Buy or rent with great views, then see them get blocked

Adjacent buildings in Boeung Keng Kang 1 area of Phnom Penh.  Pity the owners in building at right.

It has been years since I blogged about lot-line windows in New York City.  Risk-takers or ignoramuses pay them no heed at their peril.  In Cambodia, however, it may make no difference to worry about them.

The windows in New York are in buildings constructed up to the limits of the lot they occupy, often for decades.  By law, the windows have chicken wire embedded in them so as to be recognizable as potentially obstructed.

It behooves

The High Road: With disclosure doubts, don’t ask

(Flickr photo by Auntie P)

Have you heard this observation before?

If you have to ask, you already know the answer.

Naive sellers may ask their listing brokers whether a certain defect needs to be disclosed.  The most sophisticated sellers know better than to ask their agent: They appreciate that the law obligates brokers to disclose defects of which they are aware.

At the same time, New York State is among the most permissive in the nation when it comes to seller disclosures.

Someone there is who does not love a wall

 

11-story building under construction at 77 E. 12th St. in January 2009. (Photo by Andrew Fine)

 

If it’s the light and the views that grab you in an apartment, don’t ask only about the low buildings in the distance, cautions real estate lawyer Ron Gitter, who regularly contributes his advice to readers of this blog and writes one of his own that is well worth bookmarking: coopandcondo.com. There is, he says, one other very important issue to consider.

by Ron Gitter

With an almost unquenchable thirst for square footage, developers of late have been utilizing the entire footprint of building lots–sometime with consequences that the residents of the newly constructed building don’t anticipate.

You’ll find an increasing number of examples of this trend in “lot line windows,”