Depends on rules in your state. In TX you wouldn't. Up to the buyer to check those things out here.

Nope.

My only thought for you is that if you really don't want to live there, and unless you really really like the property, you could sell it to someone who will be working there. Just a thought.

There is nothing on our (NC) disclosure Statement regarding anything like this.
Should have gone to the planning commission and asked.

And even if (and that's a big "if") the seller was supposed to disclose it, can you prove that they even knew about it? They can't disclose something they didn't know about.

No, certainly not. This was surely readily available public knowledge if one cared to look for it--not that your seller even knew. I couldn't tell you whether there was a jail within 3.5 miles of my house right now, much less whether one might be planned.

It is called 'due diligence.'

You did not perform.

It was likely public information.

3.5 miles? I'm curious as to why that is a problem. The vast majority of my hometown of about 80,000 or so people lives within 3.5 miles of the county jail.

The only problem I can think of are the ones that are released hang around nearby sometimes; but 3.5 miles, not much risk.

Always Google Earth the area you plan on moving to. You can learn a lot from doing this. Also go to the areas Planning and Zoning web site. They list all planned, funded and started projects.

cmarlin--I agree. Relatively low risk in a county jail 3.5 miles away. That's why I asked.

A county jail is just a big building. They're commonly in town. It's not like a prison or anything, with barbed wire and guard towers. I can't see a jail 3.5 miles from you having an impact on property values.

Well, I think we may live 3.5 miles from the county jail. It's in the center of town. However, about 3 or 4 years ago, they decided they needed to build an extension to hold all of the female criminals because the jail was bursting at the seams. So the county commissioners had to decide between plots of land, or decide to hold off on the thing entirely. Wouldn't you know, one of the plots of land is behind my house. We are not talking 3.5 miles. We are talking maybe 300 yards. YIKES. I live sort of on a ridge and the plot of land is visible from my bedroom window, so I would have been able to see the jail from up above every day, at least during the winter.

Yeah, so that was a problem. People from my subdivision and the one next to us showed up at the meeting to protest. Luckily, the mayor of the city at the time lives in my subdivision, so he was all ready to get up and tell them where to put their stupid annex. There is all kinds of land around here that they could use without having to go right next to a couple of subdivisions and within a half mile of an elementary school.

Anyway, they tabled it and then right after that, the land sold and there's some kind of truck storage place on it, which is MUCH BETTER than a jail. It's mostly empty and the only thing I can see is the lights from their parking lot during the winter. Not a big deal. Much better than a JAIL. Dodged a bullet on that one.

Anyway, 3.5 miles--not a big deal. Are you thinking they are going to let them out and they will walk by your house or something?

>It's not like a prison or anything, with barbed wire and guard towers.

Well, ours is (acreage was cheap at the time), but even so there are many multimillionaires who have winter homes within a mile or a mile and half of it, and none of them kick about it, that I've ever heard. Like rrah, in this area practically everyone who isn't on a farm or ranch is within 3.5 miles of that facility. I wouldn't want to be within view of it, but I also don't see the problem with 3.5 miles.

"A county jail is just a big building. They're commonly in town. It's not like a prison or anything, with barbed wire and guard towers."

Uh, no.
Our county jail IS a prison, with barbed wire and guard towers. Mean dogs and high powered rifles too!
The city jail is in town.

I live in one of the best neighborhoods in our small town and it's about 1 mile from the county jail. Never gave it a thought when we bought this house.

If someone breaks out of the jail, 1 mile from the jail is NOT where they would want to hang out! They'd high-tail it out of the county as fast as they could!

Well, I had friends who found a house they loved and were already to make a bid on, when they asked what was behind it--the new state prison. It was basically next door (but in the back), so obviously, they chose not to buy there.

But 3.5 miles away? I'm with the rest here, that's not close enough to be considered any kind of real danger, and even if your state included jails/prisons in their disclosure regulations, that's probably far enough away that it wouldn't be required anyway.

Relax, and enjoy your new home!

"It's not like a prison or anything, with barbed wire and guard towers."

I also agree with this and don't see any cause for real concern.

However, if this were my house, I'd install some type of security system just to be on the safe side.

Having a sign out front should deter any potential escapees from thinking that YOUR house might be a soft target on their way out of Dodge!

When I lived in the western burbs of Chicago, we had the county decide to build their jail (A 1000-bed medium security facility) literally 2 blocks from us. But they architect-ed it in such a way that it didn't look like a prison and was actually attached to a pre-existing judicial building. It didn't hurt my property values at all, and the increased police activity in the area was actually seen by my neighbors and I as a PLUS. Not only did we feel safer, but it took care of all those kids racing too fast through the neighborhood streets.

Years ago, the old maximum security prison was being decommissioned, and a new "supermax" prison was being built in another town some miles away.

The television station sent a reporter out to do 'man on the street' interviews and get sound bites on what the locals thought.

"It doesn't bother me at all" one woman said. "If someone breaks out he's not going to hang around nearby."