Vanishing Ocean Homes and Property

Emergency managers know that in many cases the homes being impacted by flooding are the same ones that have been impacted in the past. Thus there are repetitive losses. New carpet, furnaces, drywall, etc. are installed after each flood. The goal is to remove these homes from the property rolls by using mitigation funds to “buy out” the properties and in many cases turn those areas of repeated flooding into green spaces such as parks or other recreation areas—but no infrastructure that can be damaged by flood waters.

On the other side of the coin are ocean front properties. It is clear that many of these have regular “high water” from tides and storms. Because they are many times built up on tall pilings, many feet in the air. What we are seeing now though is that beach erosion and sea rise is starting to claim these properties. See this NY Times article, Another Outer Banks Home Collapses Into Ocean, a Stark Reminder of Climate Change

This is not a happy day for anyone. Seeing home “float away” and be broken up into thousands of pieces by the waves is not anyone’s dream. But, there is one blessing! I don’t believe that property will ever be rebuilt on the land, or should I say sand, where it once stood. Nature has removed it from the list of community properties.

While writing this blog post I was thinking about the tax implications of those homes lost to the waves. The land, sand, shore remains, so I expect they still have to pay taxes for the property even if they don’t have a home on the site---hmm? If there are any community assessors reading this, if there is not a process or procedure in place now, and you are a shoreline community, you might want to figure out the path forward before the issue is staring you in the face.  Properties lost to land slides likely have the same issue to be addressed.