Purchasing and insuring a sinkhole repaired home in Spring Hill. (Sarasota: sale, rent)

[bentlebee]

Originally Posted by amazin6

We are still concerned about this sinkhole issue. Many real estate web sites do not inform buyers of any settlement issues. Conversely, realtors may mention settlement issues on the listing page yet the same house does not show any problem on the Hernando County Property Appraiser's page where we would assume it MUST be provided by law.
Hernando County, FL - Property Appraiser - Alvin R. Mazourek - Brooksville, Florida
Are most of these sinkhole claims just to gain an insurance settlement in the past or should they be a deal breaker as far as relocating to the Hernando County area? Our research seems ambiguous at best. Thank you.

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Keep in mind that homes that don't have a sinkhole could have a sinkhole in the future since nobody will knowwhat the future will bring. Some areas are more likely to get them and many sinkhole homes just had settlement issues and were part of a insurance scam or owners filed a claim and someone down the line didn't follow up and just took it as a sinkhole property and these properties are forever labeled as sinkhole homes.

[The Villages Guy]

Originally Posted by bentlebee

Keep in mind that homes that don't have a sinkhole could have a sinkhole in the future since nobody will knowwhat the future will bring. Some areas are more likely to get them and many sinkhole homes just had settlement issues and were part of a insurance scam or owners filed a claim and someone down the line didn't follow up and just took it as a sinkhole property and these properties are forever labeled as sinkhole homes.

How do I go about finding out the sinkhole probability in the unincorporated 34685 part of Palm Harbor I live in, which is in the East Lake corridor? I saw a map from 2008, I believe, that showed generalized dots for Tampa Bay and the East Lake corridor seemed to be without many. I don't know if they did not record them or if there is something about the land going down East Lake Road and up against the east side of Lake Tarpon that makes sinkholes less "likely" there.

[HughMcs]

I recently read in the St Pete Times that the deductible on all sinkhole claims is now $20,000 - I dread to see what the premiums on a $150K homes are going for.

[Spring Hillian]

"Settlement issues" are one thing, but active sinkhole activity is another. Settlement issues can usually be corrected, cosmetically, while sinkhole damage would be a lot harder to hide. You won't find "settlement issues" list by the property appraiser.

Yes, there are/were thousands of bogus sink hole claims. Just hire a sinkhole company, they will go to no end to find a sinkhole on your property. Some sub divisions are notorious for the sink hole claims within the sub division but little to no activity surrounding the sub division.

Originally Posted by amazin6

We are still concerned about this sinkhole issue. Many real estate web sites do not inform buyers of any settlement issues. Conversely, realtors may mention settlement issues on the listing page yet the same house does not show any problem on the Hernando County Property Appraiser's page where we would assume it MUST be provided by law.
Hernando County, FL - Property Appraiser - Alvin R. Mazourek - Brooksville, Florida
Are most of these sinkhole claims just to gain an insurance settlement in the past or should they be a deal breaker as far as relocating to the Hernando County area? Our research seems ambiguous at best. Thank you.

[bentlebee]

Originally Posted by PriusH8r

How do I go about finding out the sinkhole probability in the unincorporated 34685 part of Palm Harbor I live in, which is in the East Lake corridor? I saw a map from 2008, I believe, that showed generalized dots for Tampa Bay and the East Lake corridor seemed to be without many. I don't know if they did not record them or if there is something about the land going down East Lake Road and up against the east side of Lake Tarpon that makes sinkholes less "likely" there.

I would suggest to be more specific with the area and there are certain companies out there who are specialized in gorund settling issues and they might have experience in that specific area you are looking for.

If you are looking to build a new home or buy a new home than I would for sure spend time on that.

Keep in mind that many of the places were never sinkhole homes but wrongly labeled and now considered ins. fraud but will always keep that sinkhole label on them and therefore a less value and harder or impossible to be insured.

[EngGirl]

Originally Posted by Spring Hillian

Just hire a sinkhole company, they will go to no end to find a sinkhole on your property.

Maybe I am wrong, but to me amazin6 was concerned about lack of info for the houses that are for sale. It's going to be very expensive to hire a sinkhole company for every house someone considering to buy.

[Spring Hillian]

What info? The fact that there are settlement cracks? If a property was/is a sinkhole property is easily determined.

The point of my closing sentence was that no matter what has occurred in the past is no indication of what is going on underground at any given time.

Originally Posted by EngGirl

Maybe I am wrong, but to me amazin6 was concerned about lack of info for the houses that are for sale. It's going to be very expensive to hire a sinkhole company for every house someone considering to buy.

[bentlebee]

If windows and doors are not opening easily and tiles are cracked and/or stucco has big cracks than it may be a sign of more issues.

[EngGirl]

Originally Posted by Spring Hillian

What info? The fact that there are settlement cracks? If a property was/is a sinkhole property is easily determined.

The point of my closing sentence was that no matter what has occurred in the past is no indication of what is going on underground at any given time.

Sometime no info related to settlement/sinkhole activity is provided. if it was fixed, there is no way to say what happened there just by visual inspection.
Settlement cracks are easy to hide for someone who is planning to sell his/her property.

[Pragmaticus]

Originally Posted by PriusH8r

How do I go about finding out the sinkhole probability in the unincorporated 34685 part of Palm Harbor I live in, which is in the East Lake corridor? I saw a map from 2008, I believe, that showed generalized dots for Tampa Bay and the East Lake corridor seemed to be without many. I don't know if they did not record them or if there is something about the land going down East Lake Road and up against the east side of Lake Tarpon that makes sinkholes less "likely" there.

You can research online about the geology of your area. There are tone of documents from USGS and others on these.

All a local "sinkhole expert" is going to tell you is look at the type of soil you have in your neighborhood and compare it standard sinkhole prone formations, if an existing ground water was to be drained. You need two things for the sinkhole to happen: favorable geologic formation as well as a presence of ground water. The ground water has to be drained and the weight supported by the water should cause the soil particles to reshufle and make the ground subside because now the extra "help" provided by the water needed to be shared by the soil particle. Who is going to tell you the future use of the ground water at a specific location? And remember even if one know water would be drained in the future at that location, one need to know the weather (rainfall) at that specific time, another varaiable that almost needs a crystal ball. Your local geology is so uncertain, one would need to drill and take soil sample at different depth to truely characterize it, which would super expensive for residential area. That's why a regional scale geological x-sectional map would give you a general idea.

Bottom line, most would just look at the geological formation of the place and guess the likelihood of sinkhole. Not to be confused to a settlement of soil, which actually is consolidation and happen every where http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consolidation_(soil)