good property that has good potential and build yourself up to it unless you just happen to have a ton of money to go and invest from day one. Um, but anyways, another good question that came from the people that are out there. So I look forward to hearing more from you guys, and if you have any other questions like this, please go to the website at wedding, then you biz.com. Use the contact form and shoot one over to me. Thank you and have a great afternoon.