I am in the negotiation stages of buying some land that to build on in the future. There is an existing 10 ac. lake on the land. It was built in the 1950's and has never had any issues from what the family has told me as far as leaking, etc. There are at least 50+ trees on the backside of the dam.
Before I place an offer on the land, the bank is requesting me to have an engineer inspect the dam. I am meeting with them next week. I've tried to research and came upon this website and have learned alot! Awesome site.
There is a unique and unfortunate aspect in the fact that a neighborhood was built 15 years ago about 40 yards behind the dam. I am getting all this insepcted becuase I dont want to have a liability issue on my hands in the future if this goes into the houses.
The lake is approx. 8-10 ft deep in the center where the creek channel is. the spillway was running normally when I was there. What issues do you see in the future? Should I just leave as is?
If I left it as is? Could this realistically last another 20-30 years? Or is that a bad gamble? I am going to look at property tommorrow again and will take more pictures of the actual dam and trees behind it. I was so excited the first day looking at it that I didnt even bother to notice all the trees. The banker just happen to ask me about it and then I realized I had a problem on my hands.
On one hand, this could provide me with negotiating power on reducing the overall price of the land.
Assuming the worst case scenario, what is a cost range that I should expect? Lets say I have to remove all trees, including root balls, repair dam, etc... are we talking 5-10K or more like 40-50K?
The only advantage that I see of having to drain the lake and make repairs would be that I could make the lake deeper? My future goals of the lake are to have trophy LMB! Is 8-10 ft deep enough for that?
