Question on SD's (Huntington, Syosset, Jericho: for sale, lawyer, house)
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Good Morning,
My husband and I looked at a house yesterday that was in Cold Spring Harbor but it belonged to the Huntington school district. The current owners said that their neighbors would be willing to switch a parcel of land with us (for a cost) so that the house would then be in CSH SD.
My realtor thought between lawyer fee's and etc. this would cost around 10K.
I would contact the district to be sure that if you owned the lot in the district, yet the house is on the lot that is in Hunt. District that you could send the kiddos to CSH.
Honestly, the house must be on the line, if it is not CSH district, it is Huntington-just like Lloyd Harbor and Neck are Huntington (but go to CSH), laurel hollow is not CSH, but goes to CSH, etc.
Look at the TAXES you will pay on the CSH parcel, and add that to your cost. If the entire transaction would cost 10K-that is what CSH'ers pay in school tax per year-most folks are close to 17-20K in total taxes in CSH right now.
Talk to the district directly, have the lot number and exact address. Tell them your plan, be honest. The last thing you want is to do the transaction than have the district say no as you are attempting to enroll.
Good luck, keep us posted. As a former CSHer and Huntingtonian I am curious.
I will contact the school. Right now the taxes are about 11K and I assume they will shoot up to about 15K if we manage to "fanagle" our way into the SD. But, at the same time the 10K taxes reflect a CSH address so I am not sure.
Does it sound legal to you? As far as swapping parcels of land to get into a SD?
I personally would not do it. NO way. I think that any Iffy-ness that exists about what school district you are in or will, it is not worth the gamble. I think you should be 100% sure of what your school district is, based on what it has always been, in order to pay the right price for the house based on market value (which is based on SD mostly in LI).
And what would happen if you want to resell? Can this be denied to the new owner? Will new owners shy away from this? I know I would as I would never feel comfortable with this, JMO.
Good Morning,
My husband and I looked at a house yesterday that was in Cold Spring Harbor but it belonged to the Huntington school district. The current owners said that their neighbors would be willing to switch a parcel of land with us (for a cost) so that the house would then be in CSH SD.
My realtor thought between lawyer fee's and etc. this would cost around 10K.
Has anyone heard of such a thing?
Sounds far-fetched. I am cynical. If the owner's felt it would be to their benefit to own/sell a home in the CSHSD, why didn't they already do so?
My husband and I looked at a house yesterday that was in Cold Spring Harbor but it belonged to the Huntington school district. The current owners said that their neighbors would be willing to switch a parcel of land with us (for a cost) so that the house would then be in CSH SD.
You pose a very interesting situation by attempting to move a property from one school district to another by buying a lot that is in the second school district and then changing the designation of the new combined lot into the second school district.
1. In NYS, it does not matter where the house is in relation to the school district line, if, at least, some part of the property is in the school district. (Other states go so far as to put part of a house in one school district and another part or parts in one or more other school districts depending on where the various parts of the house fall within the school district boundary line. In those states that do that, siblings can be in different school districts depending on which school district their bedrooms are located in!)
2. A number of years ago, NYS did change the law so that each time a property that is partly in two or more school districts is sold, the new owner could make a one time election of which school district the property should be in. Prior to that change, only the first buyer of the property, following its development and the building of a house, could make that election, and that election would be binding on all future property owners.
3. After purchasing the lot in the second school district, in order to elect to become part of the second school district, the two or more lots would, most probably, need to be re-mapped as one lot, not multiple lots, and this would require a vote of the town board of the town in which the lots were located, and hopefully the lots would only be in a single town. In your case, this would be the Town of Huntington. In addition to the costs, there might be a time element in getting the Town Board to approve the new map making multiple lots into one lot.
An interesting sidelight: the Cold Spring Harbor school district is one of 3 bi-county school districts (the other two are Farmingdale and Amityville), and is considered a "Nassau County" school district for sports.
Last edited by Walter Greenspan; 11-05-2007 at 01:34 PM..
Reason: Modified eMail notification.
And if we did go through all this work and cost, I would assume that the house would then officially be in the CSH district forever. So, when we sell it would be CSH school district.
It would mean getting a lawyer, going to the town board and it could take 1-2years and I am sure quite a bit of work.
But, considering there is not one house in Cold Spring Harbor school district for sale under one million dollars it might just be worth it!
It would mean getting a lawyer, going to the town board and it could take 1-2years and I am sure quite a bit of work.
But, considering there is not one house in Cold Spring Harbor school district for sale under one million dollars it might just be worth it!
Well you have to buy the house first to attempt to rezone it. Which means you may pay a lot for a house in the Huntington SD (should you NOT be able to rezone it). I think you have to ask yourself, should this NOT be able to be passed, would you regret buying the house? Would you want to live there still, or move? Would you have wound up paying way more for a house in a SD you weren't interested in being in? Would you be able to get that same price or higher should you want to sell? Can this house possibly just cost you $, instead of make you $?
I am very very skeptical. I personally would not even buy a house on the border of a school zone, or with a different town name but zoned for a different school district. I would be too worried something "changes" with rezoning. I don't see why the homeowners would not have done this already if it was easily doable. Or did their kids use the HSD while it was "better" but no longer need to use the schools (which have gotten substantially worse since they probably moved there)?
And if we did go through all this work and cost, I would assume that the house would then officially be in the CSH district forever. So, when we sell it would be CSH school district.
It would mean getting a lawyer, going to the town board and it could take 1-2years and I am sure quite a bit of work.
But, considering there is not one house in Cold Spring Harbor school district for sale under one million dollars it might just be worth it!
Isn't it fair to argue though, that the difference between CSH schools and other top districts is minimal, and you could argue it is not as strong as some others. If you are not interested in spending a million dollars on a house why not look into other top scoring districts where you could spend the what you can afford without the HUGE risk of it not working out. Try Harborfields, or Syosset/Jericho, or Half Hollow Hills, even Northport. These are all very strong schools. A couple test higher (if you buy into the test thing) than CSH. Just another thought...
We also liked this house b/c it is close the the CSH train station. I think you all have very valid points and we will probably pass on it. It does seem a bit "sketchy".
Plus, I don't know if I would even want my kids at CSH. There are good and bad points to every school. I just thought it was an interesting idea.
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But aren't there comparable SD's
