The Outhouse That Killed a St. Mary Land Sale
My client flew in from overseas to see a lot in St. Mary. He liked it enough to submit an offer the same week.
He ordered a survey. He paid his fees. Between the flight, the survey, and everything else, he was into it for somewhere between US$1,000 and US$3,000 before anything went wrong.
Then the survey came back, and it flagged something small: the title said the lot should have one structure on it. There were two. The seller had put up an outhouse at some point, and it was never added to the title.
Why One Outhouse Was Enough to Stop the Deal
I want to be clear about what actually stopped this sale, because it wasn’t price and it wasn’t cold feet. It was the bank.
Buying land in Jamaica with financing means the property has to match its title description before a lender will approve a mortgage. Not roughly match — match. The bank’s position was simple: the outhouse either gets demolished, or the loan doesn’t happen.
That put the seller and my client in a standoff neither one wanted. The seller wouldn’t tear down a structure he’d built and was still using. My client, who’d already spent real money getting this far, wasn’t willing to spend more fixing a problem that wasn’t his to fix. We went back and forth for weeks. Nobody moved. Eventually the deal just died where it stood.
What This Actually Costs a Buyer
It’s easy to read “unpermitted structure” and think it’s a paperwork detail. It isn’t, once a bank is involved. Here’s what it actually cost my client:
- The flight to view the property
- The survey fee
- Weeks of back-and-forth that went nowhere
- A property he genuinely wanted, that he now has to walk away from
None of that comes back. And it was all avoidable, because the mismatch between the physical lot and the title existed before he ever made an offer — it just hadn’t surfaced yet.
What I Now Check Before a Client Makes an Offer
I don’t wait for the bank to find this anymore. On any lot deal, I now:
Walk the property against the title before an offer goes in, not after. If the title says one structure and I count two, that’s a conversation with the seller before anyone spends money on anything.
Ask the seller directly if anything on the land was added after the title was issued. Most sellers aren’t hiding this on purpose — they genuinely don’t think of an old outhouse, fence, or storage shed as something that needed to go on paper.
Get the survey ordered earlier in the process, even before an offer is finalized if the timeline allows it, so a mismatch shows up while it’s still cheap to walk away or negotiate around.
Put resolution terms in the offer itself. If there’s any doubt about what’s on the land versus what’s on the title, the offer should say up front who pays to fix it — instead of leaving that fight for after the bank has already said no.
If you’re buying land in Jamaica and financing is part of the plan, this is the one thing worth checking before you fall in love with a property: does everything physically on the lot match what the title says is there? If not, find out why before you spend a dollar on surveys, flights, or fees.