When Taunton officials recently ordered the evacuation of 2,000 residents and blocked off parts of the city, employees from the Bristol County Registry of Deeds Northern District scrambled to move irreplaceable real estate records, books and servers from the basement of their downtown offices.
Two days after the emergency evacuation, with the registry offices still shut down, Register of Deeds David M. Simas and his staff were searching for sites to establish a temporary office when they finally got word that a conference room at Raynham Town Hall would be available.
Within hours, Simas and his staff were relocating computers and servers to the Raynham site to set up a temporary office. The mobile office was open for business by 9 a.m. the next day, but by day’s end, when Simas received word that it was safe to return to Taunton, the staff was busy repacking and preparing to move again.
Despite those efforts, the two-day shutdown caused headaches for some local real estate brokers, attorneys and title examiners who couldn’t record documents and do the research needed to keep real estate transactions moving smoothly along. It also clearly illustrated to Simas the need for another permanent registry office in case of such emergencies.
Rescheduled closings and delayed property showings were just some of the disruptions that local real estate brokers experienced because of the evacuation.
Fearing that the Whittenton Pond Dam on the Mill River would buckle and cause a flood, Taunton officials ordered the evacuation of 2,000 people two weeks ago and blocked off parts of the city, including the downtown area. The sagging 173-year-old wooden dam since has been replaced by a new stone structure.
‘Desperate Need’
Local businesses, including real estate offices, City Hall and other government buildings were closed as a result of the evacuation.
Church Green Real Estate Services, an affiliate of the Taunton Federal Credit Union, closed for three days, according to agent Tom Pemberton. “We could work from home, but we couldn’t interact with clients,” he said.
The administrative staff of the Taunton office of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, located in the downtown area – which was blocked off to traffic – couldn’t make it into the office, according to manager Dave Hutchinson.
Hutchinson, who was able to make it into the office despite the evacuation, said none of Coldwell Banker’s scheduled real estate closings had to be canceled.
But Mary Butler, an agent with Century 21 Kelly Lewis Realty, said some closings were put on hold because the registry was closed.
“A lot of [title] examinations couldn’t be done,” said Butler, who has about 30 properties listed for sale in Taunton.
Traffic blockades and barriers also made it very difficult for agents to show homes listed for sale in Taunton.
“It was very difficult to show anything because you couldn’t get around,” said Bing Byrne, who manages the Taunton and Raynham offices of Century 21 Kelly Lewis Realty.
Byrne said at least one closing had to be rescheduled.
One of biggest inconveniences, according to Byrne, was not being able to get final water meter readings from for-sale properties because the city’s Water Department was closed. Final water readings are customarily included as part of the closing costs that sellers pay.
The well-publicized evacuation also caused angst for homebuyers. Both Butler and Byrne said they received calls from buyers who wanted to know if the Taunton homes they purchased were in danger of being flooded.
Butler said a buyer from out of state who purchased a condominium in a townhouse development being constructed in Taunton called to ask if the home was near the dam.
“I did get calls from people moving into the area who were concerned,” Butler said.
Some agents interviewed by Banker & Tradesman last week said the publicized threat of flooding will not hurt real estate values or the marketability of homes in Taunton.
“It’s no different than Florida. They constantly get beat up by hurricanes and the prices keep going up,” said Coldwell Banker’s Hutchinson, who noted that buyers can purchase flood insurance to protect themselves.
Byrne, of Century 21 Kelly Lewis Realty, said real estate agents have an ethical responsibility to disclose issues they know about, such as potential flooding, to prospective buyers.
“When we list a property, we ask if the property is in a flood zone,” he said. “We ask if they [sellers] had to purchase flood insurance or if they know if they’re in a flood zone.”
Under the state’s consumer protection law, real estate licensees are required to disclose known material defects of a home – such as a faulty roof, for example – to potential buyers.
“Certainly if a consumer were to ask about the condition of surrounding dams, a real estate licensee would be well advised to encourage the consumer to check with the local Department of Public Works so that they get accurate first-hand information on the status of the surrounding dams,” explained Stephen Ryan, general counsel for the Massachusetts Association of Realtors.
The threat of the dam bursting and flooding downtown served as a warning for Register of Deeds Simas. Because the registry – which serves Taunton, Attleboro and nine other communities in Bristol County – has run out of space, many records are stored in the basement of the registry’s downtown building.
While most records are electronically backed up on microfilm or CD-ROM, there are old maps, assessor records and original documents that would have been permanently lost if the dam had failed and the registry basement was flooded.
“One of the things that it [the evacuation] has shown us is that we’re in desperate need of another office,” said Simas.
The day the registry’s office reopened, Simas filed a bid to lease out a permanent satellite office in an old post office building in Attleboro.
“It would provide us with an alternative site in case of disasters and relieve our space constraints,” he said.
Meanwhile, at the North Bristol County Association of Realtors, which is based in Taunton, educational classes scheduled during the week of the evacuation had to be postponed.
Joan DeCosta, the association’s executive officer, said she had not heard from any Realtor members about the evacuation’s impact on their business.
