Closing Attorney & Title Services in Berry Hill, TN

Your contract probably gives the address as Nashville, TN 37204. So does Berry Hill's own City Hall, at 698 Thompson Lane, and Berry Hill is not Nashville. It is a city of less than a square mile with its own commission, its own building code and its own judge, and the code it has posted allows five-story buildings on some lots in a place that same code describes as streets of 1940s-era cottages. The purchase contract describes the house you are buying. It is silent about the lot beside it, the creek the storm drains run to, and which city answers the phone when you want to build a deck. Selling? A careful buyer will ask those same questions, and it helps to have the answers before the listing goes up. Here they are, one at a time.

First, settle which city you are buying in, because the envelope will not tell you. Berry Hill incorporated in 1950 and still governs itself inside Metro Nashville and Davidson County, with a city manager and commission, a police chief, a city judge, and its own Zoning and Planning Commission and Board of Zoning Appeals. The Davidson County Property Assessor lists it as one of the county's satellite cities, where services can differ from Metro's. Before you sign, look the parcel up by its address and confirm the jurisdiction. If the answer is Berry Hill, the fence, the deck or the addition you have in mind is a question for Berry Hill City Hall - and while you are looking, check the parcel's tax bill for a city rate. ^‡‡‡‡

Next, look past the house to the block, because Berry Hill wrote its rules expecting change. In 2009 the city traded its old zoning for a form-based Community Development Code (Ordinance 2009-374), which cares more about the shape of a building than about what happens inside it, and it divided the city into seven districts. The latest amendment the posted code cites is Ordinance 2013-397, so confirm the current version with the city before you lean on any number here. As posted, the code allows up to five floors and 75 feet on parts of Franklin Pike and Eighth Avenue and on Bransford Avenue at Thompson Lane. In Rosedale, the district it calls predominantly residential, it allows two and a half floors, 40 feet and ten units an acre. The quiet street you toured on a Saturday is not a promise about the next five years. Pull up the city's Regulating Plan map, find the lot and the lots around it, and read what each district permits before your offer goes in. ^‡‡‡

An older house can carry a zoning problem that no home inspector is paid to look for. Plenty of Berry Hill homes were standing long before the 2009 code. Under the code the city has posted, a building that no longer fits today's rules - a setback, a lot size - can go on being used and repaired, and it can grow by up to half its existing floor area as long as the new part meets the code; go past half, and the whole site has to be brought into compliance. The rule that bites is the one after a loss. If fire, storm or anything else destroys more than two-thirds of a nonconforming building's fair value, it cannot simply be rebuilt the way it stood, and even after a smaller loss the rebuilding has to start within six months. Ask whether the house meets its district's current standards, and carry that answer to your insurance agent before you choose a policy. ^‡

Berry Hill also goes by Music Hill, and its code counted more than 40 recording studios and music publishers in town when it was written. That cuts two ways. If a studio turns out to be your neighbor, the code holds it to 50 decibels of outdoor sound at its property line, a limit it may not pass for more than 30 minutes a day. If you are the one who wants to record at home, read the home-occupation rule first: no clients or patrons served on the property, no more than one employee from outside the household, and the work may take no more than a fifth of the house and never more than 500 square feet. A house where artists come and go is a business use. Raise it with the city before you sign, while changing your plans costs nothing. ^‡‡

Last, the water. In its 2022 stormwater permit filing, the city listed 31 storm sewer outfalls that drain to Browns Creek and six more to East Fork Browns Creek. Berry Hill takes part in the National Flood Insurance Program as its own community, number 470406, mapped in the countywide Flood Insurance Study last revised April 5, 2017. And in the March 2021 flash flood, when Nashville's mayor declared a local state of emergency, news crews photographed water in the Berry Hill and Melrose area. None of that says your lot floods; it says to check. Type the exact address into FEMA's Flood Map Service Center, ask the seller in writing whether water has ever reached the house or the yard, and have the insurance quote in hand while your inspection period is still open. ^‡‡‡‡