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Real Estate Newspeak"Sure, I can fax you a plat," said the nice real estate lady after showing me the home. (A plat is basically a detailed diagram of a property and its important features.) "Beautiful," said I, and it was heartfelt. How many log cabins will you find in the DC metro area, let alone one that's on 7.5 acres, with a long gravel driveway from the road, drop dead interior with loft, matching log 2-car 2-level garage, and the entire thing surrounded by thick, gorgeous woods with not another house visible in any direction? Not many. Price was steep, but what's life without a 70-year challenge, right? I was exactly what house hunters should not be: hooked. Seriously hooked. The fax arrived. Cool! Maps rule, and this one was a large scale map of something I was very interested in. Let's see here . . . there are some terms I'm not familiar with, understandable since I've never shopped for a house before. What is "B.R.L."? Oh, and this is interesting, it's called a "Resource Protection Zone", and just happens to take up, hmmm, like HALF THE PROPERTY! My heart was dropping as it began to feel the worst, and bottom was hit when I noticed that the RPZ (see how I'm already up to speed?) was intermingled with a "Forest Conservation Easement". Tell you the truth, it was several days before I could even bring myself to google up those terms and find out what I already knew by instinct, that I wasn't going to be living in that log cabin, loan approval notwithstanding. Found out that B.R.L stands for Building Restriction Line, typically a perimeter boundary which means that it's not really your property. "Resource Protection Zone" and "Forest Conservation Easement" also mean that it's not really your property. Worse, that last one can serve as a major foot in the door for not only government, but (can we curse on LRC?) "environmentalists". Yes, it seems that conservation easements, with their trendy vomit terms of "working forest" and "forever wild", are typically a joint effort between state thugs and enviro-wacko twerps to get your property. It's done with a combination of feel-good self flagellation and, imagine this, tax credits. Pressure can always be applied somehow. In this case, pressure is also applied to every future buyer. More on that later. As I look at this plat right now, it's sad to note that more of the property is restricted than is not. Only about 1/3 of the land is free of horrid terms which are meant to conjure up "responsible resource management", but really mean invasion, land devaluation, legal battles, snooping, snitching, CYA, and about 146 other things that are clear barriers or impediments to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. James Ostrowski recently summed up my feelings on this issue, where a man is "deprived of the satisfaction and dignity of making his own choice. For example, imagine you were thinking of marrying Jane Doe. Then, the government came along and forced you at gun point to marry her. It would not be quite the same experience, I suppose." No, it wouldn't. Since I was a child I have habitually worn a seat belt in cars. Seemed the best choice to me, though I understand there are accidents where it wouldn't be. Along comes nanny government to tell me that they felt my judgment was so good that they had made it a law! Guess I should have been flattered, but I was angry. Still am. What government had done was take away liberty while not changing my behavior in the slightest. It was one more choice I could not make without the threat of violent intervention, and one more foot in the door for thug cops who really didn't need any help in that department. It sets up the very real possibility that a lifelong seat belt guy can get a ticket when pulling out of a parking space, because he often puts on the belt after his hands are free from the pullout. That's a joke. And what will the jerk cop say to my protest? "The law is the law." I wonder what the cop in this video said to the guy she almost killed because she was too stupid and inept to not point a gun at a person without cause, let alone keep her finger off the trigger. I'm sorry, but I just had a serious laughing fit thinking of how stupid authoritarians can be. "The law is the law." The average yokel puts thumbs through overalls, shakes his head grimly, and mutters a sad, "Yup. Sure is." What a dumb thing to say. This concept has really hit me in the gut now, because I'm looking for a place to live, property to own – a place I can know is my own. I love trees! I can't see any reason why I'd ever want to get rid of a single one on that log cabin property if it wasn't about to fall down. Just before I saw that property, I'd surprised a different seller by commenting on how much I liked his back yard. It looked like pure forest. It seemed he was somewhat ashamed of it because it wasn't a typical yard. But it was just what I want in a back yard. Perfect for me would be not owning a lawn mower. Never could figure out what most lawns were for, other than needless work. Certainly not much fun to explore. So the state has joined forces with coercive enviro-weenies to tell this tree-loving guy that he'd better watch his step. He'd better take good care of thei . . . HIS property. No, real property doesn't happen in the United States. Anywhere. There is no property ownership when you must pay ransom to live there ("property taxes"). There is no ownership when central state thugs can try to conduct the "glancing geese" test, then ruin your life with unlimited resources and career-forwarding gumption as you try, simply, to live on what you thought was your property. You have nothing on your side when a combative neighbor calls the state with an anonymous tip that you were seen raking leaves in a "forever wild" portion of your lawn. The forever part really means that you are forever looking over your shoulder waiting for the boom to drop. That is no way to live. Where did this new "private" nonsense come from? It came from land owners who willingly ceded property rights via an easement to private conservation groups, forever applicable to all future "buyers". They did it for tax purposes, religious reasons, enviro-guilt, or whatever, but they did it. And now comes my turn. I will contribute my transactional feedback to the market in the form of refusing to buy any property with a forest conservation easement or anything that smells like holding property hostage. Though the effect may be small, it can contribute to lowering land values for those owners, and I am going to enjoy every penny I lose for them. I encourage every other buyer out there to examine plats carefully, and let the real estate agents and homeowners know why you're bowing out. Don't even consider negotiating with any of the phony orgs out there who pretend to look out for your property interests ("Oh, you can still cut trees down under the right circumstances! It's still your property!") while at the same time not trusting you to handle your property responsibly. Their easements are hammers hanging over buyers, and the market needs to do whatever it can, despite state interference, to hit sellers with the ultimate sledgehammer of buyer walkaways and land devaluation they brought on themselves in the name of enviro-piety. Refuse and make it known. I'll just be sitting here drawing a picture of a log cabin and pretending I live in one. Not so bad, really. Price is right. I might add some cats that I can be allergic to, and a wife. I'll call her Ayn, and the cats can be Zwei and Drei.
Copyright © 2003 LewRockwell.com
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June
3, 2003
