I have a request from the owner of a strip center for elevation certificates. There are two separate buildings with about 5 tenants in each building. Each tenant needs his own policy but both buildings are owned by the same guy. I'm not sure if I would need to do a separate EC for each tenant or just one per building with just the owners info. Thoughts? I've never done an EC before, any general tips appreciated also. Yes I'm in Houston.
Well, this aughta be good.
"I performed a visual inspection, during the August/september 2017 flood, and both buildings, were about10-12' above flood level. In me profeshenal Arkasnan way of thinkin, we good!"
🙂
Apparently the term "strip center" does not mean what I first thought it meant. Sorry.:blush::blush::blush::blush::blush:
Just a guess here since I have never encountered this but if each tenant is a separate address and can be conveyed separately as its own property then I would think that you would need to perform an elevation cert for each one.
And since you are in Houston & in light of your current troubles with flooding it would be probably be prudent and adviseable to perform multiple certificates.
If you get done with that project could you post what the requirements were. Just the field crew here wondering if it's required to take photos of the sheetrock partition walls between the lease spaces. I don't fill out the forms and I'm wondering that since it's a government form if they require all the blanks to be filled in.
If I, as the field crew, knew any tips or advice I would say it would depend on whether you were going to be filling out two ECs, or ten.
If each tenant is responsible for their own Flood Insurance; then each office would be a separate EC. I'd assume the FFE is the same throughout each building, but that may not be the case. You would want to show what is specific to each tenant's space. In other words the FFE might be the same for all 5 tenants, but the LAG and HAG might be different.
I would not take pictures of the partition wall unless there was some specific reason to do so. The Building is all connected. If water floods one tenant, they all get flooded. Outside building pic's of the front and rear should be sufficient.
I've done townhouses and condo's before, so, I have some experience; but each case is different. Just try to think from the Insurance agency's perspective. What would they need to know in order to issue a policy.
RPLS#, post: 444715, member: 12280 wrote: I have a request from the owner of a strip center for elevation certificates. There are two separate buildings with about 5 tenants in each building. Each tenant needs his own policy but both buildings are owned by the same guy. I'm not sure if I would need to do a separate EC for each tenant or just one per building with just the owners info. Thoughts? I've never done an EC before, any general tips appreciated also. Yes I'm in Houston.
I have dealt with this issue here in NJ in the aftermath of hurricane Sandy and the FEMA revisions to the flood maps that resulted. As their is a common owner to the two buildings, the tenants in each will be responsible for their own insurances, including flood insurance. You would need to complete a form for each individual leased space, the same as you would for condos and town houses.
I charged $750/cert. I no longer do them for anything other than a single family dwelling.
Flood insurance requirements and the FEMA certs are going to change rapidly in the wake of the devastation in TX and LA.
Keep in mind that you are dealing with more than one Attorney and Insurer and my experience has been that their understanding and knowledge of the Elev Cert form is nill.
I would do it as all seperate certs like said before. Same owner name and legal description and maybe use the tenant's address as designation in that description. I would then explain in the comments section what is going on. I would show front and rear pictures of each address and the end ones would get a side picture as well.
RPLS#, post: 444715, member: 12280 wrote: I have a request from the owner of a strip center for elevation certificates. There are two separate buildings with about 5 tenants in each building. Each tenant needs his own policy but both buildings are owned by the same guy. I'm not sure if I would need to do a separate EC for each tenant or just one per building with just the owners info. Thoughts? I've never done an EC before, any general tips appreciated also. Yes I'm in Houston.
Every Elevation Certificate usually is done for the building/house therefore you should have two EC done ( for each building).
I would do it then for every owner since the separate policy is required for additional charge.
All these also has to be discussed with insurance company as well.
You only need to an Elevation Certificate for each building and not for every tenant if the slab is flat. In the Building Street Address or Property Description you need to call one Building A or Building B etc... Take one Photo with the front view of the building one of the back view if not then a side view, try to get the outside AC units in the photo, unless they are on the roof top. The owner of the building should provides copies to the Tenants for flood insurance.
Scott Ellis, post: 445170, member: 7154 wrote: You only need to an Elevation Certificate for each building and not for every tenant if the slab is flat. In the Building Street Address or Property Description you need to call one Building A or Building B etc... Take one Photo with the front view of the building one of the back view if not then a side view, try to get the outside AC units in the photo, unless they are on the roof top. The owner of the building should provides copies to the Tenants for flood insurance.
That may seem like the right answer but it is not necessarily the truth. Each tenant will likely carry their own insurance policy. While the owner may have insured the building the tenants will likely be separately insuring the contents of their individual units and have no right to rely on an EC issued to the building owner when they were not individually involved in the original transaction as a party of interest.
If it were to hold true that only one EC per building were needed, using the same thought process, any condo or town house building built on slab with equal first floor elevations would require only one EC in perpetuity regardless of how many tiles title to those units was transferred leaving the Surveyor who completed the original EC in a situation that he/she is liable to any new owner for as long as the building stands.
If you do a property survey and a few years down the road the client sells or otherwise transfers title to the subject property, does the buyer have the right to rely on your survey if you were not engaged to update it and recertify it to the new owner?
Chris Bouffard, post: 446049, member: 12313 wrote: That may seem like the right answer but it is not necessarily the truth. Each tenant will likely carry their own insurance policy. While the owner may have insured the building the tenants will likely be separately insuring the contents of their individual units and have no right to rely on an EC issued to the building owner when they were not individually involved in the original transaction as a party of interest.
If it were to hold true that only one EC per building were needed, using the same thought process, any condo or town house building built on slab with equal first floor elevations would require only one EC in perpetuity regardless of how many tiles title to those units was transferred leaving the Surveyor who completed the original EC in a situation that he/she is liable to any new owner for as long as the building stands.
If you do a property survey and a few years down the road the client sells or otherwise transfers title to the subject property, does the buyer have the right to rely on your survey if you were not engaged to update it and recertify it to the new owner?
The difference between a strip mall center and a Condo or Townhouse, is the Condo and Townhouse usually have their own separate legal description, and a separate address. Where the strip mall would usually just be building A, B and etc.. The reason the Strip Center could rely on the Elevation Certificate is because all the renters fall under the same Legal Description. Most of the time the insurance agents could care less whose name is on the Elevation Certificate or how old the Elevation Certificate is, they just care about the address and legal description.
Thats a good question about the Survey, if they relied on your Survey to buy the property, shouldn't they be able to rely on the same survey to sell the property?
Scott Ellis, post: 449117, member: 7154 wrote: The difference between a strip mall center and a Condo or Townhouse, is the Condo and Townhouse usually have their own separate legal description, and a separate address. Where the strip mall would usually just be building A, B and etc.. The reason the Strip Center could rely on the Elevation Certificate is because all the renters fall under the same Legal Description. Most of the time the insurance agents could care less whose name is on the Elevation Certificate or how old the Elevation Certificate is, they just care about the address and legal description.
Thats a good question about the Survey, if they relied on your Survey to buy the property, shouldn't they be able to rely on the same survey to sell the property?
No they shouldn't be able to rely on the survey to sell it, or, let me back track here, yes, they should but the recertification of the survey to the new owner should come with a fee as the liability is extended to a party not involved in the original transaction between the Surveyor and seller.
The latest flood level was around 85ft msl.