Jim Valentine: Governmental action and you

When you have something occur like what just happened in Douglas County it is important that you pay attention and look at your real estate portfolio to make sure you can protect yourself.

The Douglas County commissioners were considering limiting individual waste disposal systems (septic) to only being allowed on newly-created properties that are two acres or larger. It was narrowly defeated, but if it weren’t many of you with two acre or larger parcels that can now be divided would have been left without the ability to split it.

This was an arbitrary and capricious move on the part of certain governmental types that could have had a negative financial impact on many property owners. An owner of a five-acre parcel in an area of one-acre zoning could be waiting to split it until they were ready to give it to family members. It could be part of their retirement plans when they could split it and sell parcels periodically to boost their retirement income.

The problem with threatening to take away the right to do with it what they want is that it is not only an uncompensated regulatory taking, it could have the opposite effect of what the regulators are seeking to do with their not so hidden anti-growth agenda. Why take a chance and wait to divide your land? With such risk of maybe not being able to do it in the future without litigating with the regulating bodies, divide it now and make sure your real estate portfolio will be what you want it to be when you are ready for that planned course of action in your life.

This action would not only have impacted the affected property owners, but the citizens of the county would have also been impacted by having to pay the legal fees involved when the matter would have been litigated.

Our local government is here to protect us, not take away from us. Sometimes they need help in their efforts so be sure to pay attention to what is going on in your community, how it will affect you and your neighbors, and speak out if need be. This was a quiet item that almost slipped by. In this day and age of electronics and social media it is amazing how little discussion there was on such an impactful matter.

We won’t always agree with decisions made by our governing bodies, but one thing we should always agree on is that we don’t want our government to regulate uncompensated takings to the detriment of property owners. If something is needed to serve the majority of the population then they must make a hard decision to implement a taking and provide offsets for those negatively impacted. It is a constitutional right.

Serving in a decision-making governmental position isn’t always easy. They get pushed and pulled in many directions by their constituency. They should listen to the people, look at the decision to be made and how it will look over time not just in today’s time of inflamed rhetoric, and make the right objective decision. Subjective decisions serving their personal agenda have no place in a public position in our opinion.

Whether it is your HOA, PTA, or Board of County Commissioners, these people make decisions that impact your life. Pay attention to what they are doing. If they change the character of your community your property value may take a significant hit as people will choose to live elsewhere. Keep Northern Nevada special, keep it Nevada.

Don’t be complacent and think it won’t happen to you. Bad government can reach everybody and when it involves the land, it affects everyone – owner, tenant, investor, visitor… everyone!

When it comes to choosing professionals to assist you with your Real Estate needs… Experience is Priceless! Jim Valentine, RE/MAX Realty Affiliates, BS.3481, 775-781-3704. dpwtigers@hotmail.com